Responding to the question:

“You go with heaven speaking the same languages you speak here. Not this thing of heavenly language. This is also unnecessary. There are all languages in heaven: English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, all of them and also the languages that are no longer spoken in Earth anymore.”

If you want to know more … HH 234-245; 246-257; 258-264; Index: IDEA, SPEECH

“A picture is worth a thousand words” – perhaps this is the closest we get to experiencing angelic language?

Rainn Wilson in, Soul Boom, p. 97.

“How can one use a tool as deficient as language to attempt to express the inexpressible? Language is merely the flitting of the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave in the grand scheme of things. A Finger pointing at the moon.”

Our language is external

“Although the external or natural memory remains in man after death, the merely natural things in it are not reproduced in the other life, … For this reason the external or natural memory, as to those things that are material, is then quiescent, and only those things that man has imbibed in the world by means of material things, and has made rational, come into use.” (Heaven and Hell, paragraph 464)

But angels’ speech is interior

“Language [in heaven] is not learned but implanted by nature with everyone, for it flows from their very affection and thought. … it is affection sounding and thought speaking” (Heaven and Hell, paragraph 236)

How angels speak and we “hear” them

“When angels and spirits talk with us, it sounds just as audible as when we talk with each other, but it is not audible to people who are nearby, only to ourselves. This is because the speech of an angel or spirit flows first into our thought and then by an inner route into our organ of hearing so that it activates it from within.” (Heaven and Hell, paragraph 248)

Did something like this take place at Pentecost (Acts chapter 2)?

Angels’ speech is EFFICIENT

“The speech of angels is … full of wisdom because it proceeds from their interior thought, and their interior thought is wisdom, as their interior affection is love. … Consequently, … they can express in a single word what man cannot express in a thousand words.” (Heaven and Hell, paragraph 239)

Angel’s speech is not subject to limitations of the natural world (AC 5253)

Angels cannot say what they don’t mean, or don’t think

“… spirits and angels speak from those affections and consequent thoughts that are of their minds, and are therefore unable to give expression to things that do not square with their affections and thoughts, …” (Heaven and Hell, paragraph 464)

We make a great virtue of honesty, but we also need to consider that angels cannot say what does not accord with good and truth … they ARE angels because of the Lord’s presence in them.

Zephaniah chapter 3

“For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, That they all may call on the name of the Lord, To serve Him with one accord.” (v.9) “The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness And speak no lies, Nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; For they shall feed their flocks and lie down, And no one shall make them afraid.” (v.13)

What can we learn from this?

  • LISTEN for meaning [internal], not just words [external]
  • SPEAK in such a way that your meaning may be received, and if necessary, be prepared to try again.
  • ANYONE CAN BE HONEST, but is it IN ACCORD with what is good and true?