Ministering Spirits of the Local Universe

38:0.1There are three dis­tinct or­ders of the per­son­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite Spirit. The im­petu­ous apos­tle un­der­stood this when he wrote re­spect­ing Je­sus, “who has gone to heaven and is on the right hand of God, an­gels and au­thor­i­ties and pow­ers be­ing made sub­ject to him.” An­gels are the min­is­ter­ing spir­its of time; au­thor­i­ties, the mes­sen­ger hosts of space; pow­ers, the higher per­son­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

38:0.2As the super­na­phim in the cen­tral uni­verse and the se­con­a­phim in a super­uni­verse, so the ser­a­phim, with the as­so­ci­ated cheru­bim and sa­no­bim, con­sti­tute the an­gelic corps of a lo­cal uni­verse.

38:0.3The ser­a­phim are all fairly uni­form in de­sign. From uni­verse to uni­verse, through­out all seven of the super­uni­verses, they show a min­i­mum of vari­a­tion; they are the most nearly stan­dard of all spirit types of per­sonal be­ings. Their var­i­ous or­ders con­sti­tute the corps of the skilled and com­mon min­is­ters of the lo­cal cre­ations.