10154. 'And I will be their God' means the Lord's presence and His influx into truth in the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'being their God' as the Lord's presence and His influx into truth - into truth because in the Old Testament Word the Lord is called God where truth is the subject, but Jehovah where good is the subject. This also goes to explain why angels are called gods, because they are recipients of Divine Truth from the Lord, and in addition why in the original language the plural word Elohim is used to denote God; for truths are many but good is one, Matthew 19:16-17.

The Lord is called God where truth is the subject but Jehovah where good is the subject, see 2586, 2769, 2807, 2822, 3921, 4287, 4402, 7010, 9167.

Angels are called gods, because they are recipients of Divine Truth from the Lord, 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8192, 8302, 8867, 8941.

In the Word Jehovah means the Lord, see the places referred to in 9373; and in Isaiah He is called explicitly 'Father from eternity' and also 'God',

To us a Boy is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulder; His name is called, God, Hero, Father of Eternity, Prince of peace. Isaiah 9:6.

And in the same prophet,

A virgin will conceive and bear [a son], and His name will be called Immanuel, that is, God with us. Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23.

The meaning of the words here 'I will be their God' as the Lord's presence and His influx into truth is also evident from the fact that 'I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel' means the Lord's presence and His influx through good. For wherever good is the subject in the Word, so too is truth, on account of the heavenly marriage, which is that of goodness and truth, in every single part of the Word, see the places referred to in 9263, 9314.

10736. After I had realized that I was as to my spirit out in space, far beyond our solar system - for this could be recognized from the changes of state and resulting movement onwards that was evident, lasting continuously for almost ten hours - I eventually heard spirits talking near to some planet, which I afterwards saw. When I came near them they said, after we had been talking together for a while, that on occasion they have visitors from somewhere else who talk to them about God and confuse the ideas in their minds. They also showed me the way by which those visitors come, from which I realized that they were some spirits belonging to our own planet. And when asked in what way those visitors had confused them they replied, By their saying that people should believe in a Deity distinguished into three persons, whom they nevertheless call one God. And when they investigate what is in the visitors' minds this presents itself not as three continuing from one into another but as three distinct and separate from one another; and in some minds they are seen as three persons talking among themselves, one to another. And although they call each person God and have a different idea of each they nevertheless say they are one God. The spirits conversing with me complained bitterly that the visitors confused them by their thinking three and saying one, when in fact what people think ought to match what they say, and what they say ought to match what they think. At that time they also investigated the kind of idea that the preacher accompanying me had regarding one God and three persons. The picture in his mind portrayed three gods, who however made one by their continuing from one into another; yet the idea in his mind presented this trinal unity as an entity which, being Divine, was invisible. And when this idea presented itself it was recognized that his thought was of the Father alone and not of the Lord, and that he pictured the invisible God as being no more than the forces of nature in their first beginnings. Consequently the inmost component of the natural order was his God. It should be remembered that in the next life the ideas contained in a person's mind regarding any matter at all present themselves in a visual, true to life way, and that the nature of everyone's belief is investigated by means of this presentation. It should be remembered also that the ideas in a person's mind regarding God are the chief ones of all; for through those ideas, if they are sincere, a joining to heaven is effected, since that which is Divine is what constitutes heaven.