11. God is the essential person. Throughout all the heavens, the only concept of God is a concept of a person. The reason is that heaven, overall and regionally, is in a kind of human form, and Divinity among the angels is what makes heaven. Further, thinking proceeds in keeping with heaven's form, so it is not possible for angels to think about God in any other way. This is why all the people on earth who are in touch with heaven think about God in the same way when they are thinking very deeply, or in their spirit.

It is because God is a person that all angels and spirits are perfectly formed people. This is because of heaven's form, which is the same in its largest and its smallest manifestations. (On heaven being in a human form overall and regionally, see Heaven and Hell 59-87 [59-86], and on thought progressing in keeping with heaven's form, see 203-204 there.)

It is common knowledge that we were created in the image and likeness of God because of Genesis 1:26-27 and from the fact that Abraham and others saw God as a person.

The early people, wise and simple alike, thought of God only as a person. Even when they began to worship many gods, as they did in Athens and Rome, they worshiped them as persons. By way of illustration, here is an excerpt from an earlier booklet.

Non-Christians--especially Africans--who acknowledge and worship one God as the Creator of the universe conceive of that God as a person. They say that no one can have any other concept of God. When they hear that many people prefer an image of God as a little cloud in the center, they ask where these people are; and when they are told that these people are among the Christians, they respond that this is impossible. They are told, however, that Christians get this idea from the fact that in the Word God is called a spirit; and the only concept they have of spirit is of a piece of cloud. They do not realize that every spirit and every angel is a person. However, when inquiry was made to find out whether their spiritual concept was the same as their earthly one, it turned out that it was not the same for people who inwardly recognized the Lord as the God of heaven and earth.

I heard one Christian elder say that no one could have a concept of a being both divine and human; and I saw him taken to various non-Christians, more and more profound ones. Then he was taken to their heavens, and finally to a heaven of Christians. Through the whole process people's inner perception of God was communicated to him, and he came to realize that their only concept of God was a concept of a person--which is the same as a concept of a being both divine and human.

4433. 'And he took her, and lay with her, and ravished her' means that there was no other way in which it could be joined to the affection for truth meant by the sons of Jacob, her brothers. This is clear from the meaning of 'taking her, lying with her, and ravishing her' as being joined together, though not in the rightful way, which is through betrothal. But the meaning these words carry, that there was no other way in which they could be joined together, cannot be seen by anyone unless he knows the fuller implications of them. Interior truth received from the Ancients, which is meant by 'Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite', is the truth which among the Ancients had served the internal dimension of the Church, and so had been the internal dimension of their statutes, judgements, and laws, in short of their religious observances and the like. Those truths were their matters of doctrine on which they based their lives, which were in fact matters of doctrine concerning charity; for in ancient times those who belonged to the genuine Church had no other kind of doctrine. These same truths may be called, in relation to doctrine, the interior truths of faith, but in relation to life, goods. If a Church was to be established among the nation descended from Jacob it was necessary for them to be introduced into those truths and goods. For unless internal things are present within external ones, that is, unless people have internal things in mind when involved with external ones - and unless at the same time they feel an affection for internal things or at least unless they feel an affection for external things on account of internal ones, nothing of the Church is there. Internal things constitute the Church, for the Lord is present within these; that is to say, spiritual and celestial things originating in Him are present within them.

[2] But the nation descended from Jacob, that is, the Israelitish and Jewish nation, was unable to be introduced in the rightful way which is through betrothal, for the reason that their external worship did not correspond [to anything internal]. For they received from their fore-fathers - from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - the worship established by Eber, which was different externally from the worship of the Ancient Church, see 1238, 1241, 1343, 2180. And because that worship was different, interior truths which existed among the Ancients were not able to be joined to it in the rightful way through betrothal, only in the way described in this chapter. This enables one to understand what is involved in the assertion that there was no other way in which it could be joined to the affection for truth meant by 'the sons of Jacob, Dinah's brothers'.

[3] But although a joining together could have been effected in this way, in accordance with the law, also known to the Ancients, which is set out in Exodus 22:16; Deuteronomy 22:28-29, the character of that nation was nevertheless such that it would by no means allow any joining of interior truth received from the Ancients to the external forms of worship that existed among the descendants of Jacob, 4281, 4290, 4293, 4307, 4314, 4316, 4317. Among that nation therefore no Church could be established, but instead merely that which was a representative of the Church, see 4281, 4288, 4307. The character of that nation, which was such that it was not only unable to receive interior truths but also completely annihilated them among themselves, is represented in this chapter by the sons of Jacob answering Shechem and Hamor deceitfully, verse 13; and after that by Simeon and Levi's smiting the city with the edge of the sword and killing Shechem and Hamor, verses 25-26; and by the rest of the sons coming upon the slain and plundering the city, and taking away the flocks, the herds, and whatever there was in the city, in the field, and in the houses, verses 27-29. This shows what is meant by the prophetical utterances of Jacob, who by then was Israel,

Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of violence are their swords. Into their secret place let my soul not come; in their congregation let not my glory be united; for in their anger they killed a man, and in their pleasure they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their fury, for it is severe. I will divide them in Jacob, and will scatter them in Israel. Genesis 49:5-7.