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.

609. Who created heaven, and the things that are therein, and the earth, and the things that are therein, and the sea, and the things that are therein.- That this signifies the Lord as to all things, interior and exterior, of heaven and the church, is evident from the signification of creating, as denoting not only to cause a thing to be, but also to give it perpetual existence, by holding it together and sustaining it by the proceeding Divine; for the heavens have existed, and do perpetually exist, that is subsist, by the Divine of the Lord, which is called the Divine Truth united to Divine Good, and this received by the angels makes heaven; for this reason when heaven is mentioned, the Lord is meant, because heaven, where the angels are, is heaven from the Lord, that is from the Divine which goes forth from Himself; this, then, is the signification here, of creating; that to create, when spoken of the church, and the men of the church, means to create anew, that is, to regenerate, may be seen above (n. 294); and from the signification of heaven, the earth, and the sea, and the things which are in them, as denoting all things, interior and exterior, of heaven and the church. Heaven, the earth, and the sea, here signify specifically, the higher and lower heavens. Since in the spiritual world the appearance of things is similar to what it is in the natural world, consequently, there are mountains, lands, and seas, and the mountains there are the higher heavens, because the angels of those heavens dwell upon mountains, and the land and sea there are the lower heavens, for the angels of these heavens dwell below the mountains upon the lands, and as it were in seas (see above, n.594:18). For this reason the angel who said these things, was seen to stand upon the earth and the sea. The reason why the earth, and the sea, and the things which are in them, also signify all things of the church, both interior and exterior, is, that in the church there are things interior and exterior, just as in the heavens there are things higher and lower, and the former correspond to the latter. That the sea and the earth signify the church as to its exteriors and interiors, may be seen above (600).

According to the sense of the letter, heaven, the earth, and the sea, mean the visible heaven, the habitable earth, and the navigable sea, and the things therein mean the birds, beasts, and fishes. But that these things are not meant by those words, is evident from this fact, that the angel was seen by John, when in the spirit, standing upon the sea and upon the earth. And what is seen in the spirit, is not seen in the natural world, but in the spiritual world, where also, as said above, there are lands and seas, and also angels and spirits therein. Concerning the appearance of seas in that world, and concerning those therein, see above (n. 342).