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.

10214. Verses 11-16 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, When you take the sum of the children of Israel, as they have been numbered ¹ , they shall give - each one - an expiation for his soul to Jehovah when they are numbered ² , that there may be no plague among them when they are numbered ² . This is what they shall give, everyone passing over to those who have been numbered - half a shekel according to the shekel of holiness (a shekel is twenty obols ³ ). Half a shekel shall be the offering to Jehovah. Everyone passing over to those who have been numbered, from a son of twenty years ⁴ and over, shall give the offering of Jehovah. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel when they give the offering of Jehovah, to make expiation for your souls. And you shall take the silver of expiations from the children of Israel, and give it to the work of the tent of meeting; and to the children of Israel it shall be as a remembrance before Jehovah, to make expiation for your souls.

'And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying' means enlightenment from the Lord through the Word. 'When you take the sum of the children of Israel' means all things of the Church. 'As they have been numbered' means as they have been arranged and set in order. 'They shall give - each one - an expiation for his soul when they are numbered' means purification or deliverance from evil through the acknowledgement and belief that all the forms of good and the truths of faith and love come from the Lord, not at all from man, as does their being arranged in order. 'That there may be no plague among them when they are numbered' means in order that there may be no punishment of evil when they do good as from themselves. 'This is what everyone passing over to those who have been numbered shall give' means the attribution to the Lord of all that constitutes faith and love. 'Half a shekel according to the shekel of holiness' means all forms of truth springing from good. 'A shekel is twenty obols' means all the components of good. 'Half a shekel shall be the offering to Jehovah' means that all the constituents of truth springing from good are the Lord's alone. ['Everyone passing over to those who have been numbered' means that all truths and forms of good are to be attributed to the Lord alone.] 'From a son of twenty years and over' means the state in which the understanding of truth and good exists. 'Shall give the offering of Jehovah' means attribution to the Lord alone. 'The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel when they give [the offering] of Jehovah' means that all equally, however much ability they possess, should attribute to the Lord all forms of truth springing from good. 'To make expiation for your souls' means in order that evils may be removed. 'And you shall take the silver of expiations from the children of Israel' means the purifying truths springing from good that are the Church's. 'And give it to the work of the tent of meeting' means being joined to heaven through the acknowledgement that all truths and forms of good come from the Lord. 'And to the children of Israel it shall be as a remembrance before Jehovah' means thus the preservation of the Church and of all things the Church has by the Lord. 'To make expiation for your souls' means since evils have thereby been removed.

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