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.

The Bible often speaks of signs and miracles as things that convinced people of the Lord's leading. "Signs" convince people to believe intellectually, and "miracles" convince people to believe emotionally. For instance, it was a "sign" for the shepherds that they would find the newborn Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. This was not something that defied explanation; there is nothing impossible about a baby being laid in a manger. On the other hand miracles such as the Nile turning into blood, the Red Sea parting or water being made wine were apparently impossible, striking awe and fear in the hearts of observers and thus compelling the emotions. Both signs and miracles, however, are external events that could only force people into compliance out of fear and awe, which is an external form of worship that has little to do with eternal life. The Lord used them in Biblical times because the people of that time were external in nature, and the Lord had to force them into forms of worship to preserve spiritual ideas and to allow for the Bible to be written. Through His advent and His teachings He opened the possibility that we could understand His spiritual meanings, which would allow us to believe and live internally, not just externally.