Is God a spirit? This might, at first sight, seem rather an unusual question as most people who believe in God automatically assume that God is a spirit. But what do we mean by "spirit"? The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines a spirit as "the intelligent or immaterial part of man", a "rational or intelligent being not connected with the material body". When we speak, therefore, of the spirit of man, we speak of man's non-material aspect. And when people speak of God it is assumed that since He is "a spirit" that He is non-material.

A spirit (the old English being "a ghost") is the part of a living man, or the part of a disembodied dead man, which cannot be touched with physical hands. Jesus, after His resurrection, appeared before the frightened apostles who supposed that He was "a spirit". To dispell their doubts and fears, He invited them to touch Him, saying: "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your minds? Look at my hands and feet. It is Myself! Touch Me and see; a ghost (spirit) does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (Luke 24:36-39, NIV).

Most Christians acknowledge that the resurrected Christ, the second member of the Godhead, is not "a spirit" but a resurrected Being -- that is, a Being possessing both spirit and flesh. They acknowledge that He can be touched, that He is physical. Like Thomas, they acknowledge His deity, and can say of Jesus: "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). They are able, in harmony with Paul the apostle, to say that "Christ Jesus, who being in very nature (in the form of) God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped" (Philippians 2:5-6, NIV). With Paul, they can declare: "For in Christ all the fulness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Colossians 2:9, NIV). Jesus Himself says: "I and My Father are one" (John 10:30, AV), and "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can only do what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son does also. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does" (John 5:19-20, NIV).

All true Christians are therefore able to say that:

• Jesus is God;
  
• Jesus possesses the fullness of Deity (Godhood);
  
• Jesus has a resurrected, physical body;
  
• Jesus and the Father are one;
  
• Jesus only ever did what He saw His Father doing.

• God has a resurrected body of "flesh and bones" like Christ (Luke 24:36-39),

"But it says in John 4:24 that 'God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth!'", is the immediate response.

But is that what the text actually says?

Almost without exception, every translation of John 4:24 leaves the clear impression that God is a spirit -- an immaterial, untouchable Being. But what is the warranty for such a translation? And is not this translation inspired by preconceived doctrine rather than by a proper rendering of the Greek?

The original Greek says pneuma ho theos which literally translated is: "God is spirit", or better still, "God is spiritual in nature", the noun being anarthrous (without the definite article "a").

We know that this is the correct translation because other New Testament passages use the same grammatical construction. 1 John 1:5 is correctly translated as, "God is light" in virtually every Bible version. Similarly, 1 John 4:8 is rendered, "God is love."

But if the translators had followed the faulty translation of John 4:2 which they incorrectly rendered as "God is a spirit", then they ought to have rendered 1 John 1:5 and 1 John 4:8 as: "God is a light", and "God is a species of love", respectively, which does violence to Greek grammar and is plainly nonsense.

John 4:24 must further be seen in context. Though used almost universally by Christians as a proof text that God is a formless, non-material Spirit Being, these words of Jesus were not given to define God's form or substance but to reveal His spiritual nature. These words were given in reply to a question by a Samartian woman who supposed that the true God could only be worshipped in a Temple of stone and wood. To correct her essentially materialist view of worship, Jesus declared that God the Father, being spiritual by nature, can only be worshipped "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23). Thus true worship does not require physical devices like temples, church buildings, wooden crosses, or any of the apparatus that was used by the Jews in their temple -- true worship is to make contact with God through the spirit in man, for God is Himself spiritual by nature.

There is a real diference between "a spirit" and "spiritual". A man may be spiritual whether he has a physical body or not, because the word defines his nature, not his form or substance. Thus Abraham, who is a spirit in Paradise (the spirit world), is spiritual; but when he was on earth in right relationship with God he was also spiritual. Thus to be spiritual is not to indicate whether the person possesses a physical body or not.

In several instances in the Old Testament God the Father is shown to have a physical form like the resurrected Christ. In one of the most spectacular encounters in the Bible, the patriarch Jacob wrestles with the God of Abraham. Though most Bible translations say that Jacob wrestled with a "man" or an "angel", Jacob insists that he saw "God face to face" (Genesis 32:30). Various attempts have been made by theologians to explain this away or "demythologise" it but the text as it stands is plain: Jacob wrestled with God face to face, a physical being, who dislocated his thigh, and who renamed him Israel. Ghosts, or spirits, don't wrestle and dislocate thighs!

Moses had a similar encounter when he and seventy elders of Israel met with God on the top of Mount Sinai and ate a meal with Him. Spirits do not eat food! Indeed, as further proof of His physical nature, the resurrected Christ asked His apostles for some food, whereupon he ate some "broiled fish, and of a honeycomb" (Luke 24:42, AV). Of Moses, the Bible frequently states, "the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend" (Exodus 33:11, NIV).

That God the Father has form and the same kind of substance as the resurrected body of Christ which can be touched, wrestled with, and can eat is revolutionary thinking for most Christians, but the Bible is unequivocal about it. This is not, however, to say that God has an anthropomorphic or human form -- it is, however, to say that mankind is theomorphic, or created literally -- spirit and flesh -- in the image of God.

The first chapter of the Bible says: "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26, NIV). The word for "God" in the Hebrew is Elohim and is what is called a "uniplural noun". Literally translated, the word Elohim means "gods" and is frequently used in the Old Testament to describe human judges too. Here, though, Elohim is a name for God that not only depicts the plurality of His majesty but also the plurality of the Godhead.

It is plain from the text that more than one divine Person is involved in the creation, as is evidenced by the use of the plural forms "us" and "our". The New Testament teaches that Jesus pre-existed the creation and was Himself God, or part of the Godhead (John 1:1). It also teaches that Jesus Christ created the world at the command of His Heavenly Father (John 1:10). It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the Elohim of Genesis 1:26 refers to both God the Father and the pre-existent Jesus Christ since elsewhere we are told that God created the universe through His Son.

Mankind is therefore made in the express image of God the Father and God the Son. This same wording is used to describe the relationship between Adam and his son Seth: "When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth" (Genesis 5:3, NIV). Thus the testimony of Paul, in which he says that "we are (God's) offspring" (Acts 7:28-29), suggests that the relationship between God, Christ, and man is closer than most ordinary Christians might care to admit. We, as human beings, are physically and spiritually created in the image of God, just as Seth was the literal offspring of his father Adam.

The testimony of the Bible that God is anthropomorphic with whom men have eaten and wrestled is revolutionary for many Christians. But then the Bible is a revolutionary book. Yet it is a little strange that the physical resurrection of one member of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ, is accepted without question but not the theomorphic nature of man.

Some of the confusion has been caused by Paul's usage of the word "spiritual" to describe the resurrected body:

"So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; IT IS SOWN A NATURAL BODY, IT IS RAISED A SPIRITUAL BODY. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

What this passage means is that human flesh, which is presently the seat of man's fallen nature, becomes transformed by the resurrection power of Christ to become "spiritual in nature" like that of Christ. Man's evil inclinations will therefore be expunged. His flesh will become "spiritual".

I suspect the reason why the dogma of God being "a spirit" has evolved in Christendom is because of a non-Biblical doctrine that arose in the first centuries of the Christian Church which taught that matter was inherantly evil. This doctrine was espoused by the Gnostics and never became entirely expunged from "orthodox" Christianity. It was the impulse behind the establishment of the Christian asceticism of monastic orders. This doctrine in turn led to the doctrine of the supremacy of celibacy in the Christian life.

It is impossible, in our view, for God to have been the creator of something evil. God is the creator of both spirit and matter. Though we would acknowledge that matter is fallen because of the transgression in Eden, we would also maintain that, by the sanctifying power of Christ, that it can be -- and will be -- transformed into something spiritual and holy.

Jesus Christ testified: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3, AV).

To have a proper appreciation of God and His Son means that we must know what kind of a God He is. His spiritual nature is generally understood by Christians, for He is declared to be a God of love, which Paul expounds in his beautiful discourse in 1 Corinthians 13. But we are also physical beings rooted in a physical world and if we are to live in harmony with God in this world, and if our presence here is taken to be God's will for our spiritual development, then we must have a right attitude to it. To do this we need to know what God's relationship to physical matter is also, for to understand that He too is, in some way, "physical", albeit "spiritual-physical", gives us a proper perspective of mortal existence.

We are not, therefore, to regard the flesh as evil as certain extreme sects of Christendom do, nor are we to try to transcend it, as certain oriental religions are wont to try. Neither are we to seek out celibacy as being a higher state of existence in this world than marriage, but rather obey the commandment given at the beginning to "multiply and replenish the earth" (Genesis 1:28). We are to accept God's declaration that the physical creation is "good" whilst realising that sin has entered into the world and corrupted all flesh. We are to seek for the atoning power of Christ's blood for the forgiveness of sins and the power of sanctification for body and spirit, until our physical bodies are restored into the spiritual image of God once more, in the form Adam's body existed in before the Fall.

Knowing that God has the same form and susbtance as the resurrected body of Jesus Christ means also that we, like Moses, will be able to see Him face to face and commune with Him as a man talks with his friend. Through prayer we learn to approach the face of God degree by degree until our faith is made perfect, the veil is rent, and we can see God as He really is.

Clearly we need to know what the Bible really teaches if we are to come to a correct understanding of God. For this reason Christians must do more than accept one Bible translation and accept it as translated 100% correctly. No translation is perfect because no human translator is perfect, even though he may be divinely inspired when he translates. Clearly some translations are better than others; nevertheless, the Christian must be prepared to search deeper and obtain the original sense of the Bible writers. Such will mean an investment of time and effort. It means, moreover, living close to God so that he can get to know Him, "line upon line, precept upon precept" (Isaiah 28:10,13, AV).

The New Covenant Church of God is a Church of contemporary Christians attempting to live close to the face of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and obedience to His Word. Many obscure Biblical passages have been clarified through the medium of prophetic revelation. God has established a New Covenant, calling earnest believers in the Lord Jesus and seekers after truth to "draw near with a pure heart" (Hebrews 10:22, AV) and live the Gospel in its purity and wholeness.

If you are one of those believers or seekers after truth, please get in contact with us.

This page was created on 17 April 1998 Last updated on 17 April 1998

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