God Is Spirit
The general subject of this chapter is the same as that of Chapter I, “The God of the Bible,” the God of the Bible as distinguished from the god of Theosophy, and the god of Christian Science, and the god of “New Thought,” and the god of Spiritualism, and the God of “Unitarianism,” and the God of “The New Theology,” and the god of “Modern Philosophy,” and the god of “Modernism” in general. In Chapter I our particular subject was, “The God of the Bible: A Personal God.” Our particular subject here is, “The God of the Bible: God is Spirit.” I have seven texts and three of them are the same as in the former chapter. My first text is Jno. 17:3:
“And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.”
My second text is I Jno. 5: 20, 21:
“And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. My little children, guard yourselves from idols.”
My third text is Jno. 20:28:
‘‘Thomas answered and said unto him, My
Lord and my God”
My fourth text is Jno. 4:24:
My fifth text is Phil. 2:5, 6:
“Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, existing in the form of God...”
My sixth text is Acts 7: 55, 56:
“But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said. Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”
My seventh text is I Tim. 1:17:
“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, in¬ visible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
We saw that personality and corporeity were not the same thing. We saw that saying God was a Per¬ son did not necessarily involve God’s having a body. We saw that any being who knows, and feels, and wills is a person whether he is visible or invisible, whether he has a body or has not a body. The question whether or not God has a body, a visible form, we shall take up in this chapter.
The first thing that our texts in this chapter teach us about God, the God of the Bible, “the only true God,” the God Whom to know is life eternal, and Whom not to know is eternal death and darkness, is, that ‘’God is Spirit” This is clearly stated in our fourth text which tells us in words which our Lord Jesus Himself spoke to the woman of Samaria, “God is Spirit.”
1. You will notice that both the A’. V. and the R. V. translate this verse “God is a Spirit” and that I omitted the indefinite article “a” and translated “God is Spirit.” There is no indefinite article in the Greek text, but that does not necessarily imply that my translation is correct; for there is no indefinite article in the Greek language, and whenever it is needed in an English translation it must be supplied. But I think the translation “God is Spirit” is to be preferred in this instance to “God is a Spirit,” because further on in the same verse we are told that “they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth,” where we have precisely the same word, only in the dative case, with no indefinite article, and no indefinite article is supplied. Furthermore, the construction is exactly the same as in I Jno. i: 5, where we read “God is Light” (not, “God is a Light”) and in I Jno. 4: 8 and I Jno. 4:16 where we read “God is Love” (not, “God is a Love”). But, perhaps, it does not matter so very much whether we read “God is Spirit” or “God is a Spirit;” the thought is essentially the same.
2. By the order of the words in the Greek text a very strong emphasis is put on the word “Spirit,” Literally translated in the order of the Greek text our text would read, “Spirit is God.” But according to Greek usage that would not imply what the words put in that order might imply in our English idiom. By a common Greek usage, “Spirit” is put first in the sentence for the purpose of heavily emphasizing it. The one thought that our Lord Jesus wished to impress upon the mind of the woman of Samaria at this time was that “God is Spirit” and, therefore, not confined to places, whether it be Mt. Gerizim (as the Samaritans held) or to Jerusalem (as most of the Jews of that time held) (see verses 20-24).
3. But just what does the striking, yes, startling, sentence, “God is Spirit” mean? What is “Spirit”? We must go to the Bible itself for an answer to this question and fortunately we can again go to the words of the Lord Jesus Himself; for in another place He has Himself defined carefully and exactly what He means by “Spirit.” You will find this definition in Luke 24: 39, ‘’See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having.” (There is no article before “spirit” here either). It is evident from these words of our Lord Jesus that by “Spirit” He means a reality that cannot be seen or handled or physically felt: therefore, “spirit” is incorporeal (or, bodiless), invisible reality.
The same definition of “spirit” is implied in John 3: 8, “The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” Now the word translated “wind” in the first part of this passage is exactly the same Greek word as that translated “Spirit” in the last part of the verse and in our text; and the thought is that “Spirit” or ‘wind” is something of which you can hear the voice, but which you cannot see, and the mystery of whose actions you cannot fully solve. Therefore, to say ‘’God is Spirit’’ is to say that God, though He is real, is essentially incorporeal (bodiless) and invisible, 4. This conception of God as in His essence invisible and incorporeal is found in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament. We find it way back in Deuteronomy, a book of which ‘hhe Higher Critics” so love to make light, but which they have never studied sufficiently to understand the profundity and sublimity of its Divinely inspired teachings. Turn to Deut. 4: 15-18:
“Take ye therefore good heed unto your¬ selves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that Jehovah spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire; lest ye corrupt your¬ selves and make you a graven image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is in the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flieth in the heavens, the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.”
The fundamental reason for the strict command in the Ten Commandments not to make “a graven image, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” and not to “bow down to them nor worship them” (Deut. 5:8, 9), is that God is essentially “Spirit,” invisible and incorporeal.
//. What the Bible Means When It Says, “God Cre-^ ated Man in His Own Image”
As God is essentially invisible and incorporeal the question necessarily arises, What then does the Bible mean when it says in Gen. i: 26, 27:
“And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the likeness of God created he him, male and female created He them”?
If God is incorporeal and invisible, to what does the “image” and “likeness” of God in which we are said to have been created, refer? Here again we can go to the Bible for an answer, and the Bible gives a very definite, very clear and unmistakable answer to that question. You will find the answer in Col. 3: 9, 10, “Ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him.” You will find it also in Eph. 4: 24, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth” And you will find a remarkable commentary upon it in Col. 1:15, “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” It is clear from all these passages that the words “image” and “likeness” do not refer primarily to visible, physical (or bodily) likeness but to intellectual and moral likeness, likeness “in knowledge,” and “in righteousness and holiness of truth.”
Here we have another illustration of what we are constantly meeting in our close study of the Bible, the Divine unity of the Bible. How perfectly what John records Jesus as saying fits into what is said in Deuteronomy, and what is said in Genesis fits into what is said in Colossians and Ephesians. Whence comes this profound and minute unity of teaching of the various books of the Bible, the earliest and the latest? The answer is both simple and clear, God Himself is the real Author of all the books; He was always guiding what every one wrote, whether it was Moses or John or Paul.
II L Has God a Body or Form?
We see then that God is essentially, i. e., in His real Being and Personality, incorporeal and invisible. He is as our seventh text declares ‘’invisible.” Let me read it to you again, I Tim. 1:17, “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” The Greek word which is here translated “invisible” means here not only that which is unseen, but that which is un¬ seeable. God in His inmost essence, in His real Personality, is “unseeable.”
Does it follow then that God has no body or form at all? Not by any means. You and I in our real selves are unseeable. This body which we inhabit and which men see is not our real self. You never saw me, except as I reveal myself by a smile or a frown or by a peculiar look in my eyes or by the cast of my countenance, all of which I form by my temperament and conduct. This body which you see is only the house I live in, it is not I. If the Lord tarries and I pass through the experience of what men call “death” before He comes, it will not be I who die and crumble into dust, it will be only this house I live in, “the earthly house of our tabernacle” (as Paul puts it in II Cor. 5:1);!, my real self, will depart to be with Christ in conscious blessedness (Phil, i: 23), and when the Lord Jesus comes again this body will be raised from the dust (Dan. 12:2; I Thess. 4:16) and transformed into the likeness of “the body of His glory” (Phil. 3:20, 21). And even that body will not be my real self but my “habitation,” my “habitation which is from heaven” (II Cor. 5:2).
When Jesus was crucified and died His body was laid in Joseph’s tomb and kept from corruption, but He Himself bodiless went into Hades. That is what Peter said on the day of Pentecost. Listen to his words, “He foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was He left unto Hades, nor did His desk see corruption” (Acts 2:31). Here a clear cut distinction is drawn between “He,” Jesus Himself, who went into Hades, and “His flesh” (or body) which went into Joseph’s tomb and no further.
So we come back to the question. Has God a body, a visible form, in which He manifests Himself?
I. In reply to that question let me say, first of all, that: the Bible clearly teaches, that that which is Spirit manifests itself in visible form. This we see in Jno. 1: 32, where we read, “I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven.’^ Here not only a spirit but ‘’The Spirit’^ was seen in visible form. The Greek word translated “beheld” is a very strong word for seeing with the physical eye.
2. In the second place, in Ex. 24: 9, 10, we are told that Jehovah, the God of Israel, manifested Himself in visible form and was seen. Let me read it to you:
“Then went up Moses, and A’aron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness.”
What was seen in these visible manifestations of God? The answer is plain, that which was seen in these visible manifestations of God was not God Him¬ self, that is God in His invisible essence, but merely a visible manifestation of God. This is clear from Jno. 1:18:
“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”
It is also clear from the book of Exodus itself. We read in Exodus 33: 18-23:
“And he (i. e., Moses) said. Show me, I pray thee, thy glory. And He (i. e., Jehovah) said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And He said, Thou canst not see my face; for man shall not see me and live. And Jehovah said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand until I have passed by: and I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back; but my face shall not he seen,”
Many people are greatly staggered by the apparent contradiction between Jno. i: 18, “No man hath seen God at any time” and Ex. 24:9, 10, “Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: and they saw the God of Israel/^ But when one stops to think it through he sees that there is really no contradiction at all. It is perfectly true that “no man hath seen God” (i. e., God Himself, God as He is in his invisible essence) “at any time.” God in His essence, in His inmost Personality, is “un¬ seeable.” (As for that matter, no one has even seen R. A. Torrey at any time. You have seen this body that I live in, but have you seen me? I think not. Do you think that you know me? I think not. One of my misfortunes is that my face and eyes reveal so little of what I feel in my heart. Sometimes perhaps it is my good fortune.) Yet men have seen God; that is, they have seen that form in which He has manifested Himself, e. g., to the seventy elders on Mt. Sinai.
Two statements which appear to flatly contradict one another may both be perfectly true. To illustrate: A man may see the reflection of the back of his head in a glass. It would be perfectly true for that man to say, “I saw the back of my head in the mirror.” But it would also be true to say, “I never saw the back of my head.” What he really saw was not the back of his head, it was but a reflection of the back of his head in a mirror. To be still more exact, no one ever saw the back of any one’s head. What we really see when we say with perfect truth, ‘T saw the back of a man’s head,” is the reflection of the back of that man’s head on the retina of our eye. In the same way, a few men have seen a manifestation of God, and it is perfectly true to say these men ^’saw God,” But no man ever saw God as He is in His invisible essence, the very God Himself; so it is perfectly true to say ‘’no man hath seen God at any time,”
3. In the third place, “The Angel of the LORD” in the Old Testament, Who frequently appeared and was seen by Abraham, Manoah, and others, was a Divine Person, God in human form. A’ clear distinction is drawn in the Bible between “an angel of the LORD,” and “The Angel of the LORD, (or, Jehovah).” The Authorized Version does not always preserve the distinction; the Revised Version, following the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and the Greek text of the New Testament, always does: and “The Angel of the LORD (or, Jehovah)” is a Divine Person. This is perfectly clear from many passages. Read, e. g., Gen. 16: 7-10:
“And the angel of Jehovah found her (Hagar) by a fountain in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s handmaid, whence earnest thou and whither goest thou? And she said I am fleeing from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of Jehovah said unto her, Re¬ turn to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of Jehovah said unto her, I zvill greatly multiply thy seed, that it shall not he numbered for multitude J’
Here the “Angel of Jehovah in verse ten is clearly identified with Jehovah Himself in verse thirteen, where we are told that Hagar “called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her. Thou art a God that seeth.” Now the One who “spake unto her” we are told in the preceding verses was ‘’The Angel of Jehovah,” therefore, Jehovah and “The Angel of Jehovah” are clearly identified with one another.
Now read Gen. 21: 17, 18:
“And God heard the voice of the lad: and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand; for I will make him a great nation.”
Here it is definitely said that “the angel of God” declares that he will do what only God can do; and, therefore, He, “the angel of God,” is distinctly described as a Divine Person.
Also read Judges 2: i, 2:
“And the angel of Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said (that is, the angel of Jehovah said), I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and / said, I will never break my covenant with you: and ye shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall break down their altars. But ye have not hearkened unto my voice: why have ye done this?’^
Here ‘’the angel of Jehovah” distinctly says that it was he that brought them up out of Egypt, and that it was he that promised the land unto their fathers, and that it was he that made a covenant with Israel. Now it was certainly Jehovah Who did all these things, and therefore it is as clear as day that The “angel of Jehovah” is identified with Jehovah Himself.
A very noteworthy passage in this connection is Gen. 1 8. Suppose you read verses i, 2, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16:
‘‘And Jehovah appeared unto him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day: and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood over against him (evidently one of those three who appeared as “three men” was Jehovah, for it says in verse i, that “Jehovah appeared unto him”): and when he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth. ... (9, 10) And they said unto him. Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said. Behold, in the tent. And he (i. e.. One of the three) said, / will certainly return unto thee when the season cometh round; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard in the tent door which was behind him.... (v. 13) And Jehovah said (here is it distinctly said that it was Jehovah who said what one of the three men said) unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying. Shall I of a surety bear a child, who am old? Is anything too hard for Jehovah? At the set time / will re turn unto thee, when the season cometh round, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Here again one of these three persons who appeared in human form is identified again and again with Jehovah. Now turn to the 19th chapter. We read in the first verse that only ‘’two’’ of the three who talked to Abraham entered Sodom at even. Here are the words, “And the two angels came to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom.” One of the “three” then has remained behind, two have gone on. Who was the one who remained behind? It is perfectly clear as we read on in the 18th chapter of Genesis, verses 17-21:
“And Jehovah said (it is evident then that Jehovah was the one of the three who remained behind). Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great nation and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For / have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Jehovah to do righteousness and justice; to the end that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham that which HE hath spoken unto him. And Jehovah said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.”
Then we read in verse 22 (ch. 18) that “the men turned from thence and went toward Sodom; (that is, the “two” men, for only “two” entered Sodom, as we see in Chap. 19:1) “but Abraham stood yet before Jehovah.’^ Clearly, then, the one of the three who remained behind was Jehovah manifested in the form of a man. In verse 33 the story continues, ^‘And Jehovah went His way, as soon as He had left off communing with Abraham; and Abraham returned unto his place.” And in the 27th verse of the 19th chapter we read, “And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Jehovah.’’ So there is no room left to question that the One who remained behind while the other two went on to Sodom, the One before whom “Abraham stood,” was Jehovah appearing in human form.
In Zech. 12:8 we find a very clear setting forth of the fact that “the angel of Jehovah” is a Divine Per¬ son. This is how it reads, “In that day shall Jehovah defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of Jehovah before them.” Here the “angel of Jehovah” is distinctly stated to be “God.”
In all these passages ‘Jhe angel of Jehovah” is clearly identified with Jehovah Hwiself; that is, He is the visible manifestation of Jehovah.
Just who then was “The Angel of Jehovah’’? This becomes perfectly clear by a comparison of a passage in the Book of Judges with the prophecy concerning the coming Messiah in Isa. 9: 6, 7.
In Judges 13:18 (R. V.) we read:
“And the Angel of Jehovah said unto him (that is, unto Manoah), Wherefore askest thou after my name, seeing it is Wonderful.”
The Authorized Version here reads “seeing it is secret,” but this is beyond question an incorrect translation. Now turn to Isa. 9:6, 7, where we are told the name of the coming Messiah, who should be a Divine Person, is “Wonderful.”
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even forever.”
Here we see that it is the Messiah whose name is to be called “Wonderful,” but the passage in Judges says that the name of “the Angel of Jehovah” is ‘‘Wonderful,” The Hebrew for the word “wonderful” in Judges 13: 18 is almost identical with the word used in Isaiah, except that in the one case it is an adjective and in the other the noun from which that adjective is derived. From all this it is clear that “the Angel of Jehovah” of the Old Testament was the Son
SI
of God before His permanent incarnation in the per¬ son of Jesus of Nazareth. This throws much light upon what we read in Jno. i: 1-3, 14:
*Tn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made.... And the Word became desk, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father) full of grace and truth.”
It should be added that “the Angel of the Lord” never appears after the birth of Jesus, the Christ. The expression does occur in the Authorized Version in five instances (Matt. 1:20; Matt. 28:2; Luke 2:9; Acts 8:26; Acts 12: 7, 23), but in every instance it is a mistranslation, as is clear from the Revised Version, which in every case gives ‘’an angel of the Lord,” just as the Greek text reads.
Our Lord Jesus Himself refers to these previous manifestations of Himself in human form in Jno. 8: 56, where He says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad.” It was in seeing our Lord Jesus at Mamre in “the Angel of Jehovah” that “Abraham saw (Jesus’) day.”
4. But this is not all that can be said about God having a body or form. In the fourth place, The Bible clearly teaches that God existed, even before His incarnation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, in a visible form, in the eternal world. This we see from a comparison of Jno. i: 1-3, 14, with Phil. 2: 5, 6, where we read, “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God,” The word translated “existing’^ in the Revised Version of this verse is a rather unusual and very remarkable word. It means “existing substantially’’ or “existing originally.” The word translated ‘’form” means in Greek usage from the time of Homer down, “the form by which a person or thing strikes the vision; the external appearance” (Thayer’s Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament). But the form in which the Divine Person Who became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth existed originally was, we are told, “the form of God” (Phil. 2:6, 9, 10). Therefore, God must have a “form.” It is clear, then, that though “God is (essentially) Spirit,” nevertheless He has a form in which He is seen.
5. In the fifth place. The fact that Jehovah manifests Himself in a “form” clearly appears from Acts
r-’55,5^-’
“But he (i. e., Stephen) being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said. Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”
As Stephen saw “Jesus standing at the right hand of God,” he must have seen God at whose right hand he saw Him standing.
To sum up the substance of all that has been said on this point: God, in His essential Personality, is Spirit, invisible, incorporeal, “unseeable,” but He has a form in which He manifests Himself in the heavenly world and is seen.
Therefore Matt. 5: 8, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God/^ is true of not only a spiritual vision of God but of an actual, visible, bodily seeing of God, God in a visible “form.” Such a vision of God is so glorious that we could not see Him in that way in our present mortal bodies and live. And Jehovah said to Moses in Ex. 33: 20, “Thou canst not see my face; for man shall not see me and live.” What deep significance this gives to Ps. 17:15 (as correctly rendered in the R. V.), “As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when 1 awake, with beholding thy form.’’ (Cf. on the usage and meaning of the Hebrew word here translated “form” Numbers 12:8; Job 4:16; Deut. 4: 12, 15 in the Hebrew.) It also gives new meaning to those wonderful words of our Lord in Jno. 14: 9, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” In the per¬ son of Jesus in His humiliation, when He had put off for the time being the Divine “form” (Phil. 2:6, 7), men saw God as in a mirror, darkly (in an enigma), but in that coming day when having resumed the Divine form He comes back again, in Him we shall see God fully revealed (“face to face”) (I Cor. 13: 12), see God in His full and undimmed glory. That is the highest joy which man is capable of knowing.