Creator, Father, King #5

God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

TODAY IS THE SECOND part of our two-part series on God’s spiritual nature. This is of vital importance in understanding God.

Yesterday, we learned that the invisible God calls us to believe in him even though we can’t see him. But perhaps you’re still scratching your head, not fully understanding God’s spiritual nature. You might be wondering, Okay, so God is a spirit. But what does that mean? What is he like?

What’s It Mean?

First, we must admit God’s greatness and our limitations. Any human attempt to fully explain God’s character and attributes, including his spiritual nature, is going to fall far short.

To help us understand, let’s look at what God is not. He is not “The Man Upstairs.” He’s also not a white-bearded Father Time, a bolt-throwing Zeus-like character, or a ghost. He is not a spirit that is present in all the things he created (that’s called pantheism). All of these notions are unbiblical, man-made ideas that dishonor God and grossly misrepresent his nature, holiness, and majesty.

God does not have a size or shape. He doesn’t have a body or consist of physical matter. Whenever Scripture talks about God having human body characteristics (e.g., his “arm” in Exodus 15:16; his “lips” in Isaiah 30:27; his “eyes” in Hebrews 4:13), the biblical author is using metaphorical examples to help his readers understand something about God.

God is also not confined to a particular time or a place, like humans are. And he cannot be seen unless he reveals himself in a form that we can perceive, such as the pillar of cloud and fire (Exodus 13:21-22), Isaiah’s vision (Isaiah 6), or the partial revelation of his glory to Moses (Exodus 33:18-23).

There is great mystery to this aspect of God, and that’s okay. God never intended us to know him fully; he is far too awesome for that. But we can know him intimately. He is a personal God whom we can call our heavenly Father.

All told, he is more amazing than we can imagine!

Now What?

Praise the God whom you cannot see but you can know deeply and personally through Jesus Christ!

Did You Know?

God’s spiritual nature was displayed most beautifully in Jesus’ incarnation. God the Son, who did not originally have a physical body in eternity past, took on human flesh (John 1:14) to save God’s people from their sins.