God Is a Spirit

Quest. 4. What is God?

Resp. God is a Spirit. 2. The thing expressed (John 4:24). God is a Spirit. God is essentia spiritualissima, Zanchy.

Quest. What do you mean when you say God is a Spirit?

Resp. By Spirit, I mean, God is an immaterial substance, of a pure, subtle, unmixed essence, not compounded of body and soul, without all extension of parts. The body is a dreggish thing; the more spiritual God's essence is, the more noble and excellent. The spirits are the more refined part of the wine.

Quest. Wherein does God differ from other spirits?

1. The angels are spirits.

Resp. We must distinguish of spirits. 1. The angels are created, God is a Spirit uncreate. 2. The angels are spirits, but are finite, and capable of being annihilated. The same power which made them is able to reduce them to their first nothing: but God is an infinite Spirit. 3. The angels are confined spirits, they cannot be in duobus locis simul, they are confined to a place: but God is an immense Spirit, and cannot be confined, being in all places at once. 4. The angels, though they are spirits, yet they are but ministering spirits (Hebrews 1:14). Though they are spirits, yet they are servants. God is [in non-Latin alphabet], a super-excellent Spirit, the Father of Spirits (Hebrews 12:9).

2. The soul is a spirit (Ecclesiastes 12:7). The spirit shall return to God that gave it.

Quest. How does God, being a Spirit, differ from the soul?

Servetus and Osiander thought, that the soul being infused, did convey into man the very spirit and substance of God; an absurd opinion: for the essence of God is incommunicable.

Resp. Therefore, when it is said the soul is a spirit, it is meant, God has made it intelligible, and has stamped upon it his likeness, not his essence.

Quest. But is it not said, that we are made partakers of the divine nature?

Resp. By divine nature there, is meant divine qualities (2 Peter 1:4). We are made partakers of the divine nature, not by identity or union with the divine essence, but by a transformation into the divine likeness. Thus you see how God differs from other spirits, angels, and souls of men. He is a Spirit of transcendent excellency, the Father of Spirits.

Object. Against this Vorstius and the Anthropomorphites object, that in Scripture a human shape and figure is given to God; he is said to have eyes and hands?

Resp. It is contrary to the nature of a spirit to have a corporeal substance; (Luke 24:39). Handle me, and see me, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have. Bodily members are ascribed to God, not properly, but metaphorically, and in a borrowed sense; he is only set out to our capacity: by the right hand of the Lord is meant his power; by the eyes of the Lord are meant his wisdom. Now that God is a Spirit, and is not capable of bodily shape or substance, probatur. 1. A body is visible, but God is invisible, therefore he is a Spirit (1 Timothy 6:16). Whom no man has seen, nor can see, not by an eye of sense. 2. A body is terminated, can be but in one place at once; but God is ubique, in all places at once, therefore he is a Spirit (Psalm 139:7-8). God's center is everywhere, and his circumference is nowhere. 3. A body being compounded of integral parts, may be dissolved; Quicquid divisibile est corruptibile, but the Godhead is not capable of dissolution; he can have no end from whom all things have their beginning. So that it clearly appears God is a Spirit, which adds to the perfection of his nature.

Use 1. If God be a Spirit, then he is impassible; he is not capable of being hurt. Wicked men may set up their banners, and bend their forces against God, they are said [in non-Latin alphabet], to fight against God (Acts 5:39). But what will this fighting avail? What hurt can they do to the Deity? God is a Spirit, and therefore cannot receive any hurtful impression: wicked men may imagine evil against the Lord (Nahum 1:9). What do you imagine against the Lord? But God being a Spirit, is impenetrable. The wicked may eclipse his glory, but cannot touch his essence. God can hurt his enemies, but they cannot hurt him. Julian might throw up his dagger into the air against heaven, but could not touch the Deity. God is a Spirit, invisible, how can the wicked with all their forces hurt him, when they cannot see him? Hence all the attempts of the wicked against God are foolish, and prove abortive (Psalm 2:3-4). The kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord, and against his Anointed. He that sits in the heavens shall laugh. He is a Spirit, he can wound them, but they cannot touch him.

Use 2. If God be a Spirit, then it shows the folly of the Papists, who worship him by pictures and images. Being a Spirit, we cannot make any image to represent him by (Deuteronomy 4:12). The Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire, you heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude.

1. God being a Spirit, is imperceptible, cannot be discerned, how then can there be any resemblance made of him (Isaiah 40:18)? To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare to him? How can you paint the Deity? Can we make an image of that which we never saw? You saw no similitude. God is a Spirit. It were a folly to go to make the picture of the soul, because it is a spiritual thing, or to paint the angels, because they are spirits.

Object. Are not the angels in Scripture represented by the Cherubims?

Resp. There is Imago Personae & Officii, there is the image of the person, and the image that represents the office. The Cherubims did not represent the persons of the angels, but their office. The Cherubims were made with wings, to show the swiftness of the angels in discharge of their office: and if we cannot picture the soul, nor the persons of the angels, because they are spirits, much less can we make an image or picture of God, who is infinite, and the Father of Spirits.

2. God being a Spirit is omnipresent; he is present in all places (Jeremiah 23:24). Do not I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord? Therefore being everywhere present, it is absurd to worship him by an image. Were it not a foolish thing to bow down to the king's picture, when the king is present? So to go to worship God's image when God himself is present.

Quest. But how then shall we conceive of God being a Spirit, if we may make no image or resemblance of him?

Response: We must conceive of him spiritually, namely: 1. In his attributes; his holiness, justice, goodness, which are the beams by which his divine nature shines forth. 2. We must conceive of him as he is in Christ; Christ is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). Set the eyes of your faith on Christ, God-man. In Christ we see some sparklings of the divine glory; in him there is the exact resemblance of all his Father's excellencies. The wisdom, love, and holiness of God the Father shine forth in Christ (John 14:9): He that has seen me has seen the Father.

3. Inference: If God be a Spirit, it shows us that the more spiritual we grow, the more we grow like to God. To be earthly is to be unlike God. How do earth and spirit agree? (Philippians 3:19) Earthly ones may give for their crest the mole or tortoise, that live in the earth. What resemblance is there between an earthly heart and him who is a Spirit? The more spiritual any one is, the more like God.

Question: What is it to be spiritual?

Response: To be refined and sublimated, to have the heart still in heaven, to be thinking of God and glory, and to be carried up in a fiery chariot of love to God — this is to be spiritual (Psalm 73:25): Whom have I in heaven but you: on which Beza paraphrases thus, Apage Terra, utinam tecum in Coelo essem! — O that I were in heaven with you! A Christian, who is taken off from these earthly things, as the spirits are taken off from the lees, has a noble spiritual soul, and does most resemble him who is a Spirit.

4. Inference: It shows us what that worship is God requires of us, and is most acceptable to him, namely such a worship as is suitable to his nature — spiritual worship (John 4:24): They which worship him must worship him in Spirit and Truth. Spiritual worship is the virgin-worship. Though God will have the service of our bodies, our eyes and hands lifted up, to testify to others that reverence we have of God's glory and majesty, yet chiefly he will have the worship of the soul (1 Corinthians 6:20): Glorify God in your body and in your spirit. Spirit-worship God prizes because it comes so near to his own nature who is a Spirit.

Question: What is it to worship God in the Spirit?

Response 1: To worship him without ceremonies. The ceremonies of the law which God himself ordained are now abrogated and out of date; Christ the substance being come, the shadows fly away; and therefore the Apostle calls the legal ceremonies carnal rites (Hebrews 9:10), and if not use those Jewish ceremonies which God did once appoint, then not those which he did never appoint.

Response 2: To worship God in Spirit is to worship him: 1. With faith in the blood of the Messiah (Hebrews 11:9), and 2. to worship him with the utmost zeal and intenseness of soul (Acts 26:7): Our twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night, [in non-Latin alphabet], with intenseness of spirit, not only constantly but instantly. This is to worship God in the Spirit. The more spiritual any service is, the nearer it comes to God who is a Spirit, and the more excellent it is; the spiritual part of duty is the fat of the sacrifice, it is the soul and quintessence of religion. The richest cordials are made of spirits, and the best duties are such as are of a spiritual nature. God is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in Spirit: it is not pomp of worship but purity which God accepts. Repentance is not in the outward severities used to the body — penance, fasting, and chastising the body — but it consists in the sacrifice of a broken heart; thanksgiving does not stand in church music, the melody of an organ, but rather making melody in the heart to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19). Prayer is not the tuning of the voice into a heartless confession, or telling over a few beads, but it consists in sighs and groans (Romans 8:26). When the fire of fervency is put to the incense of prayer, now it ascends as a sweet odor — that is, the true holy water, not which the Pope sprinkles, but what is distilled from the limbeck of a penitent eye. Spirit-worship best pleases that God who is a Spirit (John 4:23): The Father seeks such to worship him; to show the great acceptance of such, and how God is delighted with spiritual worship. This is the savory meat God loves. How few mind this, worshipping him who is a Spirit in the Spirit; they give him more dregs than spirits; they think it enough to bring their duties, but not their hearts, which has made God disclaim those very services he himself appointed (Isaiah 1:12; Ezekiel 33:31). Let us then give God spirit-worship; this best suits with his nature: a sovereign elixir full of virtue may be given in a few drops — a little prayer, if it be with the heart and spirit, may have much virtue and efficacy in it. The publican made but a short prayer, God be merciful to me a sinner (Luke 18:13), but it was full of life and spirit, it came from the heart, therefore was accepted.

Use 2: of Exhortation. Pray to God, that as he is a Spirit, so he will give us of his Spirit. The essence of God is incommunicable, but the motions, the presence and influences of his Spirit are not. When the sun shines in a room, not the body of the sun is there, but the light, heat, and influence of the sun. God has made a promise of his Spirit (Ezekiel 36:27): I will put my Spirit within you. Turn promises into prayers. O Lord, you who are a Spirit, give me of your Spirit; I, flesh, beg your Spirit — your enlightening, [reconstructed: sanctifying], quickening Spirit. Melancthon's prayer: Domine accende animam meam Spiritu tuo — Lord inflame my soul with your Holy Spirit. How needful is his Spirit; we cannot do any duty without it in a lively manner: when this wind blows upon our sails, then we move swiftly towards heaven. Pray therefore that God will give us of the residue of his Spirit (Malachi 2:15), that we may move more vigorously in the sphere of religion.

Use 3. of Comfort. As God is a Spirit, so the reward that he gives is spiritual; that is the excellency of it; as the chief blessings he gives us in this life are spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:3), not gold and silver; he gives Christ, his love; he fills us with grace; so the main rewards he gives after this life are spiritual, a crown of glory that fades not away (1 Peter 5:4). Earthly crowns fade, but the believer's crown being spiritual is immortal, a never-fading crown. It is impossible (says Julius Scaliger) for that which is spiritual to be subject to change or corruption. This may comfort a Christian in all his labors and sufferings; he lays out himself for God, and has little or no reward here, but remember God, who is a Spirit, will give spiritual rewards, a sight of his face in Heaven, white robes, a weight of glory. Be not then weary of God's service, think of the spiritual reward, a crown of glory which fades not away.