One of the greatest doctrinal deficiencies among believers is the reasoning that since God is Spirit, He does not have a body or a defined figure, and therefore, in conclusion, He cannot be located in a space or place, nor can He be attributed morphological characteristics, such as a right hand and a left hand.
I say it is a doctrinal deficiency, because such ‘definitions’ are rational insertions that have been imported from the philosophical endeavor to complement the atheistic thinking that denigrates the existence of a supernatural Being who created all the things we know of this universe.
The question is not as naive as it seems to be, such a definition is an attack on the Sovereignty of God, because to say that God has no body or form is to admit that God is a kind of energy dispersed in the universe. If God has no body, Jesus cannot be the image of the invisible God, and consequently, Jesus would cease to be God in flesh sent for the forgiveness of sins and to reconcile man with his Creator. As can be seen, the question is a whole satanic argument to invalidate the operation of the reconciliation of man.
The fact that God is Spirit does not mean that God is like a vapor, ethereal, without form and without a place of location; the definition only hints at the ignorance of the Gospel regarding the doctrine of Faith in God, apostolic doctrine quoted in the epistle to the Hebrews.[1]
From the very moment that the doctrine of the Gospel proclaims that God is a person,[2] from that moment such proclamation immediately establishes the recognition that God has body and form. God is a Being, and as such has a body.
In all the texts of the Scriptures, without exception, not only the personal characteristics of God are recognized, but also the attributions of the body of his operations.
The account of Moses’ experience with God attributes hands, face and back to him:
22 and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: 23 and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
Exodus 33:22-23
And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Exodus 33:20
The psalmist David recognizes in his experience of prophetic communion with God, that God has eyes and ears:
The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.
Psalm 34:15
The psalmist David also recognizes that God has a ‘space’ within Eternity:
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand,
Psalm 110:1 (Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42; Acts 2:34; Hebrews 1:13)
until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Such expressions are not part of a biblical anthropomorphism to try to understand the abstract of God, and to be able to visualize His manifestations; such expressions are on the contrary, the expressions of men of God who by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit ‘described’ the form of how the essence of God develops in a body, as the person that He is.
Jesus and the Father are one. Jesus is not superior to the Father, if Jesus has a body, the Father also has one. There can be no discrepancy between them.
The Scriptures testify that the Father has a body from which Jesus takes to manifest the Father:
who (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Colossians 1:15
For in Him (Jesus) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Colossians 2:9
to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
2nd. Corinthians 5:19
Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
John 14:9
I and my Father are one.
John 10:30
If angels have body and form, and are located in a space of Eternity, does the God of spirits lack one?
The Creation of angelic things follows a spiritual law, angelic beings have no greater attribute than the one who created them; if angelic beings have body and form, and occupy a place in the heavens, their Creator is not lesser than them in manifestation; the body is not just a ‘feature’ of presentation, it is an attribute of manifestation.
And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
Hebrews 1:7
The Scriptures bear living testimony that angels have bodies.
then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz:
Daniel 10:5
And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.
Luke 1:19
He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.
Acts 10:3
7 And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. 8 And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. 9 And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel; but thought he saw a vision.
Acts 12:7-9
God is Spirit, but this does not mean that He has no body. Spiritual bodies are not similar to material bodies.
The apostle Paul, guided by the Spirit of God, foreseeing the doctrinal risk involved in believing that because God is Spirit He has no body, wrote to the Corinthian community of faith, and forcefully established by the Spirit that God has a body, only that the spiritual bodies are not similar to those we know in this human creation.
38 but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. 39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. 40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
1st. Corinthians 15:38-40
God has a spiritual body, it is proper to His essence and nature; such is His Greatness that the apostle Paul described by the Spirit that He dwells in places inaccessible to man’s understanding.
who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.
1st. Timothy 6:16
This teaching does not only consist in ‘knowing’ that there are heavenly bodies, and that God has a body proper to His essence as Creator of all things; in reality, this teaching has the purpose of denouncing the doctrinal ignorance that exists within the believing people regarding the doctrines of the Gospel; and denouncing, at the same time, how men with a calling easily accept heretical doctrines, and defend them, as if they were greater than the teachings of the Word of God.
It is time to wake up from the lethargy of ignorance.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Authorized King James Version (AKJV).
pastor Pedro Montoya
[1] Hebrew 6:1
[2] God is ONE, manifested in three persons
