Does God have a Physical Body?

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, written in the 1600s answers the question: “What is God”. The conclusion they came to was that "God is a Spirit".

That teaching continues to be taught today. In my studies on this subject, it would appear that many Christian Pastors & Scholars teach that God is a Spirit and has no physical body; they reference John 4:24 when Jesus said “God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” then reference Luke 24:39: When Jesus said … “For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” So that would lead to the conclusion that since a spirit has no flesh and bones, then God, who is a Spirit, has no flesh and bones. And God is omnipresent so he can’t have a body. It’s simply impossible for God to have a physical body. But does this one verse John 4:24 really verify that God is only a spirit and has no physical body of any kind?

The Bible is filled with references about the physical, literal body of God. Here are a few examples:

First and most obvious is Genesis 1:26 & 27: Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness"... So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” So we were created in the image of God. If that's a bit confusing, we see that Adam's first born son Seth, was described with the exact same words. Genesis 5:3: "When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth." Everyone can understand that children look like their parents. And it's a direct translation from Hebrew to English. Those are the exact words. Likeness - Image

We find more evidence of the physical body of God in Genesis 3:8: “That evening they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden; and they hid themselves among the trees.” Think about that. They heard him walking. God would need legs, to walk. Plus, he made noise, so he is not weightless. Thump thump!

Here’s more verses that talk about God’s body parts:

• (Exodus 33:22–23) When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.
• (Exodus 34:5) Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there.
• (1 Samuel 3:10) The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’
• (Ezekiel 1:27) I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him.
  
• (Isaiah 6:1) I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne, high and exalted. The train of his robe filled the Temple.
• (2 Chronicles 18:18) I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the armies of heaven around him, on his right and on his left.

Many people consider these verses allegorical or symbolic, but there's nothing here that points us to that conclusion.

• God actually walked in the Garden of Eden
• God actually put his hand in front of Moses
• Moses actually saw the back of God
• God actually passed by Moses
• God actually stood and called to Samuel
• God actually sits in heaven

Back to the verse John 4:24. God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. This verse truly says “God is Spirit” or some translations say “God is a Spirit” Does the bible contradict itself? Let’s go back to the original language of the bible to see what’s going on. We are using one word to verify that God is “Spirit”, let’s look at that one word. The Greek word is “Pneuna” It directly translates into English as “Spirit”. It’s used hundreds of times in the original Greek. So let’s see where else it’s mentioned and see what those verses say. I’ll stick with the same Parsing Key (N-NNS) to keep it unbiased:

1. Matthew 12:43 “the unclean spirit is gone out from”
2. Mark 9:20 “immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion”
3. Mark 13:11 “but [it is] the Holy Spirit”.
4. Luke 1:47 “And my spirit has rejoiced in God”
5. Luke 8:55 “And her spirit returned, and she got up”
6. Acts 13:2 “the Holy Spirit said”

We quickly see that this refers to more than one type of Spirit:

1. unclean spirit, (demon)
2. the spirit, (demon)
3. Holy Spirit,
4. my spirit, (human heart or emotions)
5. her spirit returned (life giving spirit) 
6. Holy Spirit, 

So that’s an inconclusive way to find the true definition of the Spirit we are looking for. The only other way to figure out what is meant is to put the word in context.

Let’s start reading back a few verses: John 4:21 NIV “Woman,” Jesus replied, “Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

This whole scene is Jesus talking to the woman about Worshiping God. Not; what God is. Looking at the Greek, this particular part of the verse may not translate very well into English. The word for word direct translation reads like this (starting halfway through verse 23)

“the Father in spirit and truth also indeed the Father such seeks who worship him Spirit God and those worshiping him in spirit and truth it must to worship”

It’s hard to fully understand exactly what our word Spirit is referring to here. The translators have changed “Spirit God” to read “God is a Spirit” and added a verse break right before it.  But the context is clear. It is people worshiping God.

So we can eliminate “unclean spirit” & “Life giving Spirit” from our Spirit definition because God is not a demon and God is not bringing people back from the dead here. We have “Holy Spirit” & “my spirit” left. Let’s look at both:

• the Father seeks those who worship him [as the Holy] Spirit God…
• the Father seeks those who worship him [in the inner] Spirit [of their heart as their] God…

I’d say it can be either one. I’d personally go the meaning found in Luke 1:47 “And my spirit has rejoiced in God” because that seems to be more in context. Jesus is talking about true heart felt worship of God. And this may just be a difficult line of text to translate.

I can see how reading “Spirit God” or “God is a Spirit” directly, can lead us to think that it means God is a Spirit Life Form and has no physical body. But that’s clearly out of context.

So we see that John 4:24 can’t be linked to Luke 24:39 to prove that God does not have a physical body.

And when considering God is omnipresent. While I have no doubt that God is omnipresent, the bible doesn’t actually use that word so I’m not going to talk about it here. But please be reminded that God is greater than we can understand (Job 36:26). So if you can't understand how God can have a body and still be omnipresent means that Job 36:26 is right. And that's a good thing.

In summary, to say God has no physical body because John 4:24 says “God is a Spirit”, can only be done by ignoring the context of that scripture. And to say the verses that reference God’s body parts are simply allegorical is a misunderstanding of what is actually written.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks Meg for the Greek and Hebrew translations and telling me what parsing means. :) 

Please leave any comments below. I'm curious to read your thoughts on this subject.