--We often think of this as meaning a ghost. --But God is not a ghost.
--A ghost is in fact a monstrosity, a human soul missing its body. God isn’t missing anything, and certainly not a body.
--The Bible clearly tells us that God is Spirit.
--Not “a spirit,” but Spirit itself.
--So what does this mean?
--The word means (in part) breath, which is very closely aligned with the concept of being alive.
--So, God’s aliveness is a vital starting point.
--Although it seems obvious, God isn’t merely real, He is alive.
--This aliveness means He is a not merely some force or idea or mechanism or even a mere thing. He is a living God.
--But, the clear difference with God is that He is not a material lifeform.
--How could He be if He is real prior to all materiality itself?
--So, He is both immaterial and yet the source of all material, hence far more substantial than the mere matter we see around us.
--This means we do not and cannot encounter Him with our five senses.
--But this immediately presents us with a problem of comprehension. How can God be more real than things we touch and yet untouchable? How can we even comprehend what He is if we are told He is alive and yet the only template for comprehending life we have is embodied creatures?
--Well, yes. It’s not simple.
--But it does explain why we are warned against making images of God. Since His basic nature is not material, no material representation of Him can possibly be accurate. Their reductions, therefore, will only be misleading.
--And all this fits with what Jesus says when He compares God to wind, whose effects we see, but whose reality we do not see.
--We see the effects of God with our senses, and they were clearly given to us for this purpose, but we must not be surprised that we can’t see God directly since He is Spirit (wind, breath), not body.
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