Room 4 of 20
John 4:24
God is a Spirit
Verse
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Why they use it
They say “God is a Spirit,” so the Father cannot have a body.
Why they are wrong
Jesus is telling a Samaritan where to worship, not telling her the Father has no body.
Translation note
Greek: pneuma (πνεῦμα)
spirit / wind / breath — not ‘unembodied only’
John 3:6: that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Humans stay embodied. FAIR: the verse does not assert anything about God’s corporeality. The KJV “a Spirit” over-reads what later English did to the line.
The room (aka the context)
- Who wrote it
- John.
- Who is in the room
- A Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.
- Who is speaking
- Jesus.
- What is going on
- She asks where to worship. Samaritans say Gerizim. Jews say Jerusalem. Jesus says the hour is coming when location is not the point — spirit and truth are.
- What they already believe
- God can be worshiped. The fight in the room is the mountain, not whether the Father has a body.
- How they would hear these words
- Worship must match God. NRSVUE even drops the “a”: God *is* spirit. That is how you worship, not a claim that the Father has no form. Jesus will later stand in a room and say a spirit does not have flesh and bones — and then show His.
Clarifying verse
Luke 24:39
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
The risen Christ — whom they also call God — has flesh and bones and says a spirit does not. If John 4:24 forbids a body, Easter is a problem. FAIR’s *Is God Only a Spirit?* is the page.
Gal1:8 topic →Mark it
Tap when you can say the verse out loud.