Question 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is: What is God? And the Westminster divines began to answer that question by stating: God is a Spirit.

Biblically speaking, they are on solid ground. Jesus told the Samaritan woman: God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John‬ ‭4‬:‭24‬ ‭KJV‬‬).

Historically, when we say God is a Spirit, we mean, in the words of Stephen Charnock, that he hath nothing corporeal, no mixture of matter; not a visible substance, a bodily form. Likewise, in the 4th century, the ancient doctor of the Church, Ambrose of Milan, declared that God is incapable of being seen or measured by our senses.

Again, they are on solid scriptural footing. Moses reminded the Israelites that when the Lord spoke to them: You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice (Deuteronomy‬ ‭4‬:‭12‬ ‭ESV‬‬).

The problem we have is that Scripture describes God as having physical characteristics like a human. He is said to have a mighty hand and an outstretched arm (Deuteronomy 4:34). In Psalm 17:8a, David asks God to: Keep me as the apple of your eye. The image is not just God having an eye, but an eyeball, protected by an eyelid. The next part of the verse presents God with the physical characteristics of a bird: hide me in the shadow of your wings.

Are we to conclude then that God literally has hands and arms, eyes and wings? Of course not. After all, God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm is from Deuteronomy 4 — the same chapter where Moses told the Israelites: You heard the sound of words, but saw no form. Moses didn’t say that just to turn around and contradict himself! For God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33 KJV).

This is accommodative language. God condescends to our weakness and finiteness by speaking about Himself in ways we can understand. When it says God saves His people with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, it’s referring to His power and purpose. When it says He keeps His people as the apple of His eye, it means we are as precious to Him as our eyeball is precious to us—we instinctively protect our vision. When it says He hides us under His wings, it means He protects us like a mother bird protects her chicks.

We should not understand from these texts that God actually has hands, arms, eyes, or wings. That’s completely missing the point! When we read of God’s arms, eyes, and wings; we should consider His attributes of being Almighty; all-knowing; and good.

John Calvin, in his Institutes, explained it like this:

For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in measure to “lisp” in speaking to us? Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accomodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he must descend far beneath his loftiness.

Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.13,1

When God is portrayed as having human characteristics, this is called anthropomorphism. When He is portrayed as having animal traits, this is called zoomorphism. And when He is portrayed as having human emotions, this is known as anthropopathic language. We shouldn’t actually believe that God has regrets, or is ignorant of some things. Likewise, we shouldn’t imagine that God in Himself has something like a human body.

But what about passages where people are said to see a kind of manifestation of God? For example, when Isaiah reports: I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple (Isaiah‬ ‭6‬:‭1‬). Or when Stephen, while being martyred, was full of the Holy Spirit, and gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts‬ ‭7‬:‭55‬).

First of all, whatever they saw in those visions, it cannot contradict what Jesus plainly said: God is Spirit. Moreover—and this is essential—whatever God showed these saints in a vision cannot contradict John 1:18: No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side  — he has revealed him (John‬ ‭1‬:‭18‬ ‭CSB‬‬). The only true bodily revelation any human has ever experienced is in the Incarnation of Christ, For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians‬ ‭2‬:‭9‬). God in Himself—God as God—has not yet been seen by human eyes, nor can He be: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).

To suppose that whatever those saints saw of God in their visions would show us God as He truly is, is to repeat the grievous error of the pagans, who exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man (Romans 1:23).

Moreover, Scripture only tells us that Stephen, as he died, was granted the privilege of seeing the glory of God—His radiance, His marvelous light. Not God as He is, but a manifestation of His glory. 1 Timothy 6:16 says that God dwells in unapproachable light. Stephen saw that light, not God in the essence of His being.

Of Isaiah’s vision, John Calvin warns us against taking the language of seeing the Lord in too vulgar ad familiar a manner. He says: How could Isaiah see God who is a Spirit, (John 4:24) and, therefore, cannot be seen with bodily eyes? Nay, more, since the understandings of men cannot rise to his boundless height, how can he be seen in a visible shape? But we ought to be aware that, when God exhibited himself to the view of the Fathers, he never appeared such as he actually is, but such as the capacity of men could receive.

John Gill clarifies that what he saw was not God essentially considered, whose essence is not to be seen … This sight was not corporeal, but with the eyes of the understanding, in the vision of prophecy.

Gill was of the opinion that what Isaiah saw was a vision of Christ enthroned, which for him was a future event. That’s really important because Christ is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15; cf. Hebrews 1:3); and the one in whom the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians‬ ‭2‬:‭9‬). I’m inclined to accept Gill’s interpretation because it is supported by John 12:41: Isaiah … saw [Christ’s] glory and spoke of him.

If indeed, God as God, in His essence, has a bodily form; then we face multiple serious difficulties.

First, it would mean that the Scriptures have lied to us. Not only in the passages we have already observed, but especially 1 Timothy, where St. Paul not only says that God is invisible (1 Timothy 1:16); but also that God is one whom no one has ever seen or can see (1 Timothy 6:16). God as God—His attributes, eternal power, and divine nature—are said by the Apostle to be invisible (Romans 1:20). This is because God is Spirit.

Second, if God, as God, has a body, He cannot be infinite. For a body, by definition, has a beginning and an ending point. Wise Solomon marveled at the idea of building a temple for God, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him (2 Chronicles 2:6). Solomon did not simply mean that God has a very large body, larger even than the vastness of space. Rather, He was acknowledging the infinity of God, as Ambrose put it: enclosing all things, Himself enclosed by nothing. All things are contained in God; nothing can contain God, as God.

Finally—and related to this—if God has a corporeal body, then He cannot be omnipresent, or as Ambrose put it, everywhere present at the same time, whether in heaven or on earth or in the depths of the sea. If God is not omnipresent, the the Psalm lies when it says:

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, And thy right hand shall hold me.

Psalm 139:7-10 KJV

If God has a body, God is confined to that body. But God fills heaven and earth (Jeremiah 23:24). He is equally present in heaven and on earth.

But when we understand that God is a Spirit—that He hath nothing corporeal, no mixture of matter; not a visible substance, or a bodily form, as Charnock put it; our awe at God increases. For here is a God who, without hands, created all things. A God who, without arms, is mighty to save. Who without eyes, sees all. Who, without a brain, knows all things and understands all things perfectly. And who, without lips or tongue, speaks the word which gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist (Romans‬ ‭4‬:‭17‬ ‭ESV‬‬)