26 - GOD IS SPIRIT by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 6, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 39.

26 — GOD IS SPIRIT

By Editor

It seems to me that the spiritual body may be and is visible to the mortal eye, and that spiritual beings can carry on conversation with mortals in their own mortal familiar language. See Luke 24: 39; John 4: 24. The Saviour ate fish and honeycomb after His resurrection, and I understand He was a spiritual being.

There is a difference in the meaning of the various uses of the term "spirit." Sometimes it means simply the life, the life God-given; sometimes it means a spiritual being. In such a way it is used in John 4: 24, "God is a spirit," or, as the margin of the Revised Version reads, "God is spirit."

These spiritual beings seem to have the power to make themselves visible or invisible to humanity. Angels of God are around His children on every occasion. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them." Ps. 34: 7. Sometimes these angels have been made visible. Generally they are not. Sometimes they appear as men. Our Lord, as a spiritual being, walked with the disciples on their way to Emmaus, ate with them at the table, and then vanished from their sight. He returned an invisible being with them to Jerusalem, although they did not know that He was present. But shortly after they had met with the disciples at Jerusalem, He again appeared to them, and said to them, "Handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." The evident thought implied in Luke 24: 39 is that the disciples themselves thought Jesus was a ghost.

It is preeminently true of fishermen that they are superstitious; so they thought it was a ghost they saw when Jesus walked on the sea. His purpose in eating before them was to show that He was not a mere phantom; He was a real being with substance—flesh and bones. He showed them His hands and His feet that had the marks of the nails.

In fact, spiritual beings are more real beings than these mortal beings. They are composed of finer material, but it is not the less substantial material. "The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." 1 Cor. 15: 45. And so, according to the previous verse, there is the natural body and there is also a spiritual body. Flesh and blood, mortal man, corruptible man, shall not inherit the kingdom of God; but the purified spiritual beings shall enter it.