John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must
worship him in spirit and in truth.
Comment: Taken literally, only spirits can worship God. But
God has done everything possible to get man, while physical and mortal, to
worship Him. We do not have to be spirits. The Lord uses spirit to spirit
communication when communicating with us; that is Holy Ghost to our spirit
communication. Notice also and particularly that there is a colon, not a period
after ‘Spirit’ in the quoted verse. The thought and meaning continued on past
‘God is a spirit’ and did not end as a final statement that ‘God is a spirit.’
The remaining portion is quite essential to the meaning that John intended.
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.
Comment: John saw the resurrected Lord, just like the other ten
apostles did. They touched him and saw for themselves that Jesus was
resurrected and had a body. Jesus does not lay his body aside when he goes to
heaven to be with God the Father. They both have glorified tangible bodies and
Christ is like the Father. Stephen also bore testimony that he looked into
heaven and saw them both standing beside each other. (Ivan Kent Richards, To
Find the Path to Eternal Life Ye Must First Seek to Obtain My Word [Xlibris,
2019], 499)
Further Reading:
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment