24. That God is spirit is not meant as a
definition of God’s being—though this is how the Stoics would have understood
it. It is a metaphor of his mode of operation, as life-giving power, and it is
no more to be taken literally than 1 John i.5, ‘God is light’, or Deut. iv. 24,
‘Your God is a devouring fire’. It is only those who have received this power
through Christ who can offer God a real worship. ‘Spiritual’ worship is not necessarily
that which does without rites and ceremonies. The Christian sacraments draw
their validity from the union of flesh and spirit of the incarnate Logis.
(J. N. Sanders, A Commentary on the Gospel According to St John, ed. B.
A. Mastin [London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968], 147-48)
Further Reading:
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment