Well, then, is God a Spirit? Certainly he is; and on the
same basis and within the same meaning of words, Man is a Spirit. But
neither man nor God are Spirit essences that are indefinably elsewhere present.
Both are Spirit Personages. Their respective spirits have form and
size and dimensions, and are within their own bodies and within
those bodies only.
Man is a spirit, but man is also a tangible body. God is
a Spirit, and God, also, is a tangible body.
A soul—either mortal or immortal—consists of body and
spirit. The body is tangible and corporeal, is made of a substance that can be
felt and handled as the apostles felt and handled the body of the resurrected
Christ. The spirit, also, is an actual entity or being; however, the spirit
body is made of a more pure and refined substance, so that it cannot be handled
and felt by mortal men.
Thus when the apostles saw the resurrected Christ stand
before them "They were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they
had seen a spirit." (Luke 24:37) Christ comforted their fears and gave
them the test whereby they could distinguish a spirit from a personage of
tabernacle, one who had flesh and bones. They were to handle him, to feel the
nail prints in his hands, and put their hands against the spear wound in his
side.
The spirit of man is within his body. When he dies the
spirit leaves the body, and the body goes to the grave. After the crucifixion
Christ's body lay in the tomb, but his Spirit went and preached to other
spirits, the spirits of those men who "sometime were disobedient, when
once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah." (1 Peter 3:20)
The third day his Spirit entered the body again, the
glorious resurrection took place, and he rose from the tomb, the first fruits
of them that slept. Now he was immortal, not mortal, and now his body and
Spirit were inseparably connected, never against to be torn asunder by death.
And we have already seen that the resurrected Lord with
his tangible body of flesh and bones was in the express image of the person of
the Father who also had a tangible body of flesh and bones, one in which spirit
and body are inseparably connected.
So man is body and spirit; Christ is body and Spirit; and
God is body and Spirit. What impropriety is there, then, when a proper
understanding of its meaning is had, of saying, "God is a Spirit"?
That is true in the same sense in which men and Christ are also spirits, and in
no other.
And as all revelation—past, present, and that which shall
yet in the providences of the Almighty be vouchsafed to his children in
mortality—is in perfect accord with itself, so we shall find that Latter-day
revelation confirms this Bible teaching that God is both body and
spirit. (Bruce R. McConkie, The
Truth About God [The Godhead—No. 1; Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, n.d.], 14-16, M231.1 M129t, Church History Library)
Further Reading:
Lynn
Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment
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