In a recent
work by anti-Mormon Paul Derengowski, he (lamely) attempted to refute LDS belief
in divine embodiment thusly:
. . . the observant Bible reader is
confronted with statements like those found in Numbers 23:19 and John 4:24,
which explicitly tells him or her that “God is not a man, that He should lie,
nor a son of man, that He should repent” and “God is spirit, and those who
worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” In the former example, God’s
immutability is contrasted with man’s corrupted nature, whereby lying is a
distinct human possibility at any moment. If God were a man, he would be a
predisposed to lie like a man (Rom. 3:4). Since God cannot lit (Tit. 1:2; Heb.
6:18), which would be a denial of himself (2 Tim. 2:13), then he cannot be a
man either. In the latter example, Jesus is speaking emphatically about God’s
ontological makeup: πνευμα ο θεος. While some translations have included the indefinite article
before πνευμα (KJV, ASV,
Douay-Rheims), rendering the translation “God is [a] spirit,” that is not the
best way to understand Jesus’ focus. God is not being compared to other spirits
or gods. Since God is spiritual by nature and in order to worship him truly
(cf. Isa.31:3), it requires the worshipper to approach God spiritually or “the
need for complete sincerity and complete reality.” (Paul Derengowski, Muhammad and Joseph Smith, Jr.: Spirit-Born
Brothers [St. Polycarp Publishing House, 2019], 344)
To see why Derengowski
is way out in left field and guilty of eisegesis (e.g., the bogus claim John 4:24 is about the ontological makeup of God), see:
D. Charles Pyle on Hosea 11:9 (cf. Numbers 23:19)
On the related topic of Christology, see:
Latter-day Saints have Chosen the True, Biblical Jesus
Be sure to also check out the book by D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye are Gods: Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament Texts (Revised and Supplemented) (North Charleston, N.C.: CreateSpace, 2018(
