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4. God is an invisible spirit…but Jesus was flesh and blood

Paul Derengowski, ThM


While thousands saw Jesus and hear his voice, Jesus himself said that this could not be done with God when he said, "No man hath seen God at any time."  St. John 1:18.  "Ye have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His shape."  St. John 5:37.  He also said in St. John 4:24, "God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."  That Jesus would say that no one had seen or heard God at any time, while his followers both saw and heard him, is clear proof that Jesus was not God.

This particular point is so elementary that it almost defies the time to respond to it.  Of course God is an invisible spirit and Jesus possessed flesh and blood, but that in no way means that Jesus was not God.  Jesus merely humbled himself by taking on a human form for the express purpose of dying a human death and bridging the chasm caused by sin between humans and God (Phil. 2:7-8).  Jesus, in other words, had two natures, divine and human, which he expressed both perfectly and at all times.  The former communed with God; the latter related to man.  That combination made it possible to establish the means of salvation for mankind, as Jesus' divine sacrifice appeased God's wrath, while standing the place for all humans as a substitute.

As for John 1:18, it is amazing that the Muslim would even want to quote such a verse to deny Jesus' deity given that the whole verse reads, "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him" [emphasis added].  This verse is not so much about men not seeing God, although that is true; it is about identifying the person who is capable of exegeting or explaining God's person, intimately, because that person is the "only begotten God."  Moreover, the theme of John 5 is Jesus' miracle-working capacity as the Jews perceived him as one equating himself with God (v.18).  And while John 4:24 does speak of God's essential nature as spirit, the real context of the passage is worship, and that in spirit and in truth.  Later on Jesus would claim to be not only "the way, the truth, and the life" (Jn. 14:6), but a sender of the Spirit of God (15:26), of whom the Father would also send in Jesus' name (14:26).  So much for there being no Trinity in the Bible.

NEXT: No one is Greater than God