God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and truth. John 4:24
Imagining spirit is about the same as imagining nobility or courage. We need to see those things in action so we can better understand them. Maybe that is why some, even Christians, try to think of God as in some sort of tangible way, that He is the air, or has a heavenly or human-like body but without corruption. While others think it unholy to think of God that way, the Gentiles were said to have changed “His glory into that of a corruptible man.”
Charnock says that since “He is the Father of spirits” He could never have a nature inferior to His children. If God made man according to his image, we must raise our thoughts of God according to, and above, the noblest part of that image. God is not like the air, for the air has a “thin” substance and if God were no more a spirit than that, He would not be the most perfect being. In other words, air can represent the invisibility of God and how He fills space, yet even though there is no place where God is not present, the air is not God.
But the omnipresence of God becomes clearer to my mind when I think of air. It surrounds me, sustains me, holds me, permeates my life. When I think about God in that sense, the presence of God becomes very clear. He does the same things, envelopes me in Himself like the most incredible hug. Yet the air is not God. He is greater than that.
Charnock is right; we cannot understand the greatness of God. We need metaphors that describe Him as a Father, or a strong tower, or a hiding place. Our words are not ever enough — which to me is a totally adequate reason why God revealed Himself in the form of a man. The Bible says that His Word was made flesh so we could see what He is like in the face of Jesus Christ, who is "the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person."
Great thoughts to set me up for worship today with His people.
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