Most children’s catechisms answer the question, “Who is God?” with some version of the statement, “He is a spirit and has no body as we do.” A study guide commenting on the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s version of this question explains, “When we say that God is a Spirit we make clear the fact that He is distinct from all things . . . , but the important thing is that when we confess God is a Spirit we deny that God has any material substance.”[1] In his commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith, R.C. Sproul expands on these ideas further:
“The confession affirms that, as Jesus himself taught (John 4:24), God is a spirit. That is, God is immaterial in his being. He has no extension that can be measured with a ruler or weighed on a scale. Because his being is unextended, immaterial, and spiritual, God is invisible. We cannot see him unless he manifests himself through some physical medium. For this reason, Paul says that the invisible things are clearly seen through the things that are made (Rom 1:20). A vision of God that comes through physical things is mediated, but God himself, a spirit with no physical body, is invisible.”[2]
Simply put, God is incomprehensibly beyond us. We can’t fathom His essence despite our attempts to humanize Him. We can’t stand God up against the wall and keep a record of His growth or height. We can’t capture the weightiness of His glory or immensity on a scale.
Directly related to this is the fact that God is asexual. This means that it’s improper to view God as male, female, or both. Yes, God did make us male and female to teach us important things about Himself but those things are about who he is as a person, not his anatomy. That being so, here’s an important truth: whatever virtues are associated with being male or female, God has them all!
Nevertheless, even though God is not male, Christians are to pray:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”[3]
This prayer is “The Lord’s Prayer,” or what Catholics call the “Our Father” (Matt 6:9–12; Luke 11:2–4) and it’s arguably the key text in the Bible on how to approach and address God. For one thing, it has the divine mark of being articulated by Jesus himself. For another, it’s one of the “three great summaries” that has “been at the heart of historical catechetical practice.”[4] Further, “the late first or early second century treatise The Didache of the Apostles includes . . . the command that the believers should pray the Lord’s Prayer three times daily.”[5]
N.T. Wright summarizes the meaning of the prayer well:
“The prayer is… a way of saying to the Father: Jesus… caught me in the net of his good news… I want to be part of his kingdom movement. I find myself drawn into his heaven-on-earth way of living. I want to be part of his bread-for-the-world agenda, for myself and for others. I need forgiveness for myself… and I intend to live with forgiveness in my heart in my own dealings with others. (Notice how remarkable it is, at the heart of the prayer, we commit ourselves to live in a particular way, a way we find difficult.) And because I live in the real world where evil is still powerful, I need protecting and rescuing. And, in and through it all, I acknowledge and celebrate the Father’s kingdom, power, and glory.”[6]
Next week we’ll look at the question “Why call God Father and not Mother or Parent?”
[1] G.I. Williamson, The Westminster Shorter Catechism for Study Classes (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1970), 17.
[2] R.C. Sproul, Truths We Confess: A Layman’s Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith, Volume 1: The Triune God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2006), 36.
[3] Matthew 6:9-13, ESV.
[4] J.I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett, Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old Fashioned Way (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 123.
[5] Ibid., 63.
[6] N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperOne, 2006), 160.