Dr. Dan Hayden •
Animators gave Casper the Ghost a form, so you could see him. But real spirits don’t have a form—or do they?
In John 4:24 Jesus said that “God is a spirit,” which means that God doesn’t have a body. So in the second of the Ten Commandments God was serious when He said, “Don’t make any graven image.” In other words, don’t try to give God a body. God wants us to worship Him as He is—a spirit being.
Now there is an important thing to understand about God’s spirit being. We find it in Philippians 2:6, where it says that before Jesus became a man, He existed in the “form” of God. In other words, even though God is a spirit, He has a form.
The word for “form” here is the Greek word morphe, which refers to a shape or an appearance.
There is a philosophy which says that God is in everything. It is called pantheism. God is in the trees and rocks and earth and sky. In other words, He has no form of His own. But this verse says that that is not true. Even though God is a spirit, He has a form—a spirit form. He has a form that is separate and distinct from His creation. Now in Philippians 2:6 Paul is saying that before Jesus became a man, He was one with God in His spirit form.
God is not just a force like “the force be with you.” He is a Person—a real Person.