Mormonism and the nature of God/God is a Spirit

In the King James Version you will notice the word “is” is italicized. This is because the King James translators have inserted it on their own-it is not present in the Greek text from which the translation was made. Second, the reader should be made aware that the indefinite article “a” is not present in the Greek text either and has also been added at the discretion of the translators ("The Gospel According to John", Leon Morris, pg. 271). This leaves two Greek words: theos pneuma- “God spirit”. The JST clears it up by saying “for unto such hath God promised his spirit”. The word ‘pneuma’ which is translated spirit, also means ‘life’ or ‘breath’. The King James Version of Rev. 13:15 renders ‘pneuma’ as life. Thus ‘God is life’, or God is the breath of life are alternative translations of this verse. Also, if God is a spirit and we have to worship him in spirit, do we have to leave our bodies to worship him? And if He was, we couldn’t have bodies of flesh, but spirit, and also in John 3:6, it says that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. We know that God is our Father. So either we are still spirits and don’t know it, or God has a body. In Deut. 4:28 says that our God can see, eat and smell. Can a spirit do that? (see God has flesh) Ex. 9:3 says that God is a consuming fire, 1 John 1:5 says God is light, and 1 John 4:7,16 says that God is love. Is He just those things? Neither is He just a spirit. But a spirit clothed with a body. The New American Bible and New American Standard Bible interpretation is “God is spirit” from that little bit they say that God is an infinite spirit and that’s it. But it does not say that God is only a spirit, or infinite spirit, only that He is spirit. (a spirit in KJV). Everyone has a spirit (James 2:26, Job 32:8, Zech. 12:1) and must worship Him in spirit. 1 Cor 6:17 says that we can be joined to the Lord in one spirit. This doesn’t mean we leave our bodies when we worship God. He can be spirit and be joined in a figurative sense, with men who truly worship Him. (1 Cor 6:17, Phil. 3:3). Both He and the men who so worship Him will still have their physical bodies. John 4:24 is no more than a statement that God has no physical body than it is a statement that men have no physical bodies. It tells men that they must seek spirituality and truth to worship God, for He is a spiritual being.” (How Greek Philosophy Corrupted the Christian Concept of God page 255)

The time when the Apostles began to preach to the gentile nations, was a time of many philosophical schools and ideas. A very strong idea at the time was a neo-platonic (new version of teachings of Plato) idea that all flesh or matter was essentially evil. Now Christians had less than fifty thousand members at 200 A.D. in a society comprising of sixty million (The Christians as the Romans saw them, pg. 31) . They were the minority. And because of persecution, baptized members who held on to past beliefs (it seems the people of Corinth had this problem early on from the many reminders of the resurrection of Christ, and the saints made by Paul), and no more living inspired leaders, they gradually accepted the pagan view of God being a spirit, and not having flesh and bones, which the philosophical world thought was evil. Because they did this, they were able to convert many more pagans as they had previously. Augustine thoroughly fused the theology of the New Testament with neoplatonism. In examining Christian doctrine, Augustine confessed to a strong preconception--a repugnance to the idea that God had a body (The Confessions, 5.10.19-20; 7.1.1). He acknowledged that he had labored on the thesis of the trinity for fifteen years without “ever reaching a satisfactory conclusion” (The World and the Prophets, Nibley, 3:95). Finally he rationalized that if one accepts the platonic idea that spirit essence is the purest manifestation of reality and that matter is the most corrupt, god must therefore be an immaterial being. He was then able to accept the doctrine of the trinity. (Confessions, 4.16.29, 31; 5.10.19-20; 6.3.4-4.5). As Plato had done before him, Augustine decided that since God is the ultimate good, He cannot be associated with anything material. We believe that man is also spirit (D&C 93:33-4; Numbers 16:22; Romans 8:16) and is, like

God, housed in a physical body. We were, after all, created in the "image" of God (Genesis 1:26-7).
It is interesting that, in 1 Corinthians 2:11, Paul wrote about "the spirit of man and the Spirit of
God." Elsewhere he spoke of the resurrection of the body and then noted that it is a "spiritual" body
(1 Corinthians 15:44-6), though, rising from the grave, it is obviously composed of flesh and bones,
as Jesus made clear when he appeared to the apostles after his resurrection (Luke 24:37-9). Paul also
told the saints in Rome, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you" (Romans 8:9). Similarly, in Alma 11:45, Amulek defines resurrected bodies as "spirits
uniting with their bodies, never to be divided; thus the whole becoming spiritual and immortal." The
parallel between "God is a Spirit" and worshipping him "in spirit and in truth" in John 4:24 is
identical to the parallel in 1 John 4:7-16, in which "God is love" (1 John 4:8) and we must have love
in order to worship him properly. It should be obvious that God is not an emotion; similarly, he is
not merely a spirit.

One Commentary reads “That God is spirit is not meant as a definition of God's

being—though this is how the Stoics would have understood it. It is a metaphor of his mode of
operation, as life-giving power, and it is no more to be taken literally than I John i. 5, "God is light",
or Deut. iv. 24, "Your God is a devouring fire". It is only those who have received this power
through Christ who can offer God a real worship.” (Sanders, A Commentary on the Gospel
According to St. John, pg. 147-148)

Tertullian taught that “Spirit has a bodily substance of it’s own kind” (Against Praxeas 7,

Ante-Nicene Fathers 3:602)