God Is Not Incorporeal

All life is life in a form, having a spiritual form suitable for life in Heaven, or else having a physical form suitable for life on planet Earth.  All life that naturally has planet Earth for its home is corporeal, whether it be cellular or it be organismal.  All life that is in Heaven is also life that is corporeal, embodied (organismal). There is no such thing (ontological reality) that may be defined as non-embodied life.  Any literal (non-metaphorical) transferrence of life from Heaven to some location on Earth means transferrence of life in a spiritual form, the transferrence of a spiritual being. (The implications for our knowing that which defines the kenosis are immediately at hand here; however, that will not be the focus for what is presented below.)

God is not incorporeal, not bodiless. Jesus’ statement “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24a) does not mean that God has no body, for the Scriptures expressly state that there are two kinds of bodies, the more glorious being the heavenly bodies, whereas bodies not as glorious as the heavenly bodies are the earthly bodies (1 Corinthians 15:40). The statement “If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44b) implies that if there is no spiritual realm where beings having spiritual bodies live – where, in fact, the embodied Creator of all other beings, whether heavenly or earthly, lives –, then there would not exist physical bodies, for the physical body depends upon the existence of a far more glorious spiritual body, that belonging to the Creator Himself. In fact, the future existence of those who receive a resurrection into the spiritual realm, where they will have spiritual bodies, depends on the far greater glory not only of the Creator, but of the glory of one resurrected into heavenly glory as a forerunner of those who will receive spiritual bodies when they, too, are resurrected: “. . . as the heavenly one is, so those who are heavenly are also. And just as we have borne the image of the one made of dust, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly one” (1 Corinthians 15:48b, 49; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:46).

We may stay a while longer in our consideration of Jesus’ resurrection body, for the Scriptures on the subject give more testimony that God has a body. Since Jesus’ resurrection and his glorification in heaven, he, like his God and Father, dwells in light unapproachable by flesh and blood (men); compare 1 Corinthians 15:50. The apostle Paul is very explicit about this: “(Christ) dwells in unapproachable light, whom not one of men has seen or can see” (1 Timothy 16). Yes, since Jesus’ return to heaven, he has become “the reflection of (God’s) glory, the exact representation his very being” (Hebrews 1:3). It follows that if we can show from the Scriptures that Christ has a heavenly body – and did we not show as much with our quote of 1 Corinthians 15:48b, 49 above? -- , then so does the being of God, else the resurrected, glorified Christ could not be the exact representation of God’s very being.

Have we made any pretense above that we know how to describe God’s body, His organism, His facial features? No, but those who will be resurrected to heavenly life will discover such details: “Beloved ones, now we are children of God, but as yet it has not been made manifest what we shall be. We do know that whenever he is made manifest we shall see him just as he is” (1 John 3:2). It is only natural that a child separated from his father will long for the day when he can see his father. Those having received a preliminary adoption as God’s sons (Romans 8:14-16, 23) long to see their heavenly Father; however, contrary to mystics who claim that direct vision of God is possible for persons while alive in the flesh, the apostle John expressly states that such a thing does not happen until they get to “be like (God, so that they can then) . . . see him just as he is” (1 John 3:2). They get to “be like (God)” when they no longer have bodies of flesh and blood, inasmuch as some time following what the apostle Paul calls their “release from (their fleshly, physical) bodies,” they get “to be patterned after the image of (God’s) Son” (Romans 8:23, 29). Yes, “just as (they) have borne the image of the one made of dust, (they) shall bear also the image of the heavenly one” (1 Corinthians 15:49). That the anointed ones get to be patterned after the image of God’s Son means that they get to be like God, too. Paul makes the connection of spiritual embodiment for those who get “to be patterned after the image of God’s Son”; likewise, then, for the connection that the apostle John makes for those who get to “be like (God)”: they will know what a spiritual body is like, for they will own one like God’s; “(they) shall be like him.”

If God has no locale (Heaven) for His embodied existence, then the angels in heaven could not behold the face of their father who is in heaven. God is not an incorporeal, omnipresent entity. Trinitarians (e.g., Rob Bowman) find it essential to their trinitarianism that they deny these Bible truths.