February 8

"God is a Spirit." — John 4:21.

WHEN a celebrated heathen poet was asked by a certain monarch, What is God? he demanded a day to think upon it; at the close of which he desired two days more; at the expiration of that time he requested four days in addition. The king, surprised, asked him what he meant by it; to which the poet answered, — "The more I think of God, the more incomprehensible and mysterious he appears." There are three concise descriptions given of the Almighty in Scripture; — God is light, God is love, and God is a Spirit.

HE IS THE MOST EXCELLENT OF ALL BEINGS. We who dwell in tabernacles of clay, so intimately connected with flesh and blood, and so naturally impressed with sensible objects, cannot possibly know much of the nature of a spirit. We cannot understand what our own souls are; we know less of the nature of angels, which are of a superior order to us; and infinitely less can we conceive of the nature of the Father of spirits. God has in him all the perfections of a spiritual nature; and since we have no notion of any kind of spiritual property but what we discover in our own souls, we join infinitude to each of these properties, and what is a faculty in a human soul becomes an attribute in God. We exist in place and time, the Divine Being fills the immensity of space with his presence, and inhabits eternity. We are possessed of limited power and knowledge, he is almighty and omniscient. He is light without darkness, love without unkindness, good without evil, and purity without uncleanness. "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!"

HE IS A LIVING AND ACTIVE BEING. When we speak of a spirit, life and activity are implied in the term. Vegetable, animal, intellectual, spiritual, and eternal life are derived from him. He is styled, by way of eminence, "the living God." The capacity of acting by himself, or in Trinity of persons in one undivided Godhead, he possessed before any creature was formed; otherwise he could not have created all things by a word, — and we are assured that he shall continue to order and govern all things to the glory of his great name; "for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever, amen." We here see that the knowledge of God in the Gospel is infinitely more glorious than the knowledge of him in nature, inasmuch as Scripture revelation is above natural reason; let us seek the knowledge of him in our own experience.