<p>4:24 <i>God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth</i>-</p><p>&quot;But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers&quot; (Jn. 4:23) was spoken by the Lord early in His ministry. Even at that stage &quot;and now is...&quot;, there were some worshipping in spirit and in truth. If the Lord is referring to the disciples, and if the &quot;truth&quot; in Jn. 4:24 is to be understood in theological / doctrinal terms, then &quot;the truth&quot; which they at that time possessed was very far less than what we might think today. The disciples at that time had many misbeliefs and misunderstandings; they believed in demons, were unclear about important aspects of the Lord's work, death and resurrection, and believed in ghosts. But they worshipped in spirit and in truth. However, I suspect that &quot;spirit and in truth&quot; doesn't refer to 'A spiritual attitude <i>plus</i> theological purity' (which none of us have anyway). That was how I once read the phrase. But &quot;truth&quot; would seem to me to refer more to truthfulness, and to reality as opposed to shadow- e.g. Jesus as the true light, the true bread refers not to His intellectual purity but to the way in which He was the fulfilment of the things of &quot;the true tabernacle&quot; as Hebrews puts it, and thus His truth / reality stood over against the shadows. In the context, the Lord is making a point to the Samaritan woman about where geographically God's house and place of worship should be- Zion or Gerizim. And as He often does, the Lord takes the question onto another level. 'The place of worship doesn't matter, the worship must be in spirit and in truth', i.e. the presence of God in the temple was to be ended, the Mosaic worship system with its need for geographical place and focus was about to end, and worship was to be internal, in the heart. And some, the Lord noticed, had already perceived that. So the context of Jn. 4:24 wasn't about the need for doctrinal / theological / intellectual truth. In Jn. 4:18 the Lord commends the woman because she &quot;spoke truthfully / truly&quot; about her marital state. As the Father was seeking &quot;spirit and truth&quot; worshippers, it was apparent to the disciples that the Lord Jesus was &quot;seeking&quot; this woman for God (Jn. 4:27). Her honesty meant she was beginning to worship in truth. And so He goes on to encourage her to worship God in spirit and truthfullness; her humble recognition of failure was the &quot;truth&quot; required for worship. But she needed to also accept the Spirit. She had the mind of David, who worshipped with 'truth in the inward parts' after recognizing his sin with Bathsheba. Notice how David says that God 'desires truth in the inward parts' (Ps. 51:6), and the Lord seems to be alluding to that when He says that God desires worship in spirit inward parts and truth. The context of sexual failure is the same for both the Samaritan woman, and David. If my reading of the allusions to David and Ps. 51 is correct, then the Lord wasn't talking at all about &quot;truth&quot; in the sense of pure theology. Rather was He referring to the &quot;truth&quot; of confession of sin and worship with a humble heart. It is the desperately repentant person who will fall down and worship God (Mt. 18:26 s.w.); this is the &quot;spirit and truth&quot; worshipper. And such a spirit is ultimately &quot;the truth&quot; which we are to finally arrive at.</p><p>The Jews and Samaritans had the idea that all they needed to do was to occasionally visit a place of worship in order to have a relationship with Him. The Lord, as His manner was, cut right across this by saying that as God is Spirit, so the true worshippers would worship Him in Spirit. If we believe that God is Spirit, if all He does and says constantly expresses His Spirit, then our lives likewise must be of non-stop worship, not through going occasionally into a temple or ecclesial meeting, but in living a spirit of life that worships Him in every situation (Jn. 4:20-24).</p><p><b>&quot;God is a Spirit&quot;</b><br />God&rsquo;s spirit is His power or breath by which His essential self, His being and character, is revealed to man through the actions which that spirit achieves. Thus &ldquo;God is spirit&rdquo;, as Jn. 4:24 should be properly translated (see R.S.V., N.I.V.), because His spirit reflects His personality.<br />God is described as being many things, e.g.<br />- &ldquo;Our God is a consuming fire&rdquo; (Heb. 12:29)<br />- &ldquo;God is light&rdquo; (1 Jn. 1:5)<br />- &ldquo;God is love&rdquo; (1 Jn. 4:8)<br />- &ldquo;The word (Greek <i>logos</i> - plan, purpose, idea) was God&rdquo; (Jn. 1:1).<br />Thus &ldquo;God is&rdquo; His characteristics. It is clearly wrong to argue that the abstract quality of love is &lsquo;God&rsquo;, just because we read that &ldquo;God is love&rdquo;. We may call someone &lsquo;kindness itself&rsquo;, but this does not mean that they are without physical existence - it is their manner of literal existence which reveals kindness to us.</p><p>The spirit being God&rsquo;s power, we frequently read of God sending or directing His spirit to achieve things in harmony with His will and character. Examples of this are numerous, showing the distinction between God and His spirit.<br />- &ldquo;He (God) that put His Holy Spirit within him&rdquo; (Is. 63:11)<br />- &ldquo;I (God) will put My spirit upon him (Jesus)&rdquo; (Mt. 12:18)<br />- &ldquo;The Father give(s) the Holy Spirit&rdquo; (Lk. 11:13)<br />- &ldquo;The Spirit descending from heaven&rdquo; (Jn. 1:32)<br />- &ldquo;I (God) will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh&rdquo; (Acts 2:17).<br />Indeed, the frequent references to &ldquo;the spirit of God&rdquo; should be proof enough that the spirit is not God personally. These differences between God and His spirit are another difficulty for those who believe that God is a &lsquo;trinity&rsquo; in which God the Father is equated with Jesus and the Holy Spirit.</p><p>Very importantly, a non-personal God makes a nonsense of prayer - to the point where prayer is a dialogue between our consciousness and a concept of God which just exists in our own mind. We are continually reminded that we pray to God who is in heaven (Ecc. 5:2; Mt. 6:9; 5:16; 1 Kings 8:30), and that Jesus is now at God&rsquo;s right hand there, to offer up our prayers (1 Pet. 3:22; Heb. 9:24). If God is not personal, such passages are made meaningless. But once God is understood as a real, loving Father, prayer to Him becomes a very real, tangible thing - actually talking to another being who we believe is very willing and able to respond.</p>