Does God have a soul?
Scripture does put the words "my soul" in God's mouth: He delights in His Servant, He hates empty feast-days, He has no pleasure in the one who shrinks back. Yet the same Bible says God is spirit — so is this language telling us that God has a soul like ours, or telling us something else?
God is spirit
Commentators start from what Scripture says about God's own nature. He is not made of anything, and no eye has ever taken Him in.
Samuel RidoutGod, a Spirit. Of the nature and attributes of God as revealed in the Trinity, the four Gospels give us abundant material. "God is spirit" (John 4:24); "No one has ever seen God" (John 1:18). These and other Scriptures declare the spirituality of God as contrasted with man His creature, or the universe His creation.
God is never called a soul
The distinction that settles the question is between what God says and what God is called. One writer states it in a single line.
Frederick William GrantAnd if God speaks of His "soul," condescending as He does to our familiar human speech, He is never called a soul as He is a spirit.
"Soul" is in fact the word that marks out a rank of creature, not a title of deity. The same writer notes where it places man among God's creatures.
Frederick William GrantThe angels are spirits, never souls. The distinction between them and man, "made a little lower than the angels," is thus that man is a soul. That which links him with the inferior creatures is that which distinguishes him from pure "spirits," such as angels are.
God borrows our words on purpose
The Bible speaks freely of God's arm, His eyes, His hand. Readers are meant to take the meaning, not the anatomy.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe member of the body which is capable of lifting burdens and defending the person: it is used symbolically for the power and strength of God on behalf of His saints.
This stooping to ordinary speech has a warm motive behind it. Commenting on God saying He would go down and see whether Sodom was as bad as the outcry against it, one writer explains why God talks like that at all.
William KellyHe is speaking here just after the manner of men. Jehovah adopts the familiar language of common life, and stoops to fit Himself to what anyone could understand in a man. It is wholly above our understanding how God knows all things at once, without inquiry or investigation. He condescends here to speak so that Abraham might be thoroughly free in His presence.
What "my soul" is meant to convey
Human wording, but not empty wording. When God says His soul delights in His Servant, He is opening His own affections to us, and one writer distinguishes that from the Father's word at the baptism.
William J HockingFrom everlasting, the Father found His delight in His beloved Son, as also, in another place, we read that Jehovah's soul delights in His beloved Servant (Isa. 42:1; Matt. 12:18); the former in what He is personally, the latter in what He is mediatorially.
The same expression carries the opposite feeling, and it lands on how a believer walks through this world.
J. G. BellettI am not to count on a path of pleasure — a path of ease — a path of prosperity — on being richer or more distinguished tomorrow than today; but I am to count on a path of patience... "if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." He was not ashamed to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were strangers here; but if we become citizens here instead of strangers — make an alliance with the world — He who could say, "I am the God of my strangers," can say to the citizen of the world, "I have no pleasure in him."
The one place a soul is truly there
There is a point where this stops being figure of speech. In Gethsemane the Son of God, become man, speaks of His soul — and writers insist the words are literal.
William KellyHe had a real soul, what is dogmatically called a reasonable soul, not a mere principle of vitality. He could not have said this if it were true, as some have asserted, that the Divine nature in our Lord took the place of a soul. He would not have been perfect man had He not taken a soul as well as a body. Therefore He could say: "Not what I will, but what You will."
Summary
- Spirit. God's nature is spirit, unseen and unlike anything in His creation — that is the fixed starting point every other answer must fit.
- Never a soul. He speaks of His soul, but Scripture never calls Him one; "soul" is the word that ranks man below angels, not a description of God.
- Borrowed speech. His arm stands for His strength, and He talks in ordinary human terms so that people can be at ease in His presence, not confused about His being.
- Real feeling. The borrowed word carries genuine affection: His soul delights in His Servant, and it has no pleasure in the one who shrinks back and settles down in the world.
- A real soul in Christ. Only in the Son become man is a soul literally His — He took a true human soul as well as a body, or He would not be perfect man.