Does God have a soul?

And 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.

35 "Soul … spirit." Cf. Ps. 103:1; "all that is within me" (Maclaren). How closely connected, and yet distinct, "soul" and "spirit" are, is shown by Heb. 4:12. The difference broadens in the adjectives, "soulish" and "spiritual" in 1 Cor. 15:46. "All through Scripture," writes Professor Laidlaw, "spirit denotes life as coming from God; soul, life as constituted in the man" ("Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible," iv., p. 167). The "spirit" is the energy of a man. As for the soul, in it "lies the centre of his personality" (Orr, "God's Image in Man," p. 51). The view, however, of the writer last quoted, that "spirits that never had bodies could not be called souls" (ibid.), is questionable, as "soul" in Scripture has not "always" the connotation of body; see Lev. 26:11; Judges 10:16; Isa. 42:1. If that were so, there could be no objection taken to Kautzsch's saying (ibid., art. "Religion of the Old Testament") that in pre-prophetic times Jehovah was conceived of as having bodily form — a remark apparently based on such passages as Ex. 33:23.

God is Spirit. The Son—the second Person (in mention) of the Trinity—is Spirit. Where the Scriptures refer to the Spirit of God, it invariably means the Holy Spirit; for example, “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2) and “The Lord GOD and His Spirit hath sent Me” (Isa. 48:16). So apart from this, we should not speak of a Divine Person having a spirit, as it might appear to indicate that the Divine Spirit is only a part of the essence of His eternal Person. His inscrutable, eternal Person is essentially Spirit. In the Incarnation the Son took manhood into His Person—true manhood consisting of a human body, a human soul and a human spirit.

We must not expect to have man's inner nature, however, fully revealed in this initial revelation as to him. The language is pictorial and figurative largely, according to the usual character of the Old Testament. More is hidden than is openly declared. Plainly "of the earth, earthy," as the first man is, "the dust of the earth" is not all he is. Formed, as to his bodily frame, of this, God "breathes into his nostrils," communicating thus something from Himself, by virtue of which he becomes a living soul. Not even does this expression, "a living soul," give the full reality of what he is. The beast also is, and has, a living soul, — "everything wherein there is a living soul" is the description, in Genesis 1:30, of every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." "Likeness" to God cannot be affirmed of such an one as this, for God is not "soul," but "spirit," and the "Father of spirits." Man is thus alone in relationship to God, as possessing not only soul, but also spirit; that "spirit of man" which "knoweth the things of a man," and is his real distinction from the beasts that, as having no link with God or God's eternity, are "beasts that perish."

And this in man it is that shows him to be in the image of God. This has by some been referred to his position as His representative on earth, the head over all in it; but this is impossible as the true view, for in that case, he would not have been created in it. On the other hand, the parallel expression in the fifth chapter, where Adam is said to have begotten a son "after his image," may well explain the thought. We are thus the offspring of God;" as the apostle quotes to the Athenians. In man there are "spirit, soul, and body" (1 Thess. 5:23), and God is the "Father of spirits" (Heb. 12:9), Himself "Spirit." How clear this makes the statement in Genesis! Had it said "Father of souls," it would have made Him Father of the beasts.

"God is a spirit." He is the Being Who is spirit in essence. It is not merely that this is His character, as would be expressed if the phrase were "God is spirit." But God is a spirit. It refers to His being, to the Person. He has no bodily shape. He is not circumscribed like ourselves, and He is an omnipresent spirit, and therefore though in heaven, He is here, and we being spirit are in His presence.

When our Lord tells the woman of Samaria that "God is spirit" (John 4:24), He is teaching her that while the substance of God is immaterial and invisible, it is of the nature of spirit: He is not characterizing the spirit substance in God, not distinguishing it from the spirit substance in other spirit beings. There can be no doubt that the spirit substance of angels is not identical with the spirit substance in God, which is uncreated, underived, subsisting from everlasting to everlasting. Not so in angels. In them it is a created substance. But this distinction or difference is not the point in our Saviour's conversation with the Samaritan woman. He is emphasizing the fact that God being of a spirit substance, it is unsuited to worship Him with material things — with shadows. He should be worshiped in spirit and reality.

All through Scripture, from the first chapter of Genesis on, the beast is credited with a "soul." "Everything wherein there was a living soul' is the designation (in Gen. 1:30, Heb.) of the mere animal as distinct from man. True, man also is made a living soul; but that is not his highest-his special character. God is the "Father of spirits" (Heb. 12:9), not of souls; and as the son is in the image of his father, man is thus by a special work created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). Thus also it is the "spirit of man that is in him" that "knoweth the things of a man" (1 Cor. 2:11); and this spirit is therefore never ascribed to the beast. The writer of Ecclesiastes in his early "thoughts" raises a question about it, but which he answers at the close (3:21; 12:7), and it is merely the doubt of a man in a fog, not divine truth, as is evident, nor given as that.

In man, once more we have a distinct addition, that of spirit; and by this it is, clearly, that he is created in the image of God. For God is Spirit, and the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9). The son is therefore in the Father’s image; and in the human spirit, the mental and moral faculties are added to the instinctive and emotional ones. But then by this union the gain of the soul over that of the animal merely is easily to be seen. The law we have traced thus far manifests itself again; the soul in its turn acquires an inseparable union with spirit, by which it shares in the light of self-consciousness in which the spirit moves, and becomes partaker also in its immortality. The beast perishes, but not the soul of man, which they that kill the body cannot touch.9

"Spirit and soul and body," if we take Scripture, make up the man — not any class of men as such, but men in general. I say this, because some have the thought of "spirit" being the new nature, and of course only proper to the children of God. The mistake is founded on a misconception of John 3:6. But while "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" in its own nature, it is never called the spirit of man. "What man knoweth the things of a man," asks the apostle, "save the spirit of man which is in him?" (1 Cor. 2:11.) Thus the apprehension of all that is distinctively human belongs to the spirit and of course all men have it. The beast has not, and God is thus called exclusively the "God of the spirits of all flesh," and the "Father of spirits." The spirit it is that thus brings man into relationship with and responsibility to God, such as no beast has, nor can have. "Mind" proper is an essential characteristic of it. It is the highest part of his composite being: for "God is a Spirit," and the angels too are "spirits."