GOD is SPIRIT, Part 1
*******
God Is Infinite Spirit
*******
Besides the names God and Lord God, perhaps Spirit is the next most frequently mentioned name for God in the Scriptures. It appears about forty times in the Old Testament, often as Spirit of God or Spirit of the Lord, with Spirit either capitalized or not, depending on the translator, and about twice that many times in the New Testament …
The idea that God is Spirit is found in both the Old and New Testaments, as cited above. Let’s now examine some of the many references to God as Spirit by other writers. There was a flurry of such references in the fourth century of the Christian era.
St. Bazil, Archbishop of Caesarea — “Spirit of God,” “Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father,” “right Spirit,” “a leading Spirit.” Its proper and peculiar title is “Holy Spirit”
St. Gregory Nazinanzen, Archbishop of Constantinople — “On the Holy Spirit” as The Fifth Theological Oration … and I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the understanding also; — that is, in the mind and in the Spirit.
St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan — Of the Holy Spirit, … “Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy face.” … “And as it is said the Word of Life, so, too, the Spirit of Life. Therefore, as the Word of Life is Life, so, too, the Spirit of Life is Life.”
St. Jerome, Latin scholar — “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth”
John of Damascus, Governor of Damascus and Greek theologian — Exposition of the Orthodox Faith: “God … is called Mind and Reason and Spirit and Wisdom and Power”
Richard Trench — The Parables of Our Lord, the expression in his chapter on the ten virgins, “the informing Spirit of God”
William Wordsworth — The Prelude (line 401) “Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!”
Samuel T. Coleridge — This Lime-tree Bower My Prison (line 42) “the Almighty Spirit.”
Lord Byron — Sonnet on Chillon “Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!”