“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” -John 4:24
Jonathan Harter focuses upon the phrase “in spirit and in truth.” His thesis: we must worship God as a spiritual being as revealed in His word, not as we imagine Him to be.
The children of Israel often turned from worshiping God as God instructed them, turning instead to idols. We as God’s children today are no less prone to idolatry. Now our idols are seldom statues or figures carved from wood or stone, but are just as offensive to God. When we break God’s law knowingly but seek to justify our actions in our own minds, we have built an idol.
Pushing aside Jesus, the God of the Bible, we construct an image of Jesus who approves or winks at our sin, and enshrine this false god as our savior. What cosmic irony: made in God’s image, we spend our lives making God in our own. Commanded to glorify and magnify our creator, we instead belittle Him, ignoring the clarity of revelation in His word and substituting the wicked and vain imaginations of our own hearts.
Having covered the thought of truth in this passage, Jonathan next studies what it means to worship God in spirit. Scriptures teach that man is made of body, soul, and spirit, but it is the spirit that is to lead us in worship. The body would demand objects of worship that can be perceived by the senses, as in materialism and paganism. The soul would seek stimulation of the intellect or of the emotions, both empty without the leading of the indwelling spirit of God, for which we must pray. Galations 5:22 record the marks, or fruit, that assure us when that spirit is present.
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