GOD DOES HAVE A BODY.

[EricH]

God made man in His image and likeness, so that means He looks like us, and we look like Him. God made us in His image and likeness, and if He does not have a body, how come you have a body? Common sense must prevail.

Couldn't His image and likeness be interpreted to mean righteous and holy?

Remember Adam was without sin when God first created him.

The bible also states that God is invisible and as someone already stated "a spirit".

Romans 1:22-23 says this...Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man...

Now I'm going to ask you something really stupid.....If God has a body and the earth is His footstool, why can't we see Him?

Great point. We need to be careful we no not read our assumptions onto what the word "image" means.

[Guest shiloh357]

Being created in God's image has to do more with moral quality rather than having anything to do with either matter or physical form, and that is explained to us in Genesis 1. God explains exactly what He meant when He said that He was creating man in His image.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:26)

Adam was created in the image of God with respect to authority and dominion over the works of God's hands in creation. Adam, in order to make this possible, was created with the ability to think in terms that God thinks in. Man can think in terms of highly complex and abstract, moral concepts, while the animal world relies primarily on instinct.

Man's dominion on earth was originally intended to be a microcosm, a miniature, siginficanty limited version God's own dominion over all of creation.

There is nothing in the passage to indicate that God was simply creating man to look like Himself in terms of physical appearance.

Also, it is precisely because God did not appear to Moses or the children of Israel in a physical form, that the rationale against creating a physical image of Him was based on in Exodus 20.

Idolatry is both creating am image of the true God and/or the creating of images of false gods for the purpose of worshiping either type of image.

God knew humnan nature and if he transformed Himself to any physical image, man would worship the image instead of Him.

I also believe that is why Jesus did leave any physical representations of Himself behind. Jesus didn't sit for any portraits for the very reason we see today how that some people are prone to venerating relics, "holy sites" and shrines.

[Guest shiloh357]

All that you wrote about dominion and ability is certainly true, but that doesn

[Guest shiloh357]

The idea that God has an image that we were created in comes from the Bible, of course. Haz made a very good case for this concept and I agreed with almost everything he put out in his OP.

No, it isn't in the Bible. In fact, it is Mormon doctine that God has a physical body. The Bible gives us nothing to suggest that God has a discernable body with physical features.

You have failed to show from scripture that God

[EricH]

Oh, btw, it hasn

[Guest shiloh357]

Oh, btw, it hasn

[HAZARD]

Oh, btw, it hasn

[Guest shiloh357]

Our bodies did not need to be created at all only God decided at some time in the past to create them. When he created our bodies He decided to creat them increated them in His image and likeness. He, God said to the Word who was with God and who created all things; " And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (Gen. 1:26). "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Gen. 1:27). When I look in a mirror and see myself standing there I see my image reflected back at me. So does every other human being on this planet. Now I dont have to wonder too long when I ask myself in who's image and likeness whas I created after reading Gen. 1:26-27).

You have still yet to demonstrate the a physical image is what God intended to mean. The context simply doesn't support it.

The Bible is not a mysterious, mystical book written by God for man that is hard to understand.

I agree, and the simplest, most accurate understanding is that God made man in His image with respect to His moral characteristics, not physical appearance.

They make God out to be incomprehensible and beyond human reason; yet they preach huge sermons and write books about the subject they admit they know very little about.

Not so. Their sermons are based upon both a knowledge what God has revealed and personal relationship with Him. The truth is we know very little about God. The Bible represents just a small corner of all that God knows and man has not even come close to exhausting the wisdom and knowledge contained in it.

We have all been taught that God cannot be comprehended,

The Bible teaches God is unsearchable and infinite.

He is just as tangible, and material as the bodies of all other spirit beings.

You have yet to demonstrate this.

Not one time in the entire Bible does one Scripture refer to God being bodily everywhere

The Scriptures do not teach that God has a body in the first place. God is noncorpreal in that He is a spirit.

[EricH]

Oh, btw, it hasn

[Guest shiloh357]

OK, I guess you still want to argue the points of this until Eric comes in and closes the thread. As you wish. Wouldn't want to actually be in a thread that didn't get closed.

You are free not to respond, you know.

Really what else would you expect it to say? God has blue eyes? God's arms are hairy? His hair is red? He has knobby knees?

If it were an attempt at a description, yes, that is exactly what I would expect. As it is there is nothing that can be construed as a description in any referece to God's arm, eyes, etc. It is simply describing action, not a literal body part, any more than him having "healing in his wings" literally means that God has wings like a bird.

How about here, where John sees him sitting:

11And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

Here he has a book in his hand:

Revelation 5

1And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.

And this one is quite explicit:

Ezekiel 1

1Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

Then, he describes several weird living creatures but notice what the appearance of God is:

26And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.

27And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.

28As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke.

Sounds like he is a spirit being with a spiritual body that is in appearance like the image of a man.

No, it sounds like God just allowed men to see Him in a form that they could communicate to us. Had they seen God as really is, they would not have survived to write about it.

Actually, we know from Genesis that it is man that has the appearance of the image of God.

No, we don't. That is pure conjecture.

Now does God have a real voice? If he has a voice, why doesn't he have a real mouth? Ears? Eyes? A face? Now who is not being consistent in their interpretation?

I am being perfectly consistent. Why would you think that God would have a "voice" as we understand a voice to be? God can speak in a voice we can understand when necessary, but that does not mean that God has a "voice" as is conventially understood in common parlance. God is not like us. There is nothing similar about us physically to His actualy essence and being.

Now, when you go to stand before the throne of God, do you think you are going to see a blob of light particles or a haze of some kind? Java the hut? Or like the Bible says; the form of a man, clothed in glory and a brilliant, flaming fire?

I will only be standing a the judgment seat of Christ, not at the great white throne. Jesus still has a body.

Think about God fashioning man from the dust of the ground instead of ignoring the context:

I am not ignoring the context at all. God defines for us exactly what He means by "image." He is not referring to a body, but to man's dominion and moral constitution being like His own.

I can't see how you can insist that this is just about dominion and not also the likeness of God. Why is that? Here is almost the same idea expressed except the image is Caesar's and the dominion is his empire:

Luke 20:24

Show me a penny. Whose image and superscription has it? They answered and said, Caesar's.25 And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's.

I suppose a penny had the "moral image" of Caesar listed on it.

Here a man is not supposed to cover his head because he bears the image of God:

1 Corinthians 11:6

6For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

7For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.

Do you want to say it's talking about not covering God's moral image? You're really stretching here.

No, you are just not applying proper hermeneutics to the issue. I did not say that the concept of "image" could not be used to denote a physical image in other contexts and other places in the Bible. I am simply saying that the use of "image" in Genesis 1 does not refer to man being made in God's physical image.

I don't buy your feigning confusion over what is a simile and what refers to an actual bodily form, either.

I am simply approaching this based on proper hermeneutic considerations. I am not reading anything into the text, as you are. I cannot tell you what to believe, but I am not going to sit here and pretend the texts say something that they don't.