Polaris said:
As a Catholic, you ASSUME that it is not physical because you believe God doesn't have a body. I believe it refers to physical in this passage because the context is concerning a physical creation. Why should we assume that all of a sudden the context completely changed?
No, I don't assume it, because I've already established with Scriptural cross-referencing that God's image is something we are conformed to spiritually, not something physical. However, you have provided no such cross-referencing which demonstrates that image is explicitly physical. Thus, you are the one assuming.
Again, you have to consider the context of its usage. The whole point of this passage is that we must worship in spirit.
Exactly. Our worship of God is spiritual, not something physical for outward appearances.
That is the only way we can commune with God is through the spirit.
In other words, through supernatural, immaterial communion with an infinite, omnipresent God.
In that context, the statement "God is spirit" makes perfect sense and is not the same thing as saying "God has no physical body".
Why not? Jesus explicitly tells us that a spirit does not have flesh and bones.
The fact that God has a spiritual nature and that we are to worship through the spirit is the whole message here.
Yes, clearly...however, that doesn't negate the clear meaning of the statement, especially in light of the definition Christ gives us.
Obviously you like to establish definitions for "ambiguous" words from other passages.
Well, yeah, that's kinda how one does a Bible study
. You don't typically just examine one passage, you cross-reference with other Scripture to make the meaning more clear.
In certain cases that works just fine, but it doesn't ALWAYS work that way. Because words like "image", "likeness", and "spirit" can have slightly different meanings, each with their own subtle differences, you have to consider the immediate context in which it is used.
And again, I did consider the immediate contexts. Both cases, Old and New Testament, pertain to how we humans relate to God's image.
True, without inspired clarification on the topic, I'd admit that your interpretation is potentially valid, but you cannot reasonably declare our interpretation to be contextually wrong.
Yes, I can, because it is clear from the examples that I have provided that imaghe is explicitly spiritual in a number of Scriptural cases, while you have not established that any example of image is explicitly physical.
FGS