Does God Have a Body? || Genesis 3:8
I enjoy the aroma of meat being grilled and the smell of smoke from burning cedar logs in our fireplace during the winter season. But without a nose, one of our key senses, the aroma of sizzling pork chops or freshly-split cedar logs would remain undetectable. The nose is a non-negotiable. It makes the enjoyment possible.
If Israel’s God could smell the pleasing aroma of the burning meat sacrifices offered up to Him in the courtyard of the Tabernacle, doesn’t that suggest He possessed a body-part that could smell? How could an invisible God without a body or nose smell the aroma of sacrifices unless he had some type of a nose (Lev 1:9, 13)?
Moses was forbidden from seeing Yahweh’s face, but he was allowed to briefly see His back. That Yahweh had a face and a back seems clear. Yahweh promised to cover Moses with His hand while He passed by (must have been a large hand!). Yahweh possessed a hand. Apparently, it was less risky or harmful for Moses to see Yahweh’s back than His face (Exodus 33).
So, how could Yahweh have a face, a back, and a hand, but without inhabiting a body of some sort?
These and other questions about God’s corporeality have pestered me since my post-graduate days under Dr. John H. Sailhamer. Like every other student, I came to the table assuming Israel’s God had no body. That basic premise governed all lectures and discussions. So, despite abundant evidence to the contrary in the biblical text, in both Old or New Testaments, textual evidence of God’s corporeality was denied, dismissed, ignored, or explained away. The underlying premise gagged and mugged any further discussion. I will argue that we need to modify that governing premise and stop gagging and mugging the biblical text.
Walking Requires a Body with Legs
Let me explain why. I learned so much from my first post-graduate supervisor, the late John Sailhamer (ThM, PhD) esteemed professor of Hebrew Scriptures. He taught me to view the Scriptures canonically, an approach I was unaware of throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies.
The focus of my doctoral thesis was on the Hebrew verb “walk,” “to stroll,” in the Hithpael stem of the verb. This common verb “walk” in the Hithpael stem, is first used in Genesis 3:8:
“Now the LORD God used to take strolls/walks in the Garden in the breezy time of the day.”
The Hithpael stem makes this verb “to walk” or “to take a stroll” convey a repeated action. So an appropriate and nuanced translation of Genesis 3:8 is that Yahweh (“the LORD”), the One through whom the Land and the Garden was made and shaped, made it a regular habit of taking strolls back and forth in his own Garden.
The apostles Paul, John, and the author of Hebrews specifically identify this same Yahweh as the Creator, the Son of God, the Firstborn, and the visible image of God.[1] He continually took walks in his own Garden when the breezes blew. We can safely assume that this habit of taking strolls in his Garden were often made with Adam and Eve, the two human beings he also created and shaped. It was he who blew the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils.
However, after the entrance of sin (Gen. 3), the relationship changed from fellowship to fear. Adam heard the sound of Yahweh walking, this same LORD, going for another stroll in the Garden. But rather than walking toward him and meeting up for fellowship, Adam and Eve fled to the trees in fear.
Based upon this picture, I used to suggest to Dr. Sailhamer that a creature, whether divine or human, who takes a walk, or a stroll, is a creature with a body that has legs, feet, and toes. The Genesis author did not write that “the LORD God used to swoop around the Garden or glide or fly around noiselessly in the Garden air like a friendly ghost.” Instead, he walked around. He walked back and forth.
Adam heard the sound the LORD God made while taking his normal walk, and so he hid himself among the trees of the Garden. The LORD God made a sound that Adam apparently could hear some distance away. What sort of sound did his ears hear?
But the LORD called to the man: Where are you? He answered: I heard you in the Garden and I was afraid because I was naked; so, I hid. (Gen. 3:10)
Observe: The LORD called to the man. Don’t you think he had a mouth with which to call the man? He asked, “Where are you?” He was looking for Adam but did not see him. How would he see Adam if he did not have a body with eyes to see?
Also, Adam answered his call. How did the LORD hear what Adam said in reply without having ears to hear? Note also that Adam was not afraid of seeing the body of the divine LORD God (like Moses), but was ashamed and embarrassed by the fact that he was naked (Gen 3:8-9).
I suggested to my supervisor that the description of the Son of God in Genesis 1 and 3 was one which showed that he had a body of some sort. To blow life-giving breath into Adam’s nostrils, he needed a head with a mouth or some type of body-part to blow life-giving air. The nature of the LORD’s divine body was unknown, different than the body of the two people he had made and shaped from the dust of the ground. The nature of his divine body remained a mystery. But that he had a body with functional parts for seeing, speaking, hearing, and walking, a body with shape and form, seemed natural to the scene.
This one example from Genesis 3:8 of the LORD God having some type of a body — even a supernatural body — different from the human body in terms its nature, represents just a taste of the whole cake. The evidence for God the Son, in his pre-incarnate state, having a body is profuse, whether we examine the Hebrew or Greek Testaments.
This Sunday, June 18, 2023
This coming Sunday, June 18, 2023, at Redeemer Bible Church, I will travel through the both Old and New Testaments and show multiple examples as to why there is a strong case to be made that the eternal Son of God, the one who used to walk upright in his own Garden in the breezy time of the day, possessed an eternal body, after whom the shape and form of our own human bodies were made, though ours are mortal and made of dust.
Q/A to follow.
This expository message and my claim about the corporeality of God the Son is at a pioneer stage, in great need of further development; thus, it will not be recorded. If your interest is piqued, please consider attending worship with us.
Thank you for reading.
Note:
[1] See Colossians 1:15-16; John 1:1-3; Heb 1:1-5.