Stambaugh Auditorium, Youngstown, Ohio
Sunday, September 9, 1962
Kathryn Kuhlman
DOES GOD HAVE A BODY?
I never announce my sermon subject. There are reasons. In the first place, I try to keep away from the spectacular, because you cannot build a solid work on the spectacular. If you are going to have a deep spiritual work, it must have as its foundation THE WORD OF GOD. That is why there has been no fanaticism in these services, when we have so much of the Power of God that people are actually healed sitting in their own seats. That makes the Power of God mighty real! And yet, with all of the Power of the Holy Ghost, we have no fanaticism whatsoever. POWER WITHOUT FANATICISM! Do you want to know why? Because this ministry has been founded on the Word of God. The enemy of your soul will never be able to make a nut out of you and you will never go off on the deep end, as long as you STAY WITH THE BIBLE. So we have tried to keep away from the spectacular in this ministry, and I never announce a sermon subject.
But the other day a question came in through the mail and I was asked to answer it, because there had been a controversy over it as to whether or not God had a body. I picked it up and read and laid it down. I picked it up again and laid it down. The third time I thought: I never heard a sermon on it and if folk are interested in it, then I am going to answer that question as to whether or not God had a physical body. This is my third sermon in a series that I started. And the amazing thing is that one of these days when you stand in His glorious presence, you will know exactly what you and I have been talking about in these three sermons.
I know somebody says: Does it make much difference whether or not God has a body? And I am talking about a body. You would be amazed how many people have gotten the idea that God is a Spirit. That is the reason to most folk God is not someone who is tangible. Their conception of God is one of mystery. You can sit in a congregation and listen to the minister for the first 5 minutes and you will know just exactly what his conception is of God. Many a minister cannot help someone else because he is not dead sure himself who God really is.
If I only knew God as a Creator, I wouldn’t care whether He had a body or not. If I only knew Him in the light of the Creator, I wouldn’t care what He looked like. I wouldn’t be interested as to whether or not He had a body. But He is more than the Mighty Creator to me. He is my Heavenly Father and as real to me as my earthly parent. He is as real to me as Papa. When I think of Papa, there is nothing more real to me than my Papa: his hair; the shoulder where I laid my head many a time; the tenderness of his hands; even his walk when he came down the street. Nobody walked like Papa. My Heavenly Father is just as real to me this hour as my Papa is real to me. I have been legally adopted of Him. He is more than a Creator. I am His heir, literally, beloved, I am an heir of God. I belong; I am His, kept in the hollow of His hand, overshadowed by His love. Then why shouldn’t I be interested as to whether or not He had a body and what He looked like?
If you want to know how tangible the Person of God is – and I said the Person of God – read again from the 33d chapter of Exodus, and you will know Him in His reality, even as Moses experienced the reality of Almighty God. Moses evidently had lived to see Him. So human. I love that human touch. It is such a comfort to me when I see these mighty spiritual giants, how human they were, and when I see how human Moses was. There is nothing more encouraging to me than to see how human Paul was, because sometimes I find myself so human – I think in some things a little more human than most folk. For more than once I looked up and said: Master, I can take anything, if I can just feel the touch of Your hand. I feel so alone sometimes. Mae said to me yesterday: Isn’t it wonderful to be loved by so many thousands of people. I said: But sometimes I feel like the loneliest person in the whole world. And I look up – Lord, just a touch!
And Moses said: ‘God, You and I are so close. You are there and I know You are there. I feel Your presence; You are tangible. And yet, there is that something that obstructs my view and I can’t see You. Please, just let me see You.’
Human! But aren’t you glad he was? Had he not been that human, you and I would not have this thrilling portion of Scripture as found in Exodus 33:18 through 23.
Verse 18:
“And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.”
Exodus 33:18
And this is God speaking now in verse 19:
“And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.”
Exodus 33:19
Verse 20:
“And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.”
Exodus 33:20
‘You can’t see my face.’ When somebody says they have seen the face of God, they tell an untruth, for you and I in this body which is corruption cannot look upon the face of God and live. No wonder people are struck by the Power of God with the moving of the Holy Ghost. That is no mystery to me. That is the most understandable thing in the world, for remember, the greatest power in the whole world is the Power of the Holy Ghost. This is yet corruption. This old body of ours can’t stand the Power of the Divine. I believe that if man, in this state, would actually, literally look into the face of Almighty God, this body of ours would be consumed. We couldn’t stand it! Therefore, marvel not when just the very presence of the Holy Ghost in great abundance strikes one down on their back. That is easily understood.
Verses 21 through 23:
“And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
Exodus 33:21-23
“And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
“And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.”
If God did not have a hand, He would not have spoken of His hand. It is a language all of us can understand. When God spoke of His hand, we understand clearly what He was talking about: the 4 fingers and the thumb. “I’ll cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand – after I have completely gone past you – and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.” Therefore, we know from this Scripture that God does have a body. And Moses that day felt the hand of God Almighty cover his face, and after God had passed by and the hand was removed me thinks Moses saw exactly what God said he would see: the back parts of Almighty God. I believe that he saw His shoulders; he saw His back. He literally saw the body of Almighty God.
A fool is the man or the woman who will take issue with the fact that God does have a body. The Scripture clearly teaches it.
God is a person who can both write and speak. He wrote the two tables of testimony on stone. He wrote on the wall of Belshazzar’s palace. He not only wrote, He talked with Moses on the Mount. At the time of the baptism of Jesus when Jesus came up from out of the water, God spoke and said: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus had but one Father, and that was, the Heavenly Father. God spoke that day and what was heard was the voice of God. He spoke again on the Mount of Transfiguration.
God is a Person, one who has a body, one who both writes and speaks, but remember something. God is also a Spirit. The Bible clearly teaches that: “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.” Therefore, we see that God has both a body and that He is a Spirit. Keep that in mind. God has both a body and a spirit. I shall come back to that in just a few minutes.
Go back to the very first book in the Bible. Go back to Genesis 1 – to the Creation, verse 26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness…” What could be more understandable than that? “Let us.” To whom was He speaking? There was more than one when He said, “Let us.” Present we have God the Father, Jesus Christ the son, and the Holy Ghost. All Three were present at the time of the Creation. We only think of God being the Mighty Creator, we only think of God in the light of Creator, but there, in that first chapter of Genesis, we have all Three Persons present – One never working separate and apart from the other. They work in perfect unity and harmony. They work as One, but yet, they are Three Persons. Never does One work separate and apart from the other. Know that! The Holy Ghost is here on this earth today and never works separate and apart from the will of God in heaven. Therefore, at the time of the Creation, they were together as One, yet Three Persons. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, …” What could be plainer? You say to a youngster – the spitting image of his father. You need no explanation. You know exactly what that one means. There is no mystery about that.
Go on to Genesis 2:7:
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
Genesis 2:7
Therefore, at that very moment, we see man as a strange combination of both the temporal and the eternal. “…the dust of the ground.” There is nothing spiritual about that. There is nothing eternal about that. “… the dust of the ground;” temporal. And God formed man, this physical body, from the dust of the ground and then, He breathed into him a part of His own spirit; and in breathing into man and giving man a very part of Himself, He has given to man that which is eternal. Man received at that moment both body and spirit; the strange combination of the temporal and the eternal. That which is temporal was made in the image of God, but not eternal. But the spirit is eternal, forever and forever, eternity in the future. We talk about eternity past. Beloved, there is an eternity in the future, and man is as eternal as God Himself, for when God breathed into the body of man, at the time of his creation, when He gave him His own spirit, it made man eternal. Man today is also a trinity: body, soul and spirit. The body made in the image of God, but not eternal. The spirit is the God-conscious nature of man. Man is also a spirit.
That is one thing that is hard to conceive of when you think about the body of God. Remember, God is Spirit, but God also has a body. As surely as God is Spirit, so is man spirit. I am spirit; you are spirit. We never think of it in that light. The spirit is the God-conscious nature of man. That is the reason that every man and every woman who breathes the breath of life has within himself a consciousness of Almighty God. I don’t care who the person is. You will never make me believe that anyone who has ever lived has not had a consciousness of Almighty God. You and I were born with a capacity for Almighty God. The man may be an infidel, the man may have so quenched the Spirit, the man or the woman may have refused the things of God, they may have closed a door and barred themselves against the things of God; but when that person was born, they were born with a capacity for God. There isn’t a heathen in Darkest Africa but what has a consciousness of a Mighty Creator and of somebody who is eternal.
The soulish part of man is the seat of the self-conscious nature; the seat of our affection, our memory. But the two principle parts of man are the body and the spirit. One is physical; the other is spiritual. You will be you forever and forever. I will be me forever and forever. No grave in any cemetery will ever destroy that person of me that is eternal. No fire will ever destroy that part of me that is part of Him that is spirit. No water, no flood, no power will ever be able to destroy that part of me that is spirit. It is eternal because it was given to me.
Oh, I know, many a man or many a woman would give anything in the world if they could know of a truth that when the minister pronounces the words “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” that that will be the end. There is many a person who would give anything in the world to know that when that heart takes its last beat that that is the end. But there is something away down deep in one’s inner most being that tells you, that man knows it isn’t the end. And many a person that has denied the existence and the reality of Almighty God, with the very last breath that they took, cried out: Oh, God! That part of them that was eternal cried to the Eternal.
Sometimes I think it is the hardest thing in the world for man to explain and understand the trinity and yet, it is so simple.
I do not know whether or not you are so hungry for the truth as I am. Every atom of my being cries out for it. It is the most important thing in the whole world to me. Every atom of my being cries out to know. As I search the Scripture, I am searching not just for you, I am searching for me, too. I want to know, for most of me is already over there. Don’t you understand! I want to know the TRUTH! I want to know what I am living for. I want to know how to live. I am living my life for something I believe, and if I didn’t believe it, don’t think I would work like a dog. I believe it with every atom of my being. And the more I know, the greater is my cry for more knowledge.
Let me give you something that perhaps is the only thing I can give you. The peach has a trinity. There is the flesh of the peach. That is the outside that we eat. Whenever we think about a peach, we think of that which we eat. To most of us that is the most important thing. But there is the flesh of the peach – the part we eat – and inside of that – you don’t see it now because you only see the part that you eat – after you have eaten the flesh, there is a stone. Every peach has a stone. I don’t care what kind of a peach it is. Inside of that peach, there is a stone, and inside of that stone, there is a kernel. We never think about the trinity of the peach.
What the flesh is to the peach, so is the body to man. That is all that most of us see when we see each other. We see the flesh, just as you see the outside of the peach. Man spends most of his earnings on that which he can see. Why? Because men are so shortsighted. All they see is just the outside; the flesh. And they spend most of their lives taking care of the flesh. When I look at you, all that I can see is just the outside, but that is the body. We spend most of our paycheck clothing the body; feeding the body; taking care of the body. And yet that is the least important, because that which is on the outside is worth less than one dollar.
The body of that loved one that was so cherished here on the earth has gone back to the dust of the earth from whence it came, because this, which is the outside of the body, God made from the dust of the earth. It is only temporal. Do anything that you want to do with the body after the old heart has taken its last beat. Try everything you care to try to preserve the body. It still goes back to the dust from whence it came. It is temporal, just as the flesh of this peach will start to rot. Keep it a week and it isn’t long before it is going to rot and be bad. It is going to stink to high heaven, just as the old physical body does.
I am created as one. But remember something. Inside of this flesh there is a stone, and what the stone is to the peach, so is the soul to man. The soul is a covering for the spirit. You come to the stone of this peach and you say that is all that is there. It is just a stone. But that stone covers something. That stone covers the kernel, and the life is in that kernel – the most important thing of this entire peach. The life is right there in that kernel. Inside of that stone is a kernel, and that is what the spirit is to the soul. The soul covers the spirit like a glove would cover the hand.
And, beloved, when death comes, two-thirds of man leaves that body. We bury only one-third of man: the body. But two-thirds of me, you will never bury. Two-thirds of Eve – oh, what you saw here was just the body. And Willie’s boy had it right. His sister had told him that Miss Kuhlman said that when a person dies, they go to be with Jesus and they are not in that body. Miss Eve wasn’t there anyway, so why couldn’t they have had the carnival (the Children’s Church Festival). No grave will ever hold my spirit. No grave will ever hold your spirit. No grave will ever hold your soul. No grave will ever hold my soul. When that heart takes its last beat and breath has left this body of mine, all that remains is just the body, which will go back to the dust of the earth again; but that soul and that spirit goes to be in the presence of the Lord. And those who belong to Him know that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”
Let me read to you a portion of the Word of God as found in II Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 1 through 8:
Verse 1:
“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
2-Corinthians 5:1
“… we have a building of God.” When? A thousand years later? A million years later? No. At the same time that the house of this earthly tabernacle is dissolved. We HAVE, not TO HAVE. We HAVE – present.
Verses 2 through 8:
“For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
2-Corinthians 5:2-8
“If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
“For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
“Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
“Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are
at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
“(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
Therefore, death does not destroy either the soul or the spirit. You know, the amazing thing about this which you and I are unfolding is that it concerns you. I am describing you. Every person here has a body that is going back to the dust of the earth. Inside of that body is a soul and spirit that is eternal.
I am going to answer a question: “What will my resurrected body be like?” I am talking now about the resurrected body, for as surely as God created man as a trinity – body, soul and spirit, one day man will again be a trinity – soul and spirit, and a perfect body. For the Bible teaches that one day this, which is now corruption, will have put on incorruption and this, which is now mortal, will have put on immortality. There will be a PERFECT BODY in which there will abide both the spirit and the soul. Know that!
I give you the Scripture as found in I Timothy 3:16:
“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”
1-Timothy 3:16
Remember, that Jesus was God manifested in the flesh, becoming to men the image of the invisible God. Yet, when it became necessary for the purpose of redemption, Jesus took upon Himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man. Jesus was the image of the invisible God, for over and over again He made it very clear that “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”
Oh, that was marvelous, when they came and said: ‘Master, tell us, what is the Father like? What does the Father look like?’ Had I been there I probably would have been the one to ask that question. ‘He is so real to You, but tell us, confidentially, what is the Father really like?’ And Jesus answered that question by saying: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. ‘He is like me in disposition; He is like Me in love.’ “
Do you want to know what the Heavenly Father is really like? He is so different than most folk think of Him as being. The tenderest words that Jesus spoke were to the woman who was taken in the very act of adultery. But don’t forget, the wrath of God is as perfect as His love. Do you want to know what the love of God the Father is really like? When they brought the woman who was taken in the very act of adultery to Jesus – and the witnesses were there – she didn’t deny it, not for one minute did she deny it. And Jesus looked upon the harlot – a woman that probably you and I in the natural would turn from – and in tenderness He said: “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” Do you want to know the tenderness of God? And yet, do you know the hatred that God has for self-righteousness? And the world is loaded with it. Our pulpits and our pews are filled with it. See the Master as He went into the temple and overturned the tables and called their self-righteousness “filthy rags.” He called the individuals snakes and vipers. If you want to know what God is really like, that’s it. “HE THAT HATH SEEN ME HATH SEEN THE FATHER.”
But, beloved, Jesus, as He came to this earth in the form of a babe, did not come in the body that He now has, and the body in which He came was a body created by God Himself for a definite purpose. And remember, in that body there did not flow one drop of Mary’s blood. There was not one drop of Jewish ancestry in that body, for God knows no such thing as nationality. That was a CREATED BODY and, in creating that body for His only begotten Son, in that body was PURE BLOOD, SINLESS, STAINLESS BLOOD. For if the blood of a Jew could have atoned for sin of man, Mary, Abraham, Isaiah or Jeremiah could have died for the soul of men. It was not the blood of Mary. There was no nationality in that blood. That was sinless, perfect blood; that was a created body, created by the Father Himself.
The body which Jesus now has is not the same body that He came to earth with. When it became necessary for the purpose of redemption, He took upon Himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man – a human body with blood. But know something. The resurrected body, our new bodies, when again this spirit and this soul are clothed upon with a perfect body, that body will be without blood. How do I know? I’ll tell you why. The Word of God says “that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”
The physical life is in the blood. There is enough death in our blood stream that if the impurities were not constantly being carried off, we would die instantly. The life is in the blood.
Remember something. In these new bodies of ours when the spirit and soul have been clothed upon with that which is incorruptible and that which is immortal, there will not be any death in that body. There will be no sickness in that body. There will be no blood in that body. You and I will have the same kind of body that Jesus had when He left this old earth: a body without blood, yet a body with bone and flesh. But not the kind of flesh that can yield to temptation.
Let me read to you just one Scripture. It is better than anything that I can say to you. It is after the resurrection and Jesus appeared unto the disciples. Remember, before the resurrection, before Calvary, He had taken upon Himself a physical body that could be tempted. If it had not been so, the temptations of Jesus by Satan were a farce. He was as much man as though He were not God and as much God as though He were not man, until after His death and resurrection. He appears now, not in the body with blood, not in the body that Satan could touch, not in a body such as you and I have, not incorruption.
Turn to Luke 24:36 to 39:
“And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
Luke 24:36-39
“But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.
“And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
“Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
“… handle me.” ‘You don’t handle a spirit. Put your hand in My hand. Put your hand on My shoulder.’ Oh, this is thrilling! Do you want to know why it is so thrilling? Because, beloved, one of these days, you and I are going to have the same kind of body that Jesus had; the same kind of body that I am talking about now in the Scripture.
Continuing with verses 40 to 43:
“And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.
Luke 24: 40-43
“And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?
“And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.
“And he took it, and did eat before them.”
Now, turn to Revelation 22:1 to 4:
“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
Revelation 22:1-4
“In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
“And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:
“And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.”
And in Revelation 21:1 to 4:
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
Revelation 21:1-4
“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
“And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
There is coming a day when God Himself will take those hands with which He wrote on the tables of stone and on the wall of Belshazzar’s palace, those same hands that covered the eyes of Moses one day, and He will wipe the tears away from your eves and from my eyes; and there will be no more weeping. One of these days, when this mortal will have put on immortality, and when this which is now corruption will have put on incorruption, I shall see Him face to face. It doesn’t say that I shall just see His face. It says that He shall look upon my face and I will look upon His face. We both have bodies. I shall look upon the face of my loved ones and they shall look upon my face. Papa will say – That’s my girl; and I’ll say – That is Papa. Eve will say – Pastor; and I’ll say – Eve. Face to face.
“… and his name shall be in their foreheads. ” In our foreheads will be the name of the One who means more than this whole world to us: our wonderful Jesus who has made all of these things possible to us.
That is as real as the air that I breathe. It is the most important thing in the world to each of us. The connection is so close between the temporal and the eternal. Our eyesight is so dim. We think it is away off someplace and yet, it is so close, so near. In a split second, quicker than you can bat an eye, you can go all the way from earth to Glory. Not a long journey; it is so close.
REMEMBER TO WHOM YOU BELONG!
PRAISE THE LORD!!!
