John 4:24 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

God is a Spirit. &c. “As a further answer to the woman's question, our Lord delivered a doctrine which may justly be called his own, as it exhibits an idea of God, and of the worship which is due to him, far more sublime than the best things said by the philosophers on that subject.” Christ came to declare God to us, and this he has declared concerning him, that he is a Spirit, and he declared it to this poor Samaritan woman, for the meanest are concerned to know God; and with this design, to rectify her mistakes concerning religious worship, to which nothing could contribute more than the right knowledge of God. 1st, God is a Spirit, for he is an infinite and eternal mind; an intelligent being, yea, the supreme Intelligence, who by one act sees the thoughts of all other intelligences whatever, and so may be worshipped in every place; he is incorporeal, immaterial, invisible, and incorruptible: for it is easier to say what he is not than what he is. If God were not a Spirit, he could not be perfect, nor infinite, nor eternal, nor independent, nor the Father of spirits. Now, 2d, on this spirituality of the divine nature is founded the necessity of the spirituality of divine worship; for the worship of God must partake of his nature: as his nature is spiritual, his worship, to be acceptable, must be so likewise. If we do not worship God, who is a Spirit, in spirit, we neither give him the glory due to his name, and so do not perform a real and proper act of worship, nor can we hope to attain his favour, and acceptance with him, and so we miss the end of worship. The exercise of faith and love, therefore, and of other graces, must constitute the true spiritual worship which we owe to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and which cannot but be acceptable to him, wherever it is offered, in whatever place, and by whatever person.