God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Read Chapter 4
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
And again, if the impious say, How will there not be three Gods and three Persons, on the supposition that they have one and the same divinity?-we shall reply: Just because God is the Cause and Father of the Son; and this Son is the image and offspring of the Father, and not His brother; and the Spirit in like manner is the Spirit of God, as it is written, "God is a Spirit.".
For thus the Father is Lord, and the Son also is God; and of God it is said that "God is a Spirit."
But when He says this, He declares nothing else than His incorporeal Nature. Now the service of that which is incorporeal must needs be of the same character, and must be offered by that in us which is incorporeal, to wit, the soul, and purity of mind. Wherefore He says, they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth. For because both Samaritans and Jews were careless about the soul, but took great pains about the body, cleansing it in various ways, it is not, He says, by purity of body, but by that which is incorporeal in us, namely the mind, that the incorporeal One is served. Sacrifice then not sheep and calves, but dedicate yourself to the Lord; make yourself a holocaust, this is to offer a living sacrifice. You must worship in truth ; as former things were types, such as circumcision, and whole burnt offerings, and victims, and incense, they now no longer exist, but all is truth. For a man must now circumcise not his flesh, but his evil thoughts, and crucify himse...
On the ground that "God is a Spirit".
In what form of God? Of course he means in some form, not in none. For who will deny that God is a body, although "God is a Spirit? ".
As being more proximate in character to God.
