God’s Sense of Smell

4:18 "But I have received everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God."

This passage speaks as if God has a sense of smell. It implies that He can smell the gift of the Philippians to Paul and that it is to Him "a fragrant aroma."

We know that God doesn’t have a body, so He cannot have a nose. How then can He have nostrils (Isaiah 65:2) and a sense of smell?

God created man in His own image. Even man’s body was made in the image of God. This does not mean that God has a body, it means that the parts of man’s body were created by God to reflect His attributes and abilities in various ways. For instance, God has the ability to see and so He created man with eyes. God has the ability to speak so He created man with a mouth (etc.) that could speak. God has the ability to hear and so He created man with ears. Now of course our eyes and mouths and ears cannot do all the seeing and speaking and hearing that God can do (for His is infinite and all-knowing). But we can do a little of what He does.

One of the main reasons God made us like Him is so that we could learn about Him. Because we can see we know something about God from the fact that He can see.

What then can we learn about God from the Bible’s smelling/nostril language? We can learn that He discerns what is going on down here on the earth. And we can also learn that He has the capacity to be pleased or displeased by what He discerns.

Now these capacities that God has have also been given to us, though in a very small and earthly form. We think of this as our sense of smell. And having a sense of smell, we can then get a glimpse of something of what God is like.

We may be able to understand on some level that God discerns what is going on and is pleased or displeased with it. But by virtue of the fact that we have been given a sense of smell, we can actually experience something of what God experiences and thereby understand God in a much richer and fuller way.

If we had not been given the ability to smell a foul odor we would not be able to understand very fully what it means for God to be repulsed by something happening on the earth:

"I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts, a people who continually provoke Me to My face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on bricks; who sit among graves, and spend the night in secret places; who eat swine’s flesh, and the broth of unclean meat is in their pots; who say, ’Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am holier than you!’ These are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all the day." (Isaiah 65:2)

If we had not been given the ability to smell a fragrant aroma we would not be able to understand very fully what it means for God to be delighted by something happening on the earth:

"And the LORD smelled the soothing aroma [of Noah’s sacrifice]; and the LORD said to Himself, 'I will never again curse the ground on account of man...’" (Genesis 8:21)

God does have a sense of smell. It is the ultimate sense of smell. It is what our sense of smell was created to reflect.

O Lord, I want a fragrant aroma to rise to You in heaven from my life. I know that many of my thoughts, words and deeds must not smell very good to You in Your holiness. Please forgive me, cleansing me by the blood of Your blessed Son. And please form Christ in me, that my life might reflect Him. For I know that only His life can be pleasing to You. All my righteousness is but filthy rags. May my life be emptied of me and filled with Him.