Deut. 4:15-19 (ESV) “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. 19 And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.”
This passage speaks of God’s address to the people of Israel at Horeb (the area of Sinai where Moses received the Law – Ex. 19:7-9). Notice God speaks of not having a physical form for God is spirit (John 4:24). Spirits do not have physical forms.
This could well be one reason God does not want us to produce any images of Him. After all, how do you produce an image of something which has no physical form? So if God has no physical form but we give Him one, we have changed what God is. It’s a little like the argument against God changing His mind: If God were to change His mind, would He change it for the better or for the worse? Since He is omnibenevolent (infinitely good), He has “made up His mind” to do what is best. There can be nothing better. For the same reason, He cannot choose something worse. By nature He wants what is best.
The same logic applies here. Since God is the greatest of all possible beings, making an image of Him would lessen what He is by limiting Him to a physical form or representation.
An Obvious Problem:
Then what do we do with all those who say they saw God: Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Isaiah, Ezekiel, elders of Israel, and of course those who saw Jesus?
In Genesis Chapters 18 and 19, Abraham speaks with a man identified as YHWH: Gen. 18:1-2 (ESV) And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth
In Genesis 32:24-28 Jacob also saw God in the form of a man: 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Then, of course, Jesus appeared in the likeness of men (Phil. 2:5-7). This passage also says Jesus was not always “in the likeness of men” but was originally in the form of God (vs. 6). The word form in both verses 6 and 7 is the same, morphe, and in the same context, so if Jesus was a man while He walked the earth, then He was also just as assuredly God.
I get from this that God can take the form of man at will just as the two angels did in Luke 24:4 (ESV) While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. These two are identified as angels by John: John 20:12 (ESV) And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.
What Isaiah (6:1-5), Ezekiel (10:20), and Amos (9:1) saw were visions. They did not see God directly. Moses saw God’s glory or goodness, but not God Himself (Ex. 33:18-23).
Why is this important?
We can make God into something He’s not if we’re not careful. He’s not our servant, not our idol, not a photograph on the wall, a cross in our bedroom, nor a limited Being. There are gods created every day. Some put make up on their god or shave his face every morning. These are only gods because people have made them so, but there is only one God by nature:
1 Cor. 8:5-6 (ESV) For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 