What does the Bible say God looks like?

"God is a spirit." He is the Being Who is spirit in essence. It is not merely that this is His character, as would be expressed if the phrase were "God is spirit." But God is a spirit. It refers to His being, to the Person. He has no bodily shape. He is not circumscribed like ourselves, and He is an omnipresent spirit, and therefore though in heaven, He is here, and we being spirit are in His presence.

The mind of man craves for some representation of the being he worships. From the degraded savage who tries to represent the supernatural forces around him by amulets and charms, to the idolater who invests his carved or molten image with divine powers, or the devotee who vainly prostrates himself before crucifix or images of saints, all betray this instinct for a tangible representation of the object of worship. Christ is the Image of God. An image of Christ is therefore absurd, and a negation of all that He is; for if He be the Image of God, why require an image of Him? God as God is invisible. He fills heaven and earth, and no finite creature could take account of so glorious a Being whose time is eternity, whose dimension is space, whose being is Spirit. There was every necessity why He should be adequately represented to our ken. But who among created beings could be the embodiment of the Uncreate? Our marvel is that all that God is in His own being is adequately set forth in Christ. There was no deficiency in Him; He brought down here the entire fullness of the Godhead — setting it forth without flaw from the stable of Bethlehem, the waters of Jordan, and the synagogue of Nazareth, right on to the grave of Lazarus, the garden of Gethsemane, the cross of Golgotha, the emptied tomb, and the throne of glory. There is no one else capable of compassing in his own person all the majesty and the nature of God. Jesus is the Son; there is therefore, no disparity between Him and God, in Him was most perfectly expressed every element in the divine nature. Renewed by grace, we draw near to our Saviour with unshod feet and gaze into His face; and in Him is the absolute, complete, final revelation of God. Never, in any religion or philosophy before, has it been written "GOD IS LOVE." But the truth is out now — in Jesus. God's nature is disclosed, set before men and celestial beings, revealed in the Man who is also, and must be, eternal Son.

But that is not all. He lets them know they are to render to God the things that are God’s. If the coin bore the image of Caesar, and therefore was his, on whom was the image of God stamped? It was stamped at the beginning upon man, and in spite of the fall it has not been altogether effaced. The image and superscription of God are still discernable. Man was made in the image and likeness of God. No, I do not mean that skeleton of yours with its load of human flesh, sheltering something that death cannot touch. Infidels tell us that Scripture represents man as in God’s image, and that man is framed much after their ancestors that lived among the trees of the wood. I do not mind in the least whether a man’s skeleton is, or is not, like that of a gorilla, a chimpanzee, or a dog-faced baboon; God has made him in His own image and likeness, and this is moral, not physical. Man has been set as centre and head over a system that has been subjected to him, and upon which are his fear and his dread. Not only this, but he has been endowed with an affectionate regard for all that have been placed under his dominion. In this way, and not as to his physical frame, is man the image of God.

Yet at this time Moses was denied the full answer to his prayer. Moses could not see God's face, for no one could see Him and live (v. 20). Yet the Lord would encourage him by what we may consider a partial revelation of His nature or character. He tells Moses to stand on a rock, and that God would put Moses in a cleft place in the rock while God passed by. He would cover Moses with His hand, however, so that Moses would only see God's back parts, not His face.

On God's part this was a condescending act of grace. For God's glory is so great that it is impossible for a creature to even imagine what He looks like. How can we ever comprehend a Being like this? But Moses seeing God's back parts is only symbolical of people in the Old Testament seeing the evidence of God's having been there. We too can read the Old Testament and conclude that God has certainly been present there, but not revealed as He is now in Christ.

He is the image of the invisible God; that is, the God whom no man can see is found in Jesus. Every eye in redeemed creation shall be lit up with the glory of Jesus. He will represent God in creation, and will present Him perfectly to all. There will be no lack of light, for the One who is the image of the Invisible is Himself God, and therefore as far as God can be seen by the creature He will be seen in Jesus. He could say when here upon earth, “He that has seen Me has seen the Father.” In Him, in the days of His humiliation, the manifestation of God was perfect, for He could not be other than He was, and He was God manifest in flesh. When one of His disciples said to Him, “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” Jesus answered him, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?” Philip thought, like many another today, that there was something more to be seen of the Godhead than had come to light in Jesus, but what more can be seen than the Father? And He has been perfectly expressed in the Son. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. When He, the Son, was here in manhood, the Father was also here in testimony, and the Spirit in power in Him; therefore all that God is in His approach to man came to light in Jesus. In His essential Being He cannot be seen. He is the invisible God, who dwells in light unapproachable, whom no man has seen or is capable of seeing.

Vv. 15-17. Already the Apostle has brought before us the Son in relation to the Father, as the One under whose sway believers have been brought; now he sets before us the glories of the Son in relation to God. He is the image of the invisible God. In His essential Deity God is invisible; but in His moral being God has been perfectly made known in the Son become flesh. "The Only Begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he has declared Him". None but a Divine Person is adequate to fully reveal a Divine Person. Not until the Son came into the world could the Father's heart be declared.

Now God cannot be seen. Scripture says that “God is light” and that God dwells in unapproachable light, and no man has seen Him or can see Him. That was true then and it is true now and for ever. God in His absolute character as Creator, as Father, Son and Spirit—ONE GOD dwelling in unapproachable light—cannot be seen, just as my neighbour has never been seen.

Verses 9-11, record what was seen by Moses and the privileged company that began the ascent of Sinai. They "saw the God of Israel" and this is not contradicted by 1 Timothy 6:16, which refers to God in His essential being and glory. As Ezekiel saw, "the likeness of the glory of the Lord" (Ezek. 1:28), and as John in Patmos saw One who sat on the throne, who was "like a jasper and a sardine stone" (Rev. 4:3) so these saw a manifestation of God. We note that no attempt to describe Him is made. We are only told that what was beneath His feet had the appearance of "paved," or "transparent" sapphire and the "clearness" of heaven. To this extent they "saw God," and were sufficiently sustained in their spirits to eat and drink before Him.

The meaning of this must be considered in the light of John 1:18: “No one has seen God at any time,” and 1 Timothy 6:16; “whom no man has seen or can see.” Therefore it was not God personally whom they saw, but evidently some partial manifestation of His nature or character, for the language is symbolical that tells us, “there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity” (v. 10). This appears to be a vision that would inspire awe in all who were observers, realizing that it was indeed the great God of creation who was dealing with them. Compare the vision of Ezekiel 1, which ends with the words, “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (v. 28).

The prophet Ezekiel had a special vision of God’s glory in view of its departure from the midst of Israel. In chapter 1 of his prophecy he sees the four great executors of God’s judgments who are the supports of His throne. Above them was the likeness of a throne, and on the throne was the likeness of a man, and the man was in the midst of the divine glory, for he said, “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (verse 28). No doubt in all that is brought before us in this chapter we learn how God’s glory is safeguarded, and the divine principles that order all God’s government always; but do we not also see in a mystical way that the divine glory is secure in the Man in heaven who now sits upon the throne of God?