What does God look like?

Good question.

I have an office full of Bible commentaries and theological texts, but to answer this question I went to the most reliable source I could think of:

Google Image Search.

So, here’s the first picture that came up:

There you have it.  The stereotypical old white guy with the beard, looking down lovingly from heaven. A classic!

But then I noticed this guy:

Umm, why is God bald here?  Moving on…

There’s this guy…

And this guy…

But, I’d be tempted to go with this one:

(That’s the Monty Python version of God).

Now, not every picture of God on Google was of an aging bearded white guy.

There were lots of pictures of God depicted as…Jesus!

Like this…

And this…

and this…

There are a lot of pictures like the ones above.  You can go see for yourself.

So is that it?  Is this what God looks like?

The title of this devotion comes from the book of Ezekiel.  Ezekiel had a dramatic, almost surrealistic experience of being in the presence of God.   What he describes looked something like this:

Or this…

Or this…

Actually, they all look a little like the cover of a Boston album from the 70’s, if you ask me.

Whatever Ezekiel was describing, this vision of God was ultimately beyond description.

Thus the words, “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.”

The        appearance
of the     likeness
of the     glory
of the     Lord.

Did you catch that?  That’s at least 3 times removed from a definitive God sighting!   But even that was enough to send him bowing to the ground in awe.

I don’t know what comes into your mind when you try to picture God, but chances are it’s an incomplete picture.

That is as it should be.

Let Ezekiel be a reminder that we see only the appearance of the likeness of God’s glory.

And let Google remind us…

to keep on searching.

Have a great week,

Mitch