As we continue our journey into knowing God better today I want us to look at pictures, or images of God that are presented to us in the Bible. We cannot see God, we cannot hear God and God knows this of course. He has decided to reveal something of what he is like through creation and through the Bible. In the bible he says I am like certain things,; eg I am like a good shepherd, I am like a Rock that is unmoveable and unchanging.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words and God describes himself throughout the bible in pictures.  God is a spirit, he is invisible, he is transcendent, so much above us, and he is incomprehensible meaning we cannot understand everything there is to know about God. There is a danger here that has existed for as long as humans have walked on earth. Because God is invisible there is the temptation to bow down to something visible, some representation of God. Thus through time men and women have bowed down to the moon and the sun, to images of wood or stone or metal. We are very material creatures and we want to see our God. But God has prohibited this. He has clearly said that we should not make images of him and bow down to them for no physical statue or idol can come near the awesome power and wonder of the creator. Deut.5:8  “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them…”   Also see Deut.4:15-19.  Isaiah 40:18 “To whom then will you compare God? What image will you compare him to?”

So we have an interesting thought here. God says in scripture I am like certain things, but he is not that thing and to worship the image is to go wrong. God is like a shepherd but obviously this word picture must mean certain things – he is a leader, a guide, a protector. It does not mean that he shears us like sheep and it does not mean that we should carve a statue of a shepherd and worship it. We have to be careful with these images and interpret them. For God is much more than any one image, indeed much more than all the images put together. And yet he has decided to reveal something of himself to us in this way.  It is as if God lowers himself, he condescends to describe himself in very human terms so that we can have a truer idea of what he is like. The pictures he uses are not to say that he looks like these things physically, they tend to be pictures which describe his character.

God lowers himself to the extent that he uses anthropomorphic language – in others words he describes himself in human terms by using descriptions like father and shepherd and king. He also is referred to as using human actions – walking, smelling an aroma, seeing. He is described as having arms, hands and a mouth. And yet he is a spirit and as such should not have arms, hands and a mouth.

God is so much other than us that when we try and describe him we run into trouble. We see this in certain parts of the bible. In the books of Ezekiel or Revelation words seem to fail the writers as they try and describe what they have seen in a vision.

Not only does God use human images to describe himself but he uses other parts of the creation, the animal world and the inanimate world (cosmomorphism). In places he is described as being like a lion or a bear. He is like a shield or a tower, he is like fire. Each of these images communicates something of God to us and the youngest child to the oldest adult can understand them. These word pictures help to el us what this God is like that we worship. John Frame in his book on the doctrine of God says that the images, in general, communicate one great truth – that God is Lord, that God is all powerful and sovereign.

Today I want to quickly present nine of the main images of God that we find in the bible, and then have a little time for us to reflect upon them worshipfully.

1.King Throughout scripture we have God presented as being like a king. Ex.15:18  “the Lord reigns.” Ps.95:3 “The Lord is the great king above all gods”. Rev.17:14 “He is Lord of lords and King of Kings”.. and of course a key theme in Jesus’ teaching is that he has come to bring in the kingdom of God. Where you have a kingdom you have a king. The kingdom of God is not a political kingdom or a geographical territory – it is the reign of God in our hearts and lives. God is like a king. Is he king of us. When we play a word association game and think of the word king we come up with words like obedience, reign, rule, subjects. This is what God is trying to convey by using this word picture. For most people certainly in the west God is not their king.

2.Judge. “Gen.18:25  - “Will not the judge of all the earth do right?” God as judge will weigh up the evidence for and against us. He will punish the wicked and he will justify those who are righteous in Christ. As judge of all God is the divine book keeper. He is also a lawyer who can at times act as our accuser as he did in Genesis 3 with Adam and Eve; but he can also be our advocate for the defence. In John 14:16 Jesus tells us that God the Spirit will be our counsellor. Also 1 John 2:1 “We have one who speaks to the Father in our defence”.

3. Father. We have this much more in the New Testament that  the old and indeed it is, beside Lord, the most common title Christians use for God. But it is in the OT.  Deut.32:6 “Is God not your Father, you creator who made you and formed you.” Ex.4:22 Moses to Pharoah -  “This is what the Lord says – Israel is my firstborn son. Let my son go that he may worship me.”  Mt.6:9  “Our Father who is in heaven”.  Jn.20:17 “I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Jesus is God’s natural son, we are sons and daughters by adoption. We can call him abba Father (Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15) What a privilege.

We are very familiar with all of these titles but the title of God as Father is especially moving to us.

4. Shepherd. The Old Testament was formed out of a shepherding and agricultural background. The patriarchs were shepherds, Moses and David shepherded. Ps. 78:70-72 draws on the life of David to indicate the parallel between shepherding sheep and leading people. In Ezek. 34 God gets frustrated with Israel’s leaders as spiritual shepherds and he says “I myself will search for my sheep and will look after them”. The most poignant Psalm of all begins “The Lord is my shepherd.” Jesus in John ch.10 says “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Here are thoughts of protection, nurturing, feeding, sacrifice for the wellbeing of the flock. This is the God we worship – he is like a shepherd to us.

5.Rock. Dt.32:4  “God is the rock and his works are perfect”. 2 Sam.22:2  “The Lord is my rock, my fortress.” Psalm 92:15 “The Lord, he is my rock and there is no wickedness in him”. Here we have an image of God as being sure and trustworthy, perfect and strong. He is the one on whom I need to build my life. Jesus spoke of those who built their lives on his word as those who are building on rock, those who do not are building on sand.

6. Light. One of the most common images of God is that he is like light. 1 John 1:5 “God is light, in him there is no darkness at all.”  Psalm 27:1  “The Lord is my light and my salvation”.  John 1:8 “Jesus is the true light that gives light to every man.”  John 8:12  Jesus said “I am the light of the world”. God is light and he blazes so strongly that no-one can look upon him and live. Here again we have thoughts of purity and power. 1 Tim.6:16 “God dwells in unapproachable light”.

7. Eagle. Ex.19:4 “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself.”  Deut.32:11  The Lord is “like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young”. Here we have images of protection and power again.

8. Lion. Hosea 13:7  “I will come upon them like a lion, like a lion I will devour them.”  Rev.5:5 “See the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has triumphed”. The lion is the king of beasts. The picture of the lion communicates that God is a god of strength and victory. He is also not someone that you want to mess with! As CS Lewis sought to show in his Narnia chronicles - Aslan the lion is “not safe”.

9. Lamb. Finally we also see that God presents himself, especially in the Son Jesus, as the lamb. In Revelation at one and the same time as seeing the lion John also sees the lamb. “Then I saw a lamb, looking as if it had been slain.” The word lamb is used 29 times in Revelation. The lamb speaks of meekness and of obedient sacrifice. The God that we worship who is king, and judge, and rock, and lion, and eagle, is also like a lamb.

In no other religion do we have God presented in such a way. In scripture we have this lovely balance of transcendence and power, of intimacy and of sacrifice What  a God we worship. We can become blasé to the wonder and greatness of this God. Sometimes I find it hard to get a handle on God. How do we relate to that which is Spirit in our Quiet times, One whom we cannot see or hear or feel. As physical creatures we cry out for such things and what many do is they end up worshipping idols. The idols of the west tend to be our cars, our clothes, our health, our homes and yes even our families. God is pushed to the margins. But as we read scripture and we allow these pictures, these images, to penetrate our hearts, we not only find we get a truer picture of what God is like, but our hearts begin to warm and we begin to see God in all his wondrous glory, to know him and relate to him.

If I was to try and summarise all these pictures in terms of his characteristics I think I can do so in 5 P’s. God is Powerful, God is our Protector, God is Pure, God is Perfect, and God is Personal. He wants us to know him. And by his Spirit in us we can know him – we cannot put it into words. Perhaps it may be more felt than tel’t. But we know him and he knows us. And perhaps then we can say with Jeremiah “let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, or the strong man boast in his strength, or the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this that he understands and knows me…”  Through these pictures we can actually get to know God as we meditate upon them and the truths of his character which are revealed through them.

Let us close by prayerfully reflecting on these truths. Let us pray.

Bookmark this page with: (what is this?)