God In Man's Image

A young boy afraid of the dark called for his mother to

come upstairs to his bedroom to be with him. She came and

sought to comfort him by telling him God was there with

him, and so he didn't have to be afraid. He was all right for

a while, but then he called her again. When she came up he

offered this proposition: "Why don't you stay up here with

God while I go down stairs with daddy?" The child was

simply expressing the natural desire for a tangible

companion. The philosopher may feel at home with some

abstract concept, but most people are like the child, and

their desire is for something concrete.

Philosophy is concerned about God's nature and will,

but it has never had much appeal to the vast majority of

people. It is abstract and talks about God as the Ground of

being and the Fundamental Force of the Universe. Most

people need a concept of God that can be embodied in some

kind of a mental image. This is why the Bible is filled with

what is called anthropomorphism. That is a big word that

simply means the picturing of God in the form of a man, and

with characteristics of a man. God became a man in Christ,

and Jesus said that when we see him we see the Father, and

so our image of God is very manlike. Our highest revelation

of God is in the man Christ Jesus. In Jesus God is a man.

Even before man knew of God the Son the Father was

described in terms of human characteristics. The reason for

this is obvious, for there is no alternative if man is going to

have any intelligent concept of the nature of God. If

anthropomorphic terms were not used to describe God He

would be so abstract as to be almost meaningless, and He

would certainly not be thought of in a way that would be of

much comfort. God is infinite spirit, and all His attributes

are so infinitely superior to ours that we cannot conceive of

God at all in His essence. Our knowledge of God has to be

on the level of the finite. This means we must be aware that

even our highest concepts of God are fall short of what He

really is. God has had to descend to the level of our finite

minds in order to be known by us at all.

If you want to communicate with a dog you do so with

meat and bones and scratching behind the ears. These are

hardly the highest expressions of man's nature, or of his love,

but these kinds of things alone can be understood by the

dogs intelligence. You would get nowhere in communicating

with a dog by mathematics, art, or a lecture on biology.

These are above the dog's capacity, and so rather than get

no response at all you stoop to the dog's level and speak his

language. This is what God has done with man. He has

revealed himself in man-like ways, and with man-like

characteristics. The result is that many young people form

the concept in their minds of God as an old man of great

wisdom with a long white beard. Mature believer know this

is not so, but as C. S. Lewis has said, it is better that God be

seen this way than as a mere abstraction, which is even more

false to reality. He wrote, "What soul ever perished for

believing that God the Father really has a beard?"

It is essential to think of God in human terms, and it is

harmless as long as recognize them as necessary symbols to

represent God, but not necessarily what He actually is. The

Greeks fell into this danger and had their gods on the same

level with men, and this included all of their limitations and

immoralities as well. Most pagan peoples have done this,

and so they have a very poor concept of God. Any god who

is too man-like is a partaker in man's evils. God rebuked

this in Ps. 50:21, "You thought that I was one like yourself.

But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you." We

must use the benefits of anthropomorphism, for the Bible

uses them, but we must also avoid its dangers lest we make

God in man's image. God made man in His image, and so it

is reasonable to assume that God is man-like in many ways.

But we need to avoid any idea that God is like man in his

fallen nature.

God has always been in heaven speaking the words that

formed all or reality, but then we come to Gen. 3:8 and all of

a sudden we see God walking on earth in the garden. He is