It’s natural to wonder just what God looks like. Throughout history, pagan people have created images of their gods, mostly what we would call “idols.” But the only image most of us have of the God of the Bible is that of an old man, with a white beard. This is a Hollywood image, based upon some director or artist’s imagination. But that doesn’t make it true.
The idea that God looks human comes from the creation story, where it says that “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). Since we’re created in His image, it stands to reason that He would look like us, just as much as we look like Him.
But wait; is that right? God is a Spirit, without physical form. So maybe it is our spirit that looks like God, not our bodies. Has anyone actually seen a human spirit? Can they testify under oath that the spirit looks like the body? I think not.
We know that God is Spirit, because the Bible tells us so.
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. – John 4:24
But that doesn’t tell us what He looks like. Some imagine a spirit to look like a formless blob, others like a cartoon ghost, and still others see the spirit as looking much like the body, whether illuminated, like Hollywood does it, perhaps a bit translucent or just plain. The truth is, we just don’t really know.
The Bible is actually very vague when talking about God’s appearance. That may be intentional, to keep us from creating idols in his image. With mankind’s propensity towards idolatry, God very well cold have decided it was best to protect us from ourselves. Nevertheless, people have wondered, down through the centuries, just what He looks like.
Adam Walked with God
The first person in all of history to have an encounter with God was Adam. While the creation account in the book of Genesis has very little to say about God’s encounters with Adam, it does tell us that God spoke to him, telling Adam, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). The next time we see God speaking to Adam is after he ate that fruit.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. – Genesis 3:8
For anyone who isn’t sure, the “cool of the day” is actually early in the morning, not in the evening. One has to live in a hot climate to really appreciate this; but the coolest time of day is just before sunrise; before the light from the sun has an opportunity to warm the air and ground. The evening is cooler than the day; but the early morning is even cooler than the evening.
It is commonly said, based on this verse, that God walked with Adam in the cool of the day. Yet the verse doesn’t actually say that. It only says that God was “walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” That doesn’t imply that God regularly did that or that He did it with Adam; just that He did so on this one occasion. As we see in the following verses, God conversed with Adam and Eve, but we have no indication of whether they saw Him or not; only that Adam heard God’s voice in the garden (Genesis 3:8 and 3:10).
Moses Saw God
The only human who the Bible records as having seen the face of God is Moses. In the latter part of Exodus, chapter 33, we find Moses speaking with God. This is not remarkable, in and of itself, as Moses apparently spoke often with God, according to the scriptures. He also received the entire law from God; not just the 10 Commandments, but all 613 of them. But in this case, Moses had a particular request he asked of God.
And he (Moses) said, “Please, show me Your glory.” – Exodus 33:18
To which God answered:
But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” – Exodus 33:20
God goes on to tell Moses that He will pass by, covering Moses with His hand. Then, once He had passed, he would remove His hand, allowing Moses to see his back.
The odd thing about this encounter is that earlier in the very same chapter, Moses wrote about how he regularly saw the face of God:
So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. – Genesis 33:11
On the surface, this verse would seem to contradict what it says later on in the chapter. Yet that interpretation fails in one major way. That is, human eyes cannot see the spirit. Since God is spirit, as we saw in John 4:24, Moses would not have been able to see God’s face. Rather, this verse is speaking figuratively, describing the way they spoke to each other as two friends sitting down to talk together. It shows us that Moses had a close enough relationship with God, that he could speak to God and God would speak to him.
We see something even more interesting about Moses’ relationship with God in the very next chapter. There, Moses had climbed back up Mount Sinai, as directed by God, with two more tablets for God to write the 10 Commandments on. Moses had destroyed the first in anger, throwing them at the idol that his brother Aaron had made, while he was on the mountain the first time, receiving them.
When Moses came down from being in God’s presence on the mountain this second time, scripture tells us that Moses’ face shone from the reflected glory of God’s presence.
Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. 30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. – Exodus 34:29-30 (and following)
Once again, this doesn’t say that Moses saw God’s face; but it does give us a hint as to what being in God’s presence does to us. It also hints at something about God’s presence that’s shown in other verses.
Ezekiel’s Vision of God
The prophet Ezekiel, who was also a priest of the Aaronic priesthood, gives us what is probably the best description of God’s presence and His appearance in a vision that he had, right at the beginning of his ministry. He spends the entire first chapter of his book describing God’s throne, the angels around it and the image that he saw of God Himself.
And above the firmament over their heads (the four living creatures holding up the throne)2 was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it. 27 Also from the appearance of His waist and upward I saw, as it were, the color of amber with the appearance of fire all around within it; and from the appearance of His waist and downward I saw, as it were, the appearance of fire with brightness all around. 28 Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it… – Ezekiel 1:26-28a
Before talking about what Ezekiel saw, you might be wondering how he could see God, when Moses couldn’t. That’s because this is a vision, as Ezekiel clearly stated at the beginning of the chapter. What Moses experienced was never described as a vision; but rather as experiences he had with God. It is not surprising that he could see things in visions which we can’t see with our natural eyes.
So, just what did Ezekiel see in this vision? Keep in mind that he was describing what he saw, in terms that made sense to him and to those who would have read his written account in that day. When he says, something had the appearance of something, he was trying to describe it in terms that others would understand, not trying to say that God was that thing.
The most striking thing about this description is that God was apparently so bright, like staring into a fire, that the prophet really struggled to make out any details. He did recognize God’s basic shape to be that of a man and he also recognized that God was seated on a throne. But he uses the phrase “the appearance of fire, with brightness all around it” twice, indicating that the fire and the brightness were the most obvious characteristic that he saw. He even goes on to say the word brightness a third time in verse 29.
Isaiah’s Vision of the Lord
The prophet Isaiah also saw the Lord, but gives us much less of a description of what he saw. He was apparently more preoccupied about the fact that he was seeing the Lord on His throne, and that he was unworthy to see such a thing, than he was with what he was seeing.
So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” – Isaiah 6:5
There is one important detail that Isaiah gives us is that he described the seraphim which flew above the throne of God. These are distinctly different from the four living creatures mentioned in Ezekiel, which seemed to be below the throne of God. They have six wings, two of which they use to fly, while the others cover their faces and their feet. In contrast, the four living creatures had four wings, but they each had four faces, one on each side of their heads.
John’s Vision of the Lord
Notably, all the visions that we’ve seen talked about in scripture happened in the Old Testament. That actually makes sense, as that’s where almost all of the books of the prophets are to be found. Yet we also have one book of prophecy in the New Testament, the book of Revelations, written by the Apostle John. While it doesn’t have a vision of God the Father, it starts out with John having a vision of the resurrected Christ. Since Jesus Himself tells us that He and the Father are one (John 10:30), I think we can count this in with the others.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, 11 saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and “What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia… 13 and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. 14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; 15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters; 16 He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. – Revelations 1:10-16
There are a couple of remarkable things in this accounting. First, even though “His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength,” John was still able to make out what He looked like, enough to say that he described Him as “One like the Son of Man,” a term used extensively in the gospels to describe Jesus. If we had any doubt about that, the Lord Himself goes on to say:
I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. – Revelations 1:18
The other remarkable thing is that the description John gives of Jesus is very much like what Ezekiel said about Jehovah God, specifically about His face shining like the sun. If there were ever any doubt about Jesus and His Father being one and the same, this should clear it up. Both look the same and both shine with the same glory.
So, What Does God Look Like?
It is hard to say what God looks like, because, as you can see from these accounts, God’s face is hidden by the bright light shining from Him, which is His glory. He apparently has white hair and His beard is white; but we have no idea what color his skin (if He has skin) is. He has no body, but can take on the appearance of man, at least in visions.
Theoretically, at least, angels can see God, as they are spirit beings, like God is. But we don’t actually know this; it is merely something that is surmised. One day, when we too are in heaven, we will probably know this and wonder why we even bothered to wonder about it.
Much more importantly than that, Jesus gave us the promise, in his Sermon on the Mount, that we have the opportunity to see God for ourselves, when He said:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. – Matthew 5:8
Just who are these blessed people who will see God? Jesus said that they are those who are pure in heart. No other group of people is given this promise. But just who are those who are pure in heart? The Bible doesn’t exactly define that for us; rather, saying just how wicked the heart of man is.
There’s a verse in the Old Testament which might shed some light on just who these people are.
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards Him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou salt have wars. – 2 Chronicles 16:9 KJV
The word translated as “perfect” in that verse is the Hebrew word “shalem,” which is the verb form of “shalom,” the Hebrew word for “peace.” But how do you make peace an action?
The concept here is most easily described by looking at the process of buying a house. Here in the United States, most home mortgage loans are 30 years; 360 payments. While that is a long time, if one is faithful to make those payments, they will eventually reach the point where they make that 360th payment and there’s nothing left to do. It’s all done. The work is finished.
In the context of this verse, talking about a “perfect heart,” that’s talking about a heart which is fully committed to God. It’s not talking about the person who goes to the bar on Saturday night to party hearty, then goes to church Sunday morning to repent. No, this is a person who is committed to the Lord 24/7, never wavering. That perfect heart, which is fully committed to God, is the pure heart that Jesus was referring to.
If we want to be amongst those who get to look upon God’s face; then we need to have that pure heart. It’s not too late. There’s still time as long as there is breath in our bodies. More than anything, we must make the decision that we want that heart; then we need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us develop it within ourselves.