Formless God

Deuteronomy 4:11-20         1/23/2018

Moses spoke of the time at the mountain with God in the Sinai wilderness. He reminded the Israelites of their experience with God in fire and cloud. He reminded them how God spoke to them, yet was formless. Accordingly he explained that because God is formless, they must not make any form into an idol.

Moses and the Formless One

So what does it mean that God is formless? Moses speaks with God like one man speaks with another. Yet the God he speaks to has no form?

His introduction was God in a burning bush. But God was never a bush. And Moses never proposed worshipping shrubs.

God, as He revealed Himself to Moses and the Israelites, showed up with fire and clouds – lightning and thunder. No physical being in time and space. He wasn’t the fire, or the clouds or the lightning or the thunder. The Father cannot be thought of in this way.

The Egyptians had a panoply of gods that were thought to govern every aspect of life. The Canaanites did the same. Although the cast of characters was different in different nations, this was the way of all the nations around them. 

Moses’ claim is this: God’s existence is not created. He is fundamentally different than all the so-called gods that were known in Egypt. So God’s manifestation and Moses’ logical claims about Him are radically different than the ancient near-east norms.

God is formless, therefore make no form (idol) because it is essentially false – it essentially limits the human understanding of God. A contradiction to the truth. Pure error.

How to Relate to a Formless God

Formless and unique, yet God is still a person. Not a human person, but a person nonetheless. So how shall we know Him? And this is the good news: God has been revealed through Jesus Christ.

In His own words,

“No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” Luke 10:22