Think for a moment, and you will see how idle it is to try to make any
representation of God. Christians have tried to paint the Trinity, but
how can you depict the Invisible? Can you draw a picture of your own
soul or spirit or will? Moses impressed it upon Israel that when God
spake to them out of the midst of the fire they saw no manner of
similitude, but only heard His voice.
A picture or image of God must degrade our conception of Him. It
fastens us down to one idea, whereas we ought to grow in grace and in
knowledge. It makes God finite. It brings him down to our level. It
has given rise to the horrible idols of India and China, because they
fashion these images according to their own notions. How would the
president feel if Americans made such hideous objects to resemble him
as they make of their gods in heathen countries? Isaiah bore down with
tremendous irony upon the folly of idol makers: upon the smith who
fashioned gods with tongs and hammers; and upon the carpenter who took
a tree, and used part of it for a fire to warm himself and roast his
meat, and made part of it in the figure of a man with his rule and
plane and compass, and called it his god and worshipped it. "A
deceived heart hath turned him aside."
A man must be greater than anything he is able to make or manufacture.
What folly then to think of worshipping such things!
The tendency of the human heart to represent God by something that
appeals to the senses is the origin of all idolatry. It leads directly
to image-worship. At first there may be no desire to worship the thing
itself, but it inevitably ends in that. As Dr. MacLaren says:
"Enlisting the senses as allies of the spirit is risky work. They are
apt to fight for their own band when they once begin, and the history
of all symbolical and ceremonial worship shows that the experiment is
much more likely to end in sensualizing religion than in
spiritualizing sense."