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Frozen Images

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If you were a painter, and if you wanted to paint God, how would you paint him? How would you make him look? After all, when you paint a face, you are painting character. You try to convey a feeling of what the subject is like. Would he have a strong chin or a beard? How thick or thin would his lips be? God is compassionate; would his eyes reflect this? Or would they be piercing, intent, like they could look right through you? We are told once in the Bible, “Behold both the goodness and the severity of God.” How would you show this?

You can probably see the problem you would face in trying to paint God. For one thing, the image would be frozen in time. A face changes, doesn’t it? A face can be smiling one moment and frowning the next; showing wrath then forgiveness, sleeping or awake. The human face (and certainly the face of God) must change constantly, for indeed it is a living face. And so any way that you would try to reflect God, at your very best, would be a frozen image. And it would inevitably reflect your own mood, your own feelings about God, even your own experiences with God; but even then, only at a single moment in time.

You can see this readily enough when I present it to you as a painting or sculpture. Maybe you do not see it so readily in the images of the mind. What you might never do on canvas, you might well do in your heart. Today, I want you to consider some thoughts on this from the Book of Job…

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study.

In keeping with our series on the Book of Job, tonight we are happy to bring you a program from the CEM Vault by Ronald L. Dart titled Frozen Images.

Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression; If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.

Job 8:1–7


Author

Ronald L. Dart

Ronald L. Dart (1934–2016) — People around the world have come to appreciate his easy style, non-combative approach to explaining the Bible, and the personal, almost one-on-one method of explaining what’s going on in the world in the light of the Bible. After retiring from teaching and church administration in 1995 he started Christian Educational Ministries and the Born to Win radio program.

Click here for more posts by Ronald L. Dart


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Image Credits: Ilya Repin