There have been many theological debates over God’s appearance, so we’ll confine our thoughts to what can be safely said, avoiding conjecture over disputed questions.

We’ll do this by building our understanding on what’s revealed in Scripture. In the Bible, God appears in many ways, including through a direct voice, through dreams, through visions, through angels, through fire (like the burning bush seen by Moses), through natural phenomena (such as wind, or a pillar of cloud, or a pillar of fire), and most fully in Jesus Christ. We too can appear in different ways. I am the proud possessor of a brown bear outfit, so I always have something to wear to fancy dress parties. But if you only ever meet me looking like a bear, you may wonder what I really look like. And that’s the question posed by many in relation to God. What is He really like? This is the question we’ll be asking over the next few days.