By Russell F. Metcalfe, Jr. - Pastor, Butler, New Jersey
January 3, 1963
CARTOONISTS are skilled in the art of making their subjects recognizable by magnifying a single outstanding characteristic. A shock of hair, a beetling brow, a coonskin cap-and the little cartoon characters become presidents, senators, and world figures.
Cartoon sketches are never confused with actual photographs, for the cartoonist must distort as he makes recognizable; of necessity he must leave out most of the subject's true features.
Caricatures of the Almighty are quite common today! Sacrilegious as it may seem- and sacrilegious it is—there are scores of false doctrines and false teachers whose ideas of God are so one-sided that the image of Him they would promulgate is more distortion than description. And while cartoons may have their place in depicting presidents and earthly kings, man's eternal destiny depends upon his having a reliable portrait of his God. A twisted idea of God must result in a twisted view of life and eternity.
Some of these false pictures of God magnify His infinite love in proportion to His justice and His holiness. God is made to appear "all love," while His commandments and requirements and man's responsibilities are never mentioned at all. God's love is made to appear as a license for willful sin without fear of divine retribution.
Other distortions dwell on God's perfect justice while minimizing His mercy, until He is made to appear as an overbearing, spiteful monster, waiting to crush sinful man as He would a loathsome insect. Such an idea of God brings despair unmitigated by hope of divine forgiveness.
Still other caricatures picture God's majesty in lofty terms while ignoring His infinite loving-kindness to mankind, His condescension to our low estate. So God is made to seem like a distant, detached monarch who surveys His creation-if indeed He looks at it at all-with a sort of impersonal interest, never deigning to interfere in the affairs of mankind.
Other wrong ideas make God's mercy and His omnipotence combine to the exclusion of His glory and His sovereign will, so that God becomes the servant of man's whim, existing chiefly to glorify man, and to make life on earth profitable and pleasant for him.
These and many other warped ideas of the nature of God are being taught and preached today as the interpretation of what God is really like! They are being passed off as portraits, while in reality they are just shoddy caricatures! Cartoons of God!
What then is God like? Does every man have to substitute his own idea for the caricatures of the false teachers? Is there not a reliable picture of God beyond the words of mystery that God spoke of Himself to Moses: "I AM THAT I AM"?
Yes, thank God, there is one authentic portrait! "God, ...hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 4:6). As preacher-missionary, E. Stanley Jones once said, "We have a Christ-like God!" Through the wonder of divine grace we can come to intimately know Jesus Christ as Savior and as Friend. In Jesus Christ we can see the full spectrum of God’s glory: from his intense hatred for sin to His redeeming love for sinners; from His intolerance for hypocrisy to His tender compassion and forgiveness to the truly repentant.
We are always in serious danger of being caricaturists in our thoughts of God unless we stay in close fellowship with His Son. But so long as we fellowship with Him, we fellowship with God.
Theologians may argue, philosophers may quibble, keen minds may try to pierce the gloom of infinity by mere human brilliance, but the humblest of Christians confidently walks the highway to eternity; a highway that is lighted by the certain knowledge of God that shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ.