Commenting on Ezekiel's vision of God (ch. 1), John B. Taylor shows the desperate attempts "orthodox" Christians engage in to avoid the obvious fact the biblical authors believed God had a three-dimensional bodily form by nature:
Is
this just another instance of anthropomorphism? Does it indicate that the image
and likeness of God in which man was made was in fact the physical appearance,
and not his spiritual capacity? Even though Ezekiel knew the early chapters of
Genesis and used their language and imagery (especially in chapter 28), there
is nothing to indicate that this was so. It was a deeply-held tenet of
Israelite religion from Moses onwards that God could not be visibly expressed,
and for that very reason idolatry was out. But given the possibility of a
theophany, no form but the human form could conceivably have been used to
represent the Deity. It was, however, no mere human that Ezekiel saw: His
radiance was surrounded by the glory of a rainbow, and the prophet could show
his aw in no other way than by falling on his face in the dust before God.
(John B. Taylor, Ezekiel [Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries; Leicester:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1969], 59)
Further Reading:
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment
