"You shall have no other gods before Me. "You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Exodus 20:3-6
Continuing our considerations of the second commandment regarding idols, honestly, how many anticipated there being this many blog posts on the subject? Could it be that the issue of idolatry is bigger than you may have previously imagined?
This time let us ask and answer the question: What about images of God and/or of Jesus if they are not associated with worship? Once again, I admit to holding a minority opinion that we should not have any images depicting God or any member of the Trinity, whether they are intended for worship or not. Why? Because, whether we realize it or not, images of Jesus, will tempt (cause?) us to react in either or both of two detrimental ways.
The first detrimental reaction to images of Jesus is to associate the image (whether a sculpture, a picture, or an actor portraying Jesus) with Jesus. And no matter what else we might think of the image, it is infinitely beneath, and unworthy of the actual Jesus. I know the argument against the prohibition of pictures of Jesus. “Jesus was a man as well as God, so pictures of the humanity of Jesus are OK so long as the pictures are not of His deity or for worship.” I used to make the argument myself.
But then, by the grace of God, the Lord reminded me that though the humanity and deity of Christ are distinct, they must not be separated. Though the human body of Jesus is fully human, it is no less divine. In that human body “dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Remember also that Jesus said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9). What had those with Him seen? His body.
This leads me to believe that any image of Jesus, whether in a children’s book, a motion picture, a nativity scene, or a grand tapestry in the Vatican, is an image not merely of a human, but of the one and only God-Man. And every image of Him is infinitely beneath the only Man who was (is, and always will be) Almighty God. Sooner or later, some (even if not all) will associate that image with Jesus—which we must not do.
That leads us to the second detrimental reaction to images of Jesus. Some (even if not all) will worship the image or at least incorporate that image in worship.
Next time: The idolatry of imagining God.