Pictures of Christ - For What Purpose?

By Matthew Heyns (mattheyns@monmouth.com)

One of the purported purposes of a picture of Christ, or rather a supposed likeness of Him, is nominally "to remember Him." This is a very noble sounding idea. But this goal is also unscriptural. The Bible must be the source of all our ideas on how to make our remembrances and how to perform our worship. There are two primary stipulations concerning remembrances of God.

First, the making of likenesses in any way is prohibited as they are likely to cause idolatry, even if that is not the intention. The Second Commandment states, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any like- ness...for I the Lord thy God am a Jealous God (Exodus 20: 4 & 5)." What is a graven image or a likeness? It is any attempt by mere man to display the majesty of God, which can never be done in completeness, nor in any way actually show even one aspect of Him in His glory. So why would this be a problem for God? Wouldn't He want us to try to capture our impressions of Him in art? The answer is, "NO!" God is very jealous of His Image and will visit the iniquity of trying upon those who defile His Image. That's a pretty severe notion. In fact, He visits that iniquity not only on the perpetrator, but on his children. So if the Lord is so jealous of His Image, perhaps we should also be jealous of it. Does a picture of "Jesus," who is Almighty God Himself, fully portray the Majestic Image of God? No, it does not. Thus a picture is not a good remembrance of Him.

The Lord also specifically gave us a way to remember Him. It is called by many names, but it is in fact the remembrance of Him which He has given as the appropriate means. "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the [same] night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake [it], and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also [he took] the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink [it], in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come." (1 Corinthians 11: 23-26) If God has given us a way to remember Him, should we be making up others of our own, especially if the method used might seem to be in violation of a direct commandment, and we must "Abstain from all appearance of evil." (1 Thessalonians 5:22)?

What should we say, then? that we have done a good thing to show God our love and devotion, and painted for ourselves a picture of Him, or should we say, "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." (1 John 5: 3)

I don't mean by any of this to impeach anyone's motives or beliefs, as that is not mine to do, but the Scripture is clear and I am bound to obey it. It is an affront to God to portray Him as anything but in His absolute Glory. We cannot do that, and we are not to try, thus God has given the Second Commandment. If another remembrance is needed of a Risen Savior, perhaps, (Romans 5:5) "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" should do as well.

"Wherefore, if meat [or pictures] make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend. (1 Corinthians 8:13)"

Additional information on this subject from J.I. Packer’s "Knowing God":

Exodus 20:4-5 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or 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 on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me"

Some of his quotes:

• "'Idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the worship of the true God by images.'  In its Christian application, this means that we are not to make use of visual or pictorial representation of the triune God, or of any person of the Trinity, for the purpose of Christian worship.  The commandment thus deals not with the object of our worship, but with the manner of it; what it tells us is that statues and pictures of the One whom we worship are not to be used as an aid to worshiping him." (Knowing God, Packer, pg44).

• "This categorical statement rules out not simply the use of pictures and statues which depict God as an animal, but also the use of pictures and statues which depict him as the highest created thing we know--a human.  It also rules out the use of pictures and statues of Jesus Christ as a man, although Jesus himself was and remains man; for all pictures and statues are necessarily made after the "likeness" of ideal manhood as we conceive it, and therefore come under the ban which the commandment imposes." (Knowing God, Packer, pg45).

Two reasons:

1.  IMAGES DISHONOR GOD, FOR THEY OBSCURE HIS GLORY.  "The pathos of the crucifix obscures the glory of Christ, for it hides the fact of His deity, His victory on the cross, and His present kingdom.  It displays his human weakness, but it conceals His divine strength; it depicts the reality of His pain, but keeps out of our sight the reality of His joy and His power." (Knowing God, Packer, pg 45-46).

2.  IMAGES MISLEAD US, FOR THEY CONVEY FALSE IDEAS ABOUT GOD.  "It is a matter of historical fact that the use of the crucifix as an aid to prayer has encouraged people to equate devotion with brooding over Christ's bodily sufferings; it has made them morbid about the spiritual value of physical pain, and it has kept them from knowledge of the risen Savior." (Knowing God, Packer 46-47).

• "Just as it forbids us to manufacture molten images of God, so it forbids us to dream up mental images of him.....It needs to be said with the greatest possible emphasis that those who hold themselves free to think of God as they like are breaking the second commandment." (Knowing God, Packer, pg 47).  See 1 Cor 1:21.

• "The mind that takes up with images is a mind that has not yet learned to love and attend to God's Word." (Knowing God, Packer, pg 49).

• "To make an image of God is to take one's thoughts of him from a human source, rather than from God Himself; and this is precisely what is wrong with image-making." (Knowing God, Packer, pg49).

Additional notes from Knowing God, Packer, pg 50-51.

"Three arguments are brought against it.  First, the worship of God requires Christian aesthetic expression through the visual arts no less than it requires Christian moral expression through family love and neighbor love.  Second, imagination is part of human nature as God made it and should be sanctified and expressed, rather than stigmatized and suppressed, in our communion with our Creator.  Third, images (crucifixes, icons, statues, pictures of Jesus) do in fact trigger devotion, which would be weaker without them.

The principle of the first argument is surely right, but it needs to be rightly applied.  Symbolic art can serve worship in many ways, but the second commandment still forbids anything that will be thought of as a representational image of God.  If paintings, drawings, and statues of Jesus, the incarnate Son, were always viewed as symbols of human perfection within the culture that produced them (white-faced Anglo-Saxon, black-faced African, yellow-faced Chinese or whatever), rather than as suggesting what Jesus actually looked like, no harm would be done.  But since neither children nor unsophisticated adults view them in this way we shall in my opinion be wiser to do without them.

The principle of the second argument is also right, but the biblical way to apply it is to harness our verbal and visual imagination to the task of appreciating the drama and marvel of God's historical doings, as is done in the Prophets and the Psalms and the book of Revelation, rather than to fly in the face of the second commandment by constructing static and seemingly representational images of Him.

As for the third argument, the problem is that as soon as the images are treated as representational rather than symbolic, they begin to corrupt the devotion they trigger.  Since it is hard for us humans to avoid this pitfall, wisdom counsels once more that the better, safer way is to learn to do without them.  Some risks are not worth taking."