Firstly, I understand that in this assignment, it is required to critique or offer insight upon a specific, chosen image or depiction of Christ, and to conclude by redeeming it in a way in which we can use it for the sake of evangelism. While I will seek to accomplish this, I will also state that there is no image nor depiction of Jesus which is accurate, which is worthy, or which is presently relevant to the Jesus that now exists; resurrected, glorified and exalted with the name that is above all other names. It is with this that I approach with great caution our attempts at making images of Him, and I believe that the Bible also gives us reason to avoid, at all costs, the depiction of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Being a subscriber to the historic confessions and catechisms of the Reformed branch of Christianity, I am compelled to affirm their stance on the issue of images or portrayals of God in any of His three persons. The Westminster Larger Catechism states:
109. Q. What sins are forbidden in the second commandment?Furthermore, the Heidelberg Catechism also states:
A. The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and any wise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it; the making of any representation of feigned deities, and all worship of them, or service belonging to them; all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretense whatsoever; simony; sacrilege; all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God hath appointed.
96. Q. What does God require in the second commandment?
A. We are not to make an image of God in any way, nor to worship Him in any other manner than He has commanded in His Word.
97. Q. May we then not make any image at all?
A. God cannot and may not be visibly portrayed in any way. Creatures may be portrayed, but God forbids us to make or have any images of them in order to worship them or to serve God through them.
98. Q. But may images not be tolerated in the churches as "books for the laity"?Naturally, these confessions and catechisms are merely the work of men, and not inspired nor authenticated by the Holy Spirit, yet they are the work of faithful men who sought to interpret and define the clear teachings of Scripture for the benefit of the Church. It is with these statements, backed up by the clear teaching of Scripture, that I am compelled to the making of any images related to God and Jesus Christ.
A. No, for we should not be wiser than God. He wants His people to be taught not by means of dumb images but by the living preaching of His Word.
Now, in order to prove that I am not ignorant of the other views or interpretations on this matter, I understand that many may argue one of two things: 1) These images or portrayals of Christ aid in the telling of the story or the recounting of the biblical accounts, and 2) As long as people do not worship these images, then there is no violation of God's Law. I will address these each in their own order.
First, the aiding of storytelling with the use of images seems to be not what God had ever intended. God's truth has always been passed down through the use of text, and this is what we see today. Icons and images were not adopted into Christendom until the later centuries, where many orthodox traditions were being overthrown by the legalization of Christianity amidst a pagan Roman culture and society. There is no description given to us of what Jesus looked like, nor can we find any images, and therefore the images are clearly unimportant. If we make pictures, images or icons of Jesus, we are, whether consciously or subconsciously, attaching those images to the Lord Himself, at least in our own minds. This leads me to the second point.
Second, the assertion that as long as the images are not worshiped they are acceptable can run a pretty convincing argument, though I think it severely undermines the subconscious ability of man to adhere to and be informed by images. Whenever I think of Jesus, I am immediately reminded of the actors who portrayed Him in various movies or television series, or I am even reminded of the paintings or carvings found in the Roman Catholic churches I have visited. All of these are false depictions of Jesus, and we can unknowingly use these as a basis for worship. It is very hard for us to imagine Jesus without having a cultural image stirred up, and I believe this has perverted our worship, even if it can be explained as unintentional ignorance. The images often depicting Jesus are so far removed from any plausible possibilities, that we are led to think of Jesus, at least physically speaking, as someone He most certainly was not (I will address these perversions to His cultural and ethnic features throughout my future posts).
Finally, it should be clearly stated that virtually every single depiction we have made of Jesus is of Him as a mere man (in physical form), which, at one point of history was true, but is no longer true and will never be true again for all of eternity. The same Jesus that appeared to the disciples post-resurrection, the Jesus who appeared to John in his visions recorded in the Book of Revelation, are clearly nowhere near what Jesus looked like physically while enthralled in His earthly ministry. The disciples did not recognize Him until He opened their minds to who He was. We have no record of what He looked like when He appeared to them at the end of the Gospels and in the book of Acts, therefore the only post-resurrection/glorification account we may draw from is that given to us in the Book of Revelation. I can assure you that the Jesus who now exists, in the present physical form in which He is, is nothing at all like what we imagine when we think of Him, and this, I fear, is a result of our cultural conditioning and not from an inspired account of the Scriptures.
While I am willing to dialogue about the telling of the Gospel accounts through mediums such as cinema or theater, I will be very firm in that our depictions of Jesus must be accurate to the culture and ethnicity of Jesus and His contemporaries, as well as the description in Isaiah that He was not attractive in physical appearance. If we are going to portray Christ for the sake of using a medium more common to our day-and-age, let us least provide the viewers with a cultured understanding of who this first century, Palestinian Jewish carpenter from Galilee may have looked like.
