One of the recurring themes of the dialogue between Reformed confessionalists and the more broadly evangelical adherents to aspects of the Reformed soteriology (namely predestination) represented by some members of the Gospel Coalition is the question of how to define the adjective “Reformed.” You can track that discussion here. The nub of it comes down to whether there is a stable, objective definition or whether the word “Reformed” means whatever anyone says it does. Behind this is larger and older philosophical and theological argument over the relationship between names and the things named. One of the obvious areas of tension is the doctrine of the church and the subsidiary questions about how to read the history of redemption and how to understand covenant theology and the sacraments. Another theme that has cropped up repeatedly is the understanding and application of the moral law. The Reformed and Presbyterian churches confess a unified understanding of the 2nd and 4th commandments, which unity I described in Recovering the Reformed Confession. Those evangelicals, however, who are attracted to elements of our soteriology (namely predestination) do not adhere to our understanding of the moral law.
The an example of the tension between the broader, more inclusive evangelicalism and the Reformed confession is Justin Taylor’s post from July 2010, in which he speculates about how Jesus might have appeared. I missed that post when it appeared but Billy Hallowell picked it up today and called attention to it. Justin even offers us a sketch from, of all places, that bastion of Biblical scholarship, Popular Mechanics. The grounds from which Justin draws his inferences will be familiar to conservative Christians (Isa 50:6; 53:2—although one wonders about the hermeneutic employed here). Certainly Reformed folk could agree that Jesus was certainly not the sickly, pale, caucasian fellow who appears regularly on the walls of pietist American homes. Justin tells the truth when he says “we don’t know” how Jesus appeared.
Where Reformed folk, i.e., those who adhere to the theology, piety, and practice confessed by the Reformed and Presbyterian churches in their ecclesiastical confessions and catechisms (e.g., the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dort, the Westminster Standards) must dissent from Justin is in his view that God the Son incarnate may be depicted. Again he concedes, “[o]f course no depiction can tell us what Jesus looked like for sure.” Yet, he offers a conjectural representation of God the Son incarnate.
According to the Reformed confession, any representation is a denial of Jesus’ person. Thomas Watson spoke for the entire Reformed tradition when he wrote:
Quest. 1. If it be not lawful to make the image of God the Father, yet may we not make an image of Christ, who took upon him the nature of man?
Resp. No. Epiphanius seeing an image of Christ hanging in a church, broke it in pieces; ’tis Christ’s Godhead, united to his manhood, that makes him to be Christ; therefore to picture his manhood, when we cannot picture his Godhead, is a sin, because we make him to be but half Christ; we separate what God hath joined, we leave out that which is the chief thing, which makes him to be Christ.
We live in a subjectivist age, a time that rewards people for saying, “Well, to me…” and punishes anyone who dares to say, “This is true and that is false.” According to the Reformed, however, Jesus is the God-Man. He is true God and true man. We cannot picture his deity, ergo we cannot picture him. That is, whatever we depict cannot be Jesus. Indeed, Justin concedes that whatever is pictured isn’t Jesus. It’s an imagination and, when it comes to worship and representing the deity, the Reformed and Presbyterian churches have historically been quite critical of the role of the imagination in these matters.
In the Second Helvetic Confession, the Swiss Reformed confess:
Although Christ assumed human nature, yet he did not on that account assume it in order to provide a model for carvers and painters. He denied that he had come “to abolish the law and the prophets” (Matt. 5:17). But images are forbidden by the law and the prophets” (Deut. 4:15; Isa. 44:9). He denied that his bodily presence would be profitable for the Church, and promised that he would be near us by his Spirit forever (John 16:7). Who, therefore, would believe that a shadow or likeness of his body would contribute any benefit to the pious? (II Cor. 5:5). Since he abides in us by his Spirit, we are therefore the temple of God (I Cor. 3:16). But “what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (II Cor. 6:16).
Belgic Confession (1561) article 7 says in part:
We believe that those Holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein. For since the whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in them at large, it is unlawful for any one, though an apostle, to teach otherwise than we are now taught in the Holy Scriptures: nay, though it were an angel from heaven, as the apostle Paul says.
and article 35 adds:
Therefore we reject as desecrations of the sacraments all the muddled ideas and damnable inventions that men have added and mixed in with them. And we say that we should be content with the procedure that Christ and the apostles have taught us and speak of these things as they have spoken of them.
One of the first things the Reformed did in Europe and in the British Isles was to strip the churches of representations of God, including representations purporting to be of Jesus.
Heidelberg Catechism (1563) speaks to this issue at length:
96. What does God require in the second Commandment?
That we in no wise make any image of God,1 nor worship Him in any other way than He has commanded us in His Word.2
1 Deut 4:15-19. Isa 40:18, 25. Rom 1:22-24. Acts 17:29. 2 1 Sam 15:23. Deut 12:30-32. Matt 15:9. * Deut 4:23, 24. * John 4:24.
97. May we not make any image at all?
God may not and cannot be imaged in any way; as for creatures, though they may indeed be imaged, yet God forbids the making or keeping any likeness of them, either to worship them, or to serve God by them.1
1 Exod 23:24, 25. Exod 34:13,14. Deut 7:5. Deut 12:3. Deut 16:22. 2 Kgs 18:4. * John 1:18.
98. But may not pictures be tolerated in churches as books for the people?
No, for we should not be wiser than God, who will not have His people taught by dumb idols,1 but by the lively preaching of His word.2
1 Jer 10:8. Hab 2:18,19. 2 2 Pet 1:19. 2 Tim 3:16,17. * Rom 10:17.
Westminster Larger Catechism (1648):
Q. 109. What sins are forbidden in the second commandment?
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.
Zacharias Ursinus (1534–83), who wrote as much as 70% of the the Heidelberg Catechism, whom Frederick III authorized to explain it, wrote on the 2nd commandment:
Two things are comprehended in this commandment: the commandment itself, and an exhortation to obedience. The end, or design of this commandment is, that the true God, who in the first precept commanded that he alone should be worshipped, be worshipped under a proper form, or with such worship as it is right and proper that intelligent creatures should pay unto him—such as is pleasing to him, and not with such worship as that which is according to the imagination and device of man: Or, we may say that the design of this commandment is, that the worship of God as prescribed be preserved pure and uncorrupted, and not be violated by any form of superstitious worship. The true worship of God is, therefore, here enjoyed, and a rule at the same time given, that we sacredly and conscientiously keep ourselves within the bounds which God has prescribed, and that we do not add anything to that worship which has been divinely instituted, or corrupt it in any part, even the most unimportant; which the Scriptures also expressly enjoin in many other places. The true worship of God now consists in every internal or external work commanded by God, done in faith, which rests fully assured that both the person and work please God, for the mediator’s sake, and with the design that we may glorify God thereby. To worship God truly, is to worship him in the manner which he himself has prescribed in his word.
This commandment forbids, on the other hand, every form of will-worship, or such as is false, requiring that we neither regard or worship images and creatures for God, nor represent the true God by any image or figure, nor worship him at or by images, or with any other kind of worship which he himself has not prescribed. For when God condemns the principal, the grossest and most palpable form of false worship, which is that of worshipping him at or by images, it is plainly manifest that he also condemns at the same time all other forms of false worship, inasmuch as they all grow out of this. He forbids this most shocking kind of idolatry, not that he would overlook or exclude other forms of worship opposed to that which he has prescribed; but because this is the root, the foundation of all the rest. Hence all kinds of worship not instituted by God, but by men, as well as those which contain the same reason why they should be prohibited, are forbidden in this precept of the Decalogue (emphasis added).
If Ursinus’ complaint against imaginations and devices sounds like the the language of the Westminster Divines that’s because Ursinus was one of the many sources from whom they took their language. The entire Reformed world in the classical period was united on this question.
Anyone’s speculation about Jesus’ appearance is, by necessity, pure speculation and imagination. Reformed Christians are constrained by God’s Word not to speculate about Jesus’ appearance and we are forbidden to attempt to represent him. According to the Reformed it’s both bad theology (a denial of Jesus’ person) and bad morals (a contradiction of God’s law). The evangelical denial of the Reformed theology, piety, and practice on this question illustrates the distance between them and the confession.
Hi Dr. Clark,
This gives me the chance to wonder aloud about the Reformed application of this interpretation of the moral law regarding films and plays involving an actor playing Jesus. Yea or nay?
Justin,
Yes, all the criticisms that the Reformed made against static images apply to moving images. The attempt to depict God the Son incarnate by a human actor or the human subject of a photograph still denies the the person of Christ and violates the 2nd commandment. The person attempting to portray Christ is no more Christ than a drawn or painted image is Christ. All attempts to depict Christ are necessarily false and necessarily vain imaginations.
Carlos Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin. Cambridge University Press, 1986. Eire explains how the Magisterial Reformers “led from behind” when it came to iconoclasm. Even though they also denied the sacred character of the images, the Reformers were conservatives who wanted to maintain alliances with the power elite, and so they attempted to tell the peasants that the images were indifferent to the gospel. Thus a gradual reforming approach to ‘that which has come about with the passing of time”.
In 1509, when John Calvin was born, Western Christendom still shared a common religion of immanence. Heaven was never too far from Earth. The sacred was diffused in the profane, the spiritual in the material. Divine power, embodied in the Church and its sacraments, reached down through innumerable points of contact to make itself felt: to forgive and to punish, to protect against the ravages of nature, to heal, to soothe, and to work all sorts of wonders. Priests could absolve adulterers and murderers, or bless fields and cattle. During their lives, saints could prevent lightning from striking, restore sight to the blind, or preach to birds and fish. Unencumbered by the limitations of time and space, they could do even more through their images and relics after death. A pious glance at a statue of St. Christopher in the morning ensured protection from illness and death throughout the day. Burial in the habit of St. Francis improved the prospects for the afterlife. Pilgrimage to Santiago, where the body of the apostle James had been deposited by angels, or to Canterbury, where St. Thomas à Becket had had his skull split open by knights of King Henry II, could make a lame man walk, or hasten a soul’s release from purgatory. The map of Europe bristled with holy places; life pulsated with the expectation of the miraculous. In the popular mind and in much of the official teaching of the Church, almost anything was possible. One could even eat the flesh of the risen Christ in a consecrated wafer.
The adoption of pagan religious practices by the Roman Church-State is the principal reason for the survival of belief in the miraculous in so-called Christian countries in the twenty-first century. Worse, because the Roman Church-State has repackaged these pagan wonders as Christian and divine, those who believe that contemporary miracles are divine think that those who do not believe are not Christian. The Roman-Church State requires its subjects to believe that its priests perform miracles. It encourages its subjects to believe that the relics of the saints and apparitions perform miracles. Much of late medieval religion was magical, and…the difference between churchmen and magicians lay less in what they claimed they could do than in the authority on which their claims rested
Mark,
Is this a direct quote? I love that book. It was really helpful.
Hello Dr. Clark,
My question is almost tangential to the main point of your post, but you mentioned “nominalism” in the post. I have a very basic familiarity with nominalism, but I struggle to understand it, especially as it relates to Christian theology in the Medieval and Reformation times. Can you recommend a work or a few works that I could pursue for a better understanding of this?
Sorry to get slightly off topic, but thanks for posting at the Heidelblog. I really appreciate your insights.
Peace in Christ, Tim
TW,
Did you click on the links re nominalism? That would be a start. From there, Heiko Oberman has written about late medieval nominalism at length. Take a look at his Harvest of Medieval Theology. William J. Courtenay’s work is also basic.
Dr. Clark,
You stated:
“According to the Reformed, however, Jesus is the God-Man. He is true God and true man. We cannot picture his deity, ergo we cannot picture him. That is, whatever we depict cannot be Jesus.”
What is meant by “picture his deity”? Could those who saw Jesus over 2,000 years ago “picture his diety” when they looked at him? Could they picture it when they thought of how he looked after he left their presence?
Ronnie,
You’ve attempted to apply a critique made of representations of Jesus to Jesus himself. This conflation of images of Christ with Christ himself cannot be conceded.
I intend what Watson said. God the Son manifested his deity in his earthly presence. What could be seen and known was seen and known in his incarnation. Scripture says that they saw him, they beheld the glory of God in him, they touched him. He is the Word, the self-disclosure of God in the flesh (see John 1 and 1John [all]).
A visual representation in film, photo, or painting is not God the Son incarnate. It is nothing other than a vain imagination and unauthorized representation of Christ.
Jesus did, however, authorize two representations, if you will, of his person:
1. The preaching of the Word
2. The administration of the sacraments
There we are to find all we need to know about Jesus.
Clearly much of what is contained in these confessions and catechisms was written against the papists since the time of their authorship was in and around the Reformation. And appropriately so, for the RCC is perhaps the greatest violator of these commandments with their traditions, numerous icons, substitution of Christ as our mediator with patron saints, etc.
The ones who have me most confused, however, are not the modern evangelicals (the definition of which seems sketchy at best), but the “confessional” Lutherans who one would expect to come down on the same side as P/R on this issue. When questioned about it, they immediately resort to adiaphora as their rationale. But if we examine what the Reformed confessions say it seems clear that scripture does, in fact, speak to all of these things in the 2nd & 4th commandment and to various chapters and verses they reference (well, not the 4th commandment to the Lutherans, but the point is the same).
Very confusing.
Dr Clark,
So would you say it is the representation of Christ or the inaccurate representation that is wrong? The Confessions( at least the WLC ) condemns not only physical representations, but also mental representations. Therefore, those who walked and talked with Jesus had to have at least a mental image of Him. Would that be wrong even though it is accurate?
Ronnie,
The Confession was written to post-apostlic Christians, to those who have not and cannot see Jesus. The divines were not skeptics. They believed in the general reliability of sense perception, even after the fall but they also wrote after the widespread use and creation of images of the Trinity and of Jesus in particular. Thus, the disciplines had memories of Jesus and they had sense experiences of Jesus. Those are not the same things as “images.”
Medieval Christians and Romanists were on a quest to re-create Jesus’ life and existence in their imaginations and they regularly depicted him and defended those depictions as “books for the [illiterate] people.” Those are the “images” or representations about which the divines were rightly concerned. Those images are necessarily idolatrous because they are not Jesus. They are fabrications about Jesus.
Ronnie,
The only divinely authorized representations of Jesus are the Word and sacraments. The Apostles left no visual record. They only left us the Word and sacraments. They did not describe him. They did not paint a picture of him. All these are strong discouragements to forming mental images of him based on our suppositions and imaginations.
Once again, the disciples had sense experiences and memories of Jesus. Those were divinely authorized. After Jesus’ ascension, no one saw him visibly, with the possible exception of Saul on the Damascus Road.
It is not possible for those who have not seen Jesus to form mental images of him. We cannot assume that what people are imaging is actually Jesus. It isn’t! It’s something else. To call that something else “Jesus” is factually and morally wrong.
Further, I don’t concede your point that it’s not about Nestorianism. It is. The humanity that is portrayed in ostensible depictions is not Jesus’ humanity.
Thus, arguably, in authorized depictions, we not only separate the deity from the humanity but we lose both his true humanity and his true deity since the latter cannot be depicted and the former is demonstrably inaccurate.
Dr Scott,
I’m not contending against the first 3 paragraphs in your response. I was only responding to the argument that images of Jesus could not be made because of His deity. I was attempting to point out that it is not because of His deity, but because the image is an inaccurate representation of Jesus. Isn’t this proven by the fact that those who saw Jesus are not condemned for their images( i.e. mental ) whereas the Westminster standards condemn even mental images.
Ronnie
Dr Clark,
I agree, so that was the point of my original query. The issue isn’t so much that “We cannot picture his deity, ergo we cannot picture him.”, but that we cannot picture Christ Jesus as he appeared in the flesh which is why the mental picture of Jesus that his contemporaries had was not wrong, but ours would be, right?
Ronnie
Dr. Clark,
The Jesus film (by Campus Crusade) in India has been very popular. I never thought of it violating the second commandment. But your post is helpful to me in thinking deeper on this issue. Thanks. Would you say that a film like Benhur is better when it comes to not violating the second commandment?
What are your views on crosses in the Church? Do you think that they are a violation of the second commandment as well? May be you can write another post on that. I’d be very interested.
Venkatesh
Hi Ventatesh,
Historically the Reformed have been divided on crosses but I don’t think that we’ve ever confessed anything about it, so it’s a matter of liberty.
Ben Hur has a special place in my heart, because it was my early catechesis, but I wouldn’t rely on them for accuracy. In general, I think it’s better to tell the story than to try to show it. God gave us the Word and sacraments. I think those are his media.
I agree with an uncompromising stance against images of the godhead, for Biblical and historical reasons. Was out of town for a funeral, at a charismatic church plastered with many pictures of all three members of the godhead, and a PCA (former PCUSA) with a series of very ornate stained glass windows that tell the Bible story. So I guess you sit by Genesis in the one and tell the kids that the pictures in the other are of somebody’s uncle? Seriously though, on a constructive note, how do we deal with “books for the [illiterate] people”, and children? In a missionary context, and with small children, they can be very visually oriented (a picture is worth a thousand words). Are there any good Bible story books out there that tell the story using an artistic perspective that does not picture Christ?
Hi Mark,
It’s a challenge. There are options. Catherine Vos’ Story Bible comes with pictures but the skillful use of a single-sided razor blade can solve that problem. That’s what we did.
Hi Dr. Clark,
There is certainly no doubt as to what the Reformed position is on the 2nd commandment and the use of images in the church. However, I confess this is one position I continue to find the argumentation less than compelling. Growing up in evangelicalism this whole issue was not on my radar of course and I’ve only begun reflecting on it recently.
Defenses of the Reformed view I’ve heard always seem to be predicated on an odd and narrow view of what an image (whether a painting, icon, or photograph) is. An image or piece of art is treated as if it is an attempt to be “representational” in a 1:1 sort of way. As if an image is trying to “accurately” give an image of what exactly Christ looked like. But this is not what art does or claims to do. Paintings and even photographs are always, necessarily symbolic and never correspond to their subject in this way. An image is not and can never be the thing itself.
Thomas Watson writes that an image of Christ is only picturing “his manhood” and cannot picture his Godhead and is thus “half-Christ” and invalid. You write that “whatever we depict cannot be Jesus.” But this is true for any human being and even any object. Even a photograph of another human being cannot present the actual person to the viewer. His soul cannot be captured. In reality, not even his “manhood” or physical self can truly be captured either. An artistic image is intrinsically symbol. It only can ever point beyond itself and isn’t claiming to do otherwise. Church iconography (which I’m not arguing for btw) is even very consciously not attempting to give some sort of 1:1 exact presentation of Christ or a saint and is highly stylized and symbolic. Icons are never claiming “realism” and aren’t understood to function this way.
By the Reformed line of reasoning, would it have been a sin for a nearby artist in Jerusalem to sketch out an image of Christ during one of his sermons? If cameras had been around would Peter have needed to come over and take my roll of film?
Christ became a human being in the flesh. Even without expressing awe at that through a painting –– the incarnation necessitates that when I think of Christ I am going to mentally picture him in some way as a human being. This doesn’t mean I’m being speculative and making claims as to what exactly his face must have been like. Isn’t this just where the incarnation takes us to? I just have a hard time understanding how our New Covenant application of the 2nd commandment doesn’t change in light of the most momentous occurrence in redemptive history. It is puzzling to me that it’s not even mentioned regarding the 2nd commandment in the WCF or Heidelberg.
Anyway, I’d love to hear what you think. What do you think I’m missing here?
Anthony,
Well, the Reformed view, and a major patristic view, is grounded in two things: the 2nd commandment and catholic Christology.
We can deconstruct “image” until the cows come home. Maybe it helps to re-consider the divine attitude toward representations of the deity:
Exodus 20:4
Images of the deity are forbidden. Are we going to deconstruct “image” (Peshel) or “forms” (temuna)? The point of the command is to be comprehensive. The law assumes that we know what an image is because it relies of sense experience. We know from experience images and forms are. We’ve seen them with our eyes. It’s an attempt to depict God. It encompasses all media. There’s nothing excluded.
Yes, no one was authorized to sketch Jesus (if that sort of thing was possible in the first century). People did worship him. They did speak to him. They didn’t make representations of him. That’s interesting.
It doesn’t matter whether the representation is stylized or not. That’s an aesthetic question, not a theological question.
No, I don’t accept the premise that we must have a mental image. It’s possible not to have one. I don’t have one because I’ve realized that all the representations are false.
The logic is fairly clear:
Yes, everything can be reduced to symbols, and thus we can turn around and say to God, “Aha, gotcha! You do believe in symbols! You’re not consistent!”
Here’s the problem. Scripture clearly distinguishes between verbal representations of God and visual representations of God. God has authorized his Word. He’s authorized his sacraments. He hasn’t authorized visual representations. He’s forbidden them.
If we deal honestly, fairly with Scripture. We believe in the perspicuity of Scripture, right? Let’s try deconstructing the first commandment. Who really knows what “idolatry” is? After all, isn’t the line between really liking something and making an idol of it kind of fuzzy? What about the seventh commandment? After all it says “adultery”? We can finagle adultery or theft or lying or coveting to make them all go away, right? Of course we know that’s a terrible approach to Scripture.
We live in a visually dominated culture. Here’s one place where we have to be counter-cultural. The new covenant doesn’t change the substance of the moral law. As Bullinger said, Jesus did not become incarnate to make work for carvers etc. I think that’s a profound point.
Does the new covenant/incarnation change to the substance of 1st or 3rd or 5th commandments? No.
Here are some additional resources:
Celebrating Jesus’ Birth—Without His Picture
See also David VanDrunen, “Pictures of Jesus and the Sovereignty of Divine Revelation: Recent Literature and a Defense of the Confessional Reformed View.” The Confessional Presbyterian 5 (2009): 214-227.
“No, I don’t accept the premise that we must have a mental image. It’s possible not to have one. I don’t have one because I’ve realized that all the representations are false. ”
I find that a bit hard to conceive.
Can you really read through the Gospel narratives about Jesus saying, doing, and acting without at least some kind of mental figure /doing/ those things in your mind? I can’t.
I mean the figure is generally vague and featureless, but I have to use my imagination to work through a story, and I can’t do that without imagining mental constructs of some kind to recreate it.
No one says it’s easy. God is gracious and merciful.
Hi, Scott.
Cutting to the chase: I think it was impossible for the Apostle John to have written John 1 or 1 John without at least internally conjuring up images of Jesus in his mind while reminiscing and writing. The same goes for anyone who knew Jesus personally while he lived on earth. They would’ve remembered their times together fondly—and they would have done so in direct violation of WSLC 109. It was the God-man, theanthropos, in both his divinity and humanity, that they would’ve recalled.
Perhaps that’s too anachronistic to apply to the first generation of apostles: they would’ve remembered, visually, in their minds, the person who they came to know as the express image of YHWH himself—the very one who, unlike any other human before or since, could be totally identified with the one, true God of Israel. No, that doesn’t help. Still violates WSLC 109.
Nevertheless, totally in agreement that “God gave us the Word and sacraments. I think those are his media.” I just think that there’s good warrant to also be an inconodule, while iconoclasts run the risk, as Nicephorus argued, of denying the incarnation (or more precisely, the Christ’s full humanity).
Chris,
I think I’ve already replied to your points above. Using iconodule doesn’t really alleviate the problem. Veneration of images is highly problematic on biblical grounds, as is clear from Exodus 20. God’s moral character hasn’t changed.
John was entitled to his sense experience and his memories. I’ve addressed this. Your imagination is not John’s memory. We’re not Gnostics. John defends the reliability of his sense experience of Jesus’ humanity. It’s part of his argument against the pre-Gnostic dualists.
Who’s denying Jesus’ true (note the qualitative not quantitative category) humanity? The person who honors his true humanity or the person who creates a lying image and says, “That’s Jesus”?
Dr. Clark,
Thanks for the helpful response. It is compelling and your point that Scripture clearly distinguishes between verbal representations of God and visual representations is well taken. Van Drunen’s article was also quite good and I think his point about truly seeing Christ as our eschatological hope is very strong.
I guess I still struggle though to believe that someone standing next to Jesus in the first century was in error if he attempted to render him in some way. Bullinger’s quote plays for me with precisely the opposite force: isn’t what’s most striking about the incarnation is that God the Son *did* become a tangible, physical human being in time and space that could be carved?
It seems impossible to escape mental images reading the text. Christ is walking on water. He is in the stern of a ship sleeping on a cushion. He sweats. He side is pierced, etc. These are powerful images the text brings to mind. It seems odd to try and suppress and escape that.
Anyway, I’m happy in the Reformed church and am not looking to venerate anything. I’m just trying to reason through the doctrine.
Anthony,
Just to think your thoughts with you, I would further add this: as those who knew Jesus personally lived out their lives to the end of the first century, would it not be natural that they would have expressed their memories of Jesus in part in physical descriptions? I cannot imagine John sitting by the poolside in Ephesus, telling stories of his time with Jesus as they traversed the Galilean hillsides, only to stop abruptly and warn his hearers not to think of any actual person as he spoke.
Or Mary mother of Jesus, grinding grain as an old woman with a group of young women, recounting times in Jesus’ childhood, etc., and yet warning her hearers to not picture her son in any visual form in their minds. I know my point is totally conjecture, but it seems too hard to imagine otherwise.
I’m not trying to demean a respectable distinctive of the Reformed church, but rather to press against what seems to be a fence around the law which may be far outside of its intention in the 2nd commandment.
Justin,
For the 3rd time, the disciples saw Jesus. They had memories. That’s fine.
Don’t you find it interesting that despite their sense experience and memories and even the appeal to them in scripture in defense of Jesus’ true humanity they NEVER gave us an account?
So, how have the Reformed put a fence around the law?
Do you agree that it is against God’s law to depict God?
If it is against God’s law to depict God and if we depict Jesus are we not then suggesting that Jesus is not God?
Are you suggesting that it is now lawful to depict God?
Are you suggesting that it is now lawful to depict Jesus because he is truly human?
Are you saying that a depiction of Jesus is accurate?
If you say that a depiction of Jesus is inaccurate are we licensed, nevertheless, to depict him?
If so, on what ground and to what end?
Is the incarnation a license to imagine what Jesus looked like and to depict him?
“For the 3rd time, the disciples saw Jesus. They had memories. That’s fine.”
My apologies for belaboring a point – I had not read all of your responses, as I was only interacting with Anthony above to see if he could shed more lights on my casual observances.
“Don’t you find it interesting that despite their sense experience and memories and even the appeal to them in scripture in defense of Jesus’ true humanity they NEVER gave us an account?”
Even more interesting to me is the somewhat detailed accounts of Jesus’ appearance throughout Revelation (chs. 1, 5, 19 et al). If it would be sinful to depict His “mere” humanity as He appeared before the resurrection, how much more now that He is glorified and in heaven? Revelation seems to encourage a very vivid mental picture of a glorified Christ.
“So, how have the Reformed put a fence around the law?”
As I had stated, it “seems” it could be that way – I am only a neophyte of the Reformed perspective, and am searching the veracity of the claims. The Exodus 20 commandment forbids graven images, including things “on the earth and under the earth.” Would the Reformed conclusion then not be that for a Christian, the imagining of an angel or a demon, or a soul in Sheol be equally forbidden? The fence would seem to be the forbidding of the visceral, God-given instinct of the imagination to paint the picture for the sake of understanding.
What are we supposed to think of when John tells us that Jesus’ face was shining like the sun in its glory? Nothing?
“Do you agree that it is against God’s law to depict God?”
To the best of my understanding, it is against God’s law to depict Him in the form eternally unseen. It is against God’s law to venerate any visual representation of Jesus the Man. I have trouble with the extent to which the Reformed doctrine applies the law.
“If it is against God’s law to depict God and if we depict Jesus are we not then suggesting that Jesus is not God?”
God condescended to be a visually received man. John said nobody has ever seen God, yet “the only God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known” (John 1:18). Jesus is the visual representation of God, and He chose to become sensible, mundane, incarnated – in the realm of painters and of people who imagine a face on the Rabbi overturning tables in the temple complex.
“Are you suggesting that it is now lawful to depict God?”
I would hate to violate God’s law and teach others to do so, yet as I said above, does not God Himself condescend to be depicted as the man the Son became and remains, a la Revelation etc.?
“Are you suggesting that it is now lawful to depict Jesus because he is truly human?”
I’m probing the question, professor. The vapid evangelical upbringing I survived has left me in search of plenty of Christian truth that the more fortunate have grown up with.
“Are you saying that a depiction of Jesus is accurate?”
Nope. But neither are the English translations of the Psalms you sing. They are near representations according to the best tools available to us: reason, logic, grammar, syntax – like our imaginations when we read the physical descriptions of Jesus’ appearance in the Bible.
“If you say that a depiction of Jesus is inaccurate are we licensed, nevertheless, to depict him? If so, on what ground and to what end? Is the incarnation a license to imagine what Jesus looked like and to depict him?”
Covered above. Call me a crypto-Lutheran, but I’m not following the Reformed interpretation yet. My heart and mind are open to correction.
Justin,
In my experience, when it comes to the second commandment generally and to Christology, evangelicals tend to default to the Lutheran position without realizing it. Oddly, when it comes the sacraments, they tend to be Baptist and Zwinglian.
1. Those are divinely authorized. Your depiction would not be.
2. Those are highly symbolic but yes, you are entitled to think of Jesus the way he is portrayed there. That’s the purpose.
3. Those aren’t intended to serve as a basis for an artistic representation.
I take “things under the earth” to refer to fish or animals that live underground. I don’t know that much more is intended than ordinary living creatures. In the context of the Exodus, leaving Egypt, the cults of which were full of representations of creatures elevated to deities, that seems the most direct way to go.
We’re to think of a glorious face.
I’m confused. So, we may depict God?
So, God the Son became incarnate in order to make work for carvers and artisans?
Really? Do you read Hebrew? I do and I think that, with a few instances where we just don’t know to what a noun refers, we have excellent translations. I don’t think you really want to stick with this argument. It will take you where you don’t want to go. You’re essentially betting the sola Scriptura against images of Jesus. Do you want your picture of Jesus so badly that you’re willing to wager the reliability of Holy Scripture?
“1. Those are divinely authorized. Your depiction would not be.
2. Those are highly symbolic but yes, you are entitled to think of Jesus the way he is portrayed there. That’s the purpose.
3. Those aren’t intended to serve as a basis for an artistic representation.”
You are speaking authoritatively of what seems to be borderline adiaphora in the narrow sense I am describing. I find the distinction between your numbers 2 and 3… understandable, yet tentative.
In any case, I am not saying Jesus became a Man to become the subject of “carvers and artisans.” My hands find it suspiciously fence-like as I feel around this doctrine and am forbidden from even imagining the form of a man as I read about… the one who took on the form of a man.
“Really? Do you read Hebrew? I do and I think that, with a few instances where we just don’t know to what a noun refers, we have excellent translations. I don’t think you really want to stick with this argument. It will take you where you don’t want to go. You’re essentially betting the sola Scriptura against images of Jesus. Do you want your picture of Jesus so badly that you’re willing to wager the reliability of Holy Scripture?”
Well – I’m not sure we got the same argument from my original point. The idea is that although the English may be precise, worthy of the original, and useful for accessing the actual meanings of the Psalms, it is not the exact image (pardon the gratuitous usage) of the real thing (the Hebrew). It is a human rendering of the God-breathed original, subject to flaws.
As you, me, and everyone with more than 6 days of Bible education knows, we do not discount the veracity and reliability of the English Bible (the good ones) because they are not perfect to the originals. In fact, we do not discount the veracity of the Nestle-Aland/UBS Greek New Testaments even though no one is arguing they are the 100.000% image of the original autographs.
We take the very best that has been handed down, and work with it. I am not seeing how, if our imagination depicts for us a man walking with the disciples, showing a pierced ribcage to Thomas, ascending into a cloud – that this is a damnable violation of the 2nd commandment, or how this is my wagering of “the reliability of holy Scripture.”
But again, I am listening and will read through the Reformed arguments carefully in due time. Thanks for the push-back.
Justin,
I understand that it seems uncertain to you. My job, however, is to speak authoritatively where God’s Word is clear and especially where the churches publicly, officially confess an interpretation of God’s Word. The churches confess that God the Son may not depicted. When it comes to issues such as these a Reformed minister is in state confessionis (in a state of confession). There are issues about which, among the Reformed, there are differences of opinion. This isn’t one of them. Members and ministers are obligated to uphold this confession.
I’m not sure we agree about how to think of the autographa. It is true that we cannot say, “The NA 27 = the autographa” but we do say that that the autographa are in our texts, even with the text-critical variations.
I guess I still don’t get the analogy. You’re either appealing to the ambiguity of translation or the ambiguities of text criticism as a justification for depicting God the Son incarnate?
Dr. Clark,
Thank you for always being a gracious host, and a patient shepherd regarding the immature like me.
“I’m not sure we agree about how to think of the autographa. It is true that we cannot say, “The NA 27 = the autographa” but we do say that that the autographa are in our texts, even with the text-critical variations.”
Yes, the original is present, but not absolutely knowable, in God’s mysterious providence.
“I guess I still don’t get the analogy. You’re either appealing to the ambiguity of translation or the ambiguities of text criticism as a justification for depicting God the Son incarnate?”
Both – God allows us to see His Word through the smeared lenses of textual criticism and translation. His Word is not to be altered, right? Yet here it is, the ESV, NASB and the rest – not in exact form to what was written. Are they then “depictions” in the sense of a human rendering that has come after the memories of the Apostles have died? For the purpose of comparison, I think we may say so – roughly.
Am I trying to justify a depiction of Jesus? Perhaps. I am more so concerned with the binding of the Christian conscience to not even picture Him in the imagination – if God accepts our English Psalmody as sufficient to represent His written Word, cannot our reverent thinking be acceptable in representing His incarnate Word?
Dr. Clark,
I’m looking to better understand how our hermeneutic works with regards to the decalogue. Our application of the 4th commandment does shift in light of the New Covenant and Christ’s resurrection. I’m just failing to follow why our confessions don’t allow this to happen with the 2nd in light of in the incarnation.
Ronnie mentioned Deuteronomy where the text points explains why the people were forbidden to make an image of God (Deuteronomy 4:11, 15-18). But then moving forward in redemptive history, God the Son becomes man and takes on all the properties of mankind. We are no longer in the Old Covenant where they “saw no form” but we have now “beheld his glory”. Why does this new reality not condition the way we view the former law in a way similar to the Sabbath?
Certainly no one should begin crafting idols and worshipping them (the substance of the commandment?) but it seems somewhat logical to suggest that it is now lawful to depict Jesus because he is truly human. How can different rules apply to Christ’s humanity than to our own? Doesn’t his humanity need to be like our own in every respect? Depicting ourselves in art is has been a fundamental expression of humanity since the dawn of time. God takes the form of man but his form must be excluded from this?
Sorry if this is seeming repetitive. I’ve probably just been hanging out with too many Lutherans recently. Do you have any in-depth Reformed resources on the subject you’d recommend? Or engagement with Lutheran views specifically?
Anthony,
Take a look at Recovering the Reformed Confession.
Take a close look at the Reformed confessions themselves.
Danny Hyde has a book on this subject. See the bibliographic references to the material linked above.
On hermeneutics, the 4th commandment hasn’t changed. The day changed in the same way the Red Sea parted: God reached into history, as it were, and changed the day/parted the waters, with his hand, as it were.
The substance of the moral law is unchanged. Those particular circumstances that belonged to national Israel have changed. So, Paul turnes the land promise into a cosmic, eschatological promise but the 5th commandment is still the 5th commandment.
So it is with the 2nd. The incarnation doesn’t change the 2nd commandment.
The Apostles had supernatural gifts. They raised people from the dead. They put people to death. Why didn’t they invoke those powers to create an authoritative representation? Could it be that God did not want us to represent him, even in the incarnation?
As I keep saying, it is not as if Jesus did not institute representations of himself:
1) The preaching of the Word
2) The holy sacraments
Why aren’t those representations sufficient? Why isn’t the Word sufficient?
Isn’t this why we say sola Scriptura?
Thanks, Dr. Clark. That is helpful. Your book has been on my reading list for awhile. Looking forward to it!
2Cor.5:16. “…Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.”
All the disciples–to a man, not just Paul the opposer–began with a thoroughgoing, humanistic appraisal of Jesus. It would have been virtually impossible to do otherwise.
These first Christians followed this vector:
1) Jesus, seems like a decent guy.
2) Jesus, what a great teacher.
3) Jesus, probably the best man I ever knew.
4) Jesus, maybe the greatest man who ever lived.
5) Jesus, my Lord and my God.
If we’re going to be apostolic, we need to be going in the same direction they are. We need to quit trying to “get a handle” on Jesus’ humanity by putting our discipleship in reverse.
Whatever we say to convince ourselves otherwise, the fact of the matter is that we already possess everything we need to know about Jesus “after the flesh.” We are LIVING according to his flesh, for he has the SAME flesh you and I have. You have as good an understanding of Jesus’ humanity as you have of your own. That’s all there is to it. Let’s stick with the Authorized, sacramental visuals.
Our greatest need is for higher and ever higher conceptions of Jesus. He cannot be high enough, or great enough. The four-fold Gospel witness is the story of Jesus from humiliation to exaltation. Every time we dip into the Gospels, it is like stepping onto an escalator–this baby is only going one direction. It is impossible to stay put, or to marinate for a time in meditation on “just the human Jesus,” without attempting to defeat the purpose for the witness.
Christ isn’t satisfied until you think of him as God–theanthropos.
Bruce,
Thank you. This is thoughtful and helpful.
Anthony,
I agree with Dr Scott’s position in reference to those who have not seen Jesus, however I don’t think it was wrong for those who did see Him(i.e. His contemporaries). As the Deuteronomy text points out, it was wrong for the people to make images of God because they had not seen His form. In other words we are not free to make God look in whatever way we think.
There are many commandments that God gives us which are impossible (e.g. be holy as I am holy ), but it doesn’t mean it is not a commandment nonetheless, and therefore wrong to violate it. Also, I don’t typically have a mental image of Jesus when I hear or read He was walking on the water, and if I do it is because of the caricature of Christ that has been imposed in my memory from the American culture.
One final thing that points out the problem with this. It was not too long ago that some rapper put a picture of a hip-hop Jesus with baggy pants, gold chain, etc. on his album. Many Christians were upset, but why is the hip-hop Jesus anymore wrong than the blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect teeth, and perfect skin pictures of Jesus that we see everywhere in Evangelicalism?
Scott, thanks for the reply. I hadn’t seen exactly where you dealt with the specific implication of my comment, but I do now. And also I shouldn’t have brought up icnonodule/clast, as that’s also an aside to the specific point I want to raise:
Since Q.109 of the LC isn’t concerned so much with the creation of “lying” images but with prohibiting in principle the attempt to capture the divine in image, it would appear that simply noting that the disciples had “memories of Jesus” and “sense experiences of Jesus” doesn’t at all clear them of what the LC condemns, precisely because of the reason I gave above: they in nowise would have (even if they had the philosophical tools available to them to do so) remembered Jesus according to his true humanity but not according to his divinity.
Chris,
I do not accept the equation that memories with images. Memories, as I understand them, are the result of sense experiences. The divines, following scripture, confirmed the validity of sense experience. I do not believe that the divines intentionally or unintentionally condemned memories. The intent of the divines was to forbid those who had not seen Jesus from forming either artistic representations of him or mental images. In the nature of the case any such images would be lying.
Justin,
I would think one of your arguments fails since Scripture forbids us to make representations of the Godhead, but it does not forbid translating Scripture.
Further to compare the two is to make words pictures.
Which is either the genius of the Look See Method of reading or Chinese pictograms, if not both. Not cool.
Chris,
That the apostles saw Christ in the flesh and had lawful memories or mental images of him is immaterial/irrelevant to the LC or us today. What was lawful in the inter testamental apostolic period does not mean it is lawful today.
IOW it is a non sequitur to argue that because the apostles could have real memories or mental images of Christ, so too today believers may also have mental images of Christ.
Unless one is willing to argue that because the apostles were eyewitnesses of Christ, so too believers today are eyewitnesses.
As for “Celebrating Jesus’ Birth—Without His Picture”, is there a command in Scripture for the first, with or without the second?
thanks,
Thanks Bob.
Re: the last. Point taken. His other articles on images are not available online.
Thanks, Bob.
I don’t buy at all the notion that “what was lawful in the intertestamental apostolic period does not mean it is lawful today.” Ethics might be situated, but surely they’re not to that degree.
To the point that it’s a non sequitur—if indeed the divines at Westminster were concerned with prohibiting in principle the attempt to capture the divine in image, and specifically with respect to Jesus, then Scott actually meets this challenge more directly: “I do not accept the equation [of] memories with images.” The problem is, the divines did unintentionally condemned the memories that the apostles conjured up in their minds, because who they thought of was precisely the theanthropos. Or were their mental images of Jesus absolutely perfect?
Amen. The Word in the word is enough for me, and all I need to inform and confirm my faith. Adherence to sola scriptura and the analogia fidei are crucial to avoiding error.
I believe it’s always helpful to point out the paucity of visual detail about Jesus’s appearance and the relatively spare treatment of the details of the crucifixion. It’s a sign that something is wrong when we major on something that was definitely a minor or even forbidden area in scripture.
I find it interesting that even men like Dave Hunt, who had no love for the Reformed tradition, strongly opposed images of Jesus as in the Passion of the Christ.
But it does not seem that the Reformed tradition is monolithic concerning images, at least not at the present. It may be the majority view, but it is not the only view.
Also, this is subtle, but still noteworthy. I think some who would reject the use of images of Christ, at least in worship, seem to have no problem with using images of him for books which they write. One book from a Presbyterian, PCA, minister immediately comes to mind. I bet a bunch of Reformed people see such books and don’t even think about this one bit.