Last Sunday at church we had a hippie version of Jesus on the cover of our bulletin. I took them out and threw them away. This week I was commenting to someone in the church on how we don't have any and that it was good. I was then castigated and told that Jesus was always portrayed as having long hair and that it was okay because we're not worshipping the images. I tried to explain that originally in Byzantine artwork he was portrayed with short hair and the long hair images came from an Italian painter during the middle ages. I then pointed out that it doesn't matter if his hair was long or short in the pictures because the 2nd commandment forbids making images of Jesus Christ and it is a sin to do so. I was then told, That just means don't worship them, we can still have pictures of Jesus.

Does anyone know of a short, easy to read tract that I could give this person on this issue? Or is justifying the breaking of the 2nd commandment a Baptist thing?

I am afraid for the church I'm attending. There are no other Calvinist preachers in town. There is no doctrinal teaching. And "The Shack" nonsense is picking up steam.

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Chris Thomas | SBC-Founders | Fairbanks, AK

Q. How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?
A. Three, the first, how great my sins and miseries are, the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries, the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance.

Blog: http://johngillisdead.blogspot.com/

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Ryan Barnhart - Pastor of OGBC
Husband to a beautiful wife, Father to two beautiful girls
"But by the grace of God I am what I am." I Corinthians 15:10

"I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms. And in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer." - John Paton

This really is epidemic; possibly pandemic this view that any image is acceptable because there is no "worship" associated. Just the other day I thought this: If we make vids and pics for the purpose of "evangelizing" is not evangelism a call to worship the one true God?

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Donald P. Grubb
theol46@embarqmail.com

Berean Baptist Church, Mansfield, OH
Mansfield, OH

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.
The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

If the image stirs up devotion it violates the 2nd commandment, if it doesn't stir up proper devotion of the one we are to worship, it is vain, and violates the third commandment.
See various articles here:
Articles of Interest

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Chris Coldwell, Lakewood Presbyterian Church (PCA), Member
• Naphtali Press: Presbyterian & Reformed Books
• The Confessional Presbyterian Journal
• The Blue Banner Archive

The Regulative Principle: Samuel Miller gives a succinct statement of this principle when he writes that since the Scriptures are the “only infallible rule of faith and practice, no rite or ceremony ought to have a place in the public worship of God, which is not warranted in Scripture, either by direct precept or example, or by good and sufficient inference.”

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions? Joining PB's Politics & Government Forum

Duh! I was just there this morning. It's a bookmarked site. Thanks for reminding me!

I was recently looking into this matter and was surprised to find that the reasons both for and against the making of images of Jesus are far deeper and more well-reasoned than I had really expected. The arguments all really center around christology, and whether the making of an image in some way either combines or separates the two natures of Christ. This was at the heart of the iconoclastic controversies that led to the so-called 7th ecumenical council. Those who forbade images argued that one can only show the human and not divine nature of Christ in an image, and therefore showing an image of Christ separates the natures and denies Chalcedonian christology. Those who promoted the making of images argued that forbidding an image of Christ effectively denies the reality of the incarnation, and thus, denies Chalcedonian christology! So they were both accusing each other of the same heresy, just from different directions. I have read several lengthy treatises from both sides of the issue, and still find myself confused. The use of images of Christ in worship, ala veneration of icons etc., becomes another issue in itself and one that is more easily handled--don't do it!

I think the best article I've read from an "iconoclast" perspective was in the International Journal of Systematic Theology. I only have a photocopy of a print volume from my pastor, and unfortunately no link. Written by David Vandrunen, a professor at Westminster Seminary California, it goes beyond the more superficial aspects of the arguement and argues against the making of images based on eschatological grounds.

So to provide a very round-about answer to your question, I can't recommend a simple tract to hand out because I don't believe the matter is as simple as it's usually portrayed, on either side. Odds are, whoever put that picture into the bulletin wasn't thinking through the implications of Chalcedonian orthodoxy.

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Bill in Dayton, OH
Member of Redeemer OPC

"Show me Your ways, O LORD;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day." (Psalm 25:4-5)

It's not always easy to be the prophet. I'll be praying for you.

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יונתן פדוי
Jonathan
Assemblies of God ( Lord willing, I’ll be Presbyterian some day )
Kentucky

... yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.

1 Corinthians 8:6

Score! I found the link...top article on this page: David Vandrunen

This article led to arranging Dr. VanDrunen to write a more extensive article with more on Puritanism, spec. LC 109 and interact with the pro images anti WCF position for the 2009 Confessional Presbyterian journal. DV.

Wow Chris! I have never heard it stated that way and it makes a lot of sense. I have to admit a most recent convert to the no images of Christ whatsoever application of the 2nd Commandment and now the 3rd Commandment.

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Wayne Whitmer
Member, Crossroads PCA (ABQ, NM)
Reside in Cedar Park, TX

We don't use bulletins. We don't have pictures and paintings. Simple.

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Ivan Schoen, Pastor * Maranatha Baptist Church, Poplar Grove, IL * http://maranatha-sbc.org/

"I want to assist churches and to assist pastors in training pastors. But, after fourteen years of service in this capacity, I am absolutely certain that the finest theological seminary on earth is absolutely incompetent at replicating the actual life of a Gospel congregation. I want to train a generation of pastors who will train pastors, and I want to help them in that task." --- Dr. R. Albert Mohler, President of THE Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY

May not be a direct quote, but it is from Thomas Watson and other Puritans may state it as well but he is very succinct.

I was considering buying a copy of Watson's 10 Commandments for the person to read. Or even printing out a copy of the WLC with scripture proofs. This week during the meet a greet, one of the guys came out and asked me this, When does Jesus become King of Kings & Lord of Lords? I said he already was and asked why he asked me that. It was the 'worship' song they were singing.

Can I trade it in for a gift that makes people like you and you don't always feel like you're going against the tide? Something that makes you happy and cheery instead of depressed with the way your church is going. I mean besides prozac.

It helps to see that the second commandment contains two prohibitions: (1) don't make images of God; (2) don't worship the images. You don't have to worship an image to break the second commandment.

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Casey Bessette
Westminster OPC • West Suburbs of Chicago • My Blog: Paradise Regained

"It is part of the calling of the ekklesia to learn to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge and also to make known within the world of science 'the manifold wisdom of God' in order that the final end of theology, as of all things, may be that the name of the Lord is glorified. Theology and dogmatics, too, exist for the Lord's sake." — Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, p. 46

I tried pointing that out. It didn't work.

There is a very helpful pamphlet that's only around 14 pages that Banner of Truth published back in the 90's called Seeing Jesus: The Case Against Pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ by Peter Barnes. It summarizes the arguments very nicely and has applications for the church. Unfortunately, it's hard to find. I looked on Banner of Truth and they no longer carry it. It is available through various resellers though including abebooks.com and Amazon.

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Steve Kellam
Ruling Elder
Redeemer ARP Church (Blacksburg, VA)
Husband to Holly and father to Bethany, Susannah, and Charlotte (and one on the way!)
“Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life” -- Jonathan Edwards

Wouldn't this prove too much? (1) in the text is not actually "Don't make images of God," but "don't make images of anything."

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DAVIDIVS DOCTVS VTRIVSQVE LINGVAE
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

By what authority did you take them out and throw them away?

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

Yesterday I came across this passage in Deuteronomy that is helpful here. My simple exegesis is that we are not to ascribe a physical likeness to the Lord (a physical likeness of other things doesn't seem to be prohibited here). All of you would already agree with this, but here is another text to use.

Deu 4:15 "Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire,
Deu 4:16 beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
Deu 4:17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
Deu 4:18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.
Deu 4:19 And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.

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Tim Lindsay
member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, Halifax, NS, Canada
Living in Cape Town, South Africa
"at the foot of Table Mountain, not far from the Cape of Good Hope"