Graven images bible3/30/2023 ![]() ![]() Let us take a look at both the Biblical record and the historical record in order to understand why the practice is allowed, and why the practice ought to be forbidden.ĭid God have a solid position on the prohibition of idols and images in the Old Testament narratives, and did He clearly state this position to His chosen people? The answer to this is a resounding “yes” in both points. I do, however, desire the “Reformed” Protestant to understand where images and pictures of Jesus Christ emerged out of, and what the Bible says about such things. I certainly would not want anyone to believe something simply because another church group abused the practice (as some Baptists do with the issue of Infant Baptism, ascribing the practice as inherently Popish). This should be a cause for alarm for the Protestant who believes that similar icons or pictures are acceptable in any Christian church. Certainly they include the worship and veneration of the saint, but the pictures of Christ are right along side of these, and in most cases far surpass them in number. Again, let me be as clear as I am able – the Roman Catholic Church removed the second commandment from the Bible in Exodus and Deuteronomy in order to substantiate the practice and use of icons and pictures of Jesus in their church. This, in and of itself, should cause the Protestant eyebrow to rise in contemplation of such an act of hermeneutical error towards the Bible. But it should strike Protestants who hold this view of “seeing Jesus” as interesting that the Roman Catholics have done this in order to justify the existence of such pictures and idols in the Popish churches. Certainly they do not go as far as the Roman Catholics who remove the second commandment from the Bible altogether. I believe they also fail in their attempt at proving this practice as acceptable both from clever arguments, as well as reinterpreting the second commandment to fit their inventions. Ignorantly, they have set themselves above and beyond the practices of the early church, have scorned the Reformation, and have aligned themselves with some of the most deviant heretics in the history of the church when they ascribe to the practice of allowing images of Christ to adorn their homes and churches. The contemporary church has almost no idea about the controversies that engulfed the position they hold concerning the acceptance of images or pictures of Christ. This we will revisit later.) When I refer to the “church” here, I am speaking about Protestant Churches who hold to this position, even those that hold steadfastly to the confessions of the Reformation (or at least give them lip service.) Their argument is very simple and it stands upon two maxims: 1) The pictures used are not being worshipped, and, 2) Jesus Christ was also a man, and there is no harm whatsoever of depicting him in that nature since he was, as the creeds say, “very man.” Roman Catholicism is in a class all its own since the detrimental acceptance of relics and icon worship given in the 8th century. (Now, I am making a huge distinction between Roman Catholics and Protestants here. Those who hold to the position of accepting images and pictures of Christ as “harmless” do so with little effort. One of the more “touchy” issues in the contemporary church today is the controversy over images or pictures of Jesus Christ. Yet, even with such information at our beck and call, modern Christendom continues to believe repackaged lies that contribute to its degradation and deter it from its needed reformation. With such a wealth of information at our fingertips you would think that the church at large would learn from its mistakes, or at least become aware of why they believe what they do in light of the history of the church. Any Christian can set themselves for one hour in front of their computer and access millions of pages of text, treatises, sermons, books, and tracts on various religious subjects by CD-Rom or the Internet. But the mere fact that heresy and error plague the church in light of the “age of information” is astounding. Citing them could take quite some time in a paper dedicated all its own to the task. There are a number reasons for why this is the case. Notation: Here are quotes, on a separate page, through the history of the church on idolatry and the second commandment – “Seeing Jesus”.Ĭhristendom has a bad habit of continually reenacting historical mistakes. ![]() A look at what defiles us in the second commandment.
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