Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 556A — Pictures and Images of Jesus
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes, Brother Camping. I have a question tonight, and I would like to take it over the air. I wonder if you would talk about the pictures that see today of Christ. I've been told that they couldn't possibly be accurate. And if we have them in our homes – and also, nativity scenes, the little figurines – would that be in the same line as graven images?
HC: All right. The question is concerning pictures of Jesus. And I'm grateful for questions like this because this is a very practical question, and it deals with our relationship with God.
Now you may be in a church where historically, for years and years and years you have had pictures of Jesus. Maybe in your church hall you have a beautiful picture of Jesus, or maybe in your home you have two or three pictures of Jesus on the wall. And you've never really thought about it. You really have just been grateful that this reminder of your relationship with Christ was there.
But when we stop to think about it, and remember the Bible is our guidebook, we will discover very quickly that this is something that ought not to be at all. The Bible does say in Exodus 20 that we're not to make any image of God or to bow down and worship it. Now if someone attempted to make an image, a statue of God, if somebody did this (now you think about this), we would be appalled by the idea. We would say, "Oh my, that is dreadful. We're making an idol of some kind." Even if we just mounted that on an end table in our living room in a place of honor, not that we would worship it necessarily, when friends came over they would say, "What is this?" And we would say, "That is a representation of God over here." And you immediately sense that would be an abhorrent, abominable kind of an idea.
Now a picture really is exactly the same thing. It happens not to be three-dimensional. It's only two-dimensional. But nevertheless it's precisely the same thing. And when we have a painting that purports to be a picture of Jesus on the wall, we're effectively saying that is God, because Jesus is God. And you can't argue, "But He had a human nature." Well, the fact is, when Jesus took on a human nature He was still God, and we're not to make an image of God. And even though we don't have a shrine and we aren't bowing down and worshipping that picture, nevertheless we have already gone one giant step in violation of God's Word. We have made an image of God Himself. And it's just as serious as if it were a three-dimensional idol of some kind.
More than that, we are absolutely ridiculing God. We are really playing God for a fool. Now that sounds like horrible language, but really I mean this. Because that picture is no more a picture of Jesus than it is of my Uncle Harry. No artist has ever seen Jesus. None of these artists who have drawn these pictures have the slightest idea of what Jesus really looked like. The Bible gives us absolutely no description. There is no description. And so an artist paints what he thinks looks like Jesus, and he says, "Now that's Jesus." Well, he might as well say, "Well, that's my Uncle Harry," because it no more is Jesus than anything else is Jesus. And so we're poking fun of God. We put that picture on the wall and we say, "That's Jesus." And we say that very reverently. And it's ridiculous.
I know I'm using strong words, but it's ridiculous. Let's put it right down into our realm where we can understand it. If you didn't have a picture of an uncle in another land, let's say, and you dearly wanted to have that picture, and yet he didn't send you a picture, and you wanted a picture on the wall, so you go to the photographer and you go through all the pictures he has and finally you find a nice young man there that just is so handsome, and you say, "Can I buy this?" And he says, "Surely, you can buy that." And you get a nice frame, and you put it on the wall, and now you say to your visiting friends and relatives, "Oh, look at the beautiful picture I have of Uncle Harry, who's over in the old country. Isn't he a handsome man?" You're lying to yourself, and you're lying to everybody else. That picture isn't your Uncle Harry. That's just a picture you picked up in this photographer's shop.
And this is exactly what we're doing with these pictures of Jesus. The whole business, all the way from Exodus 20, where we're not to have an image of God, to the kind of an image that is proposed, is contrary to the will of God. And we must not have this in our homes.
Now I know that this hurts some of you. Every time we talk about this I know there's somebody who is really appalled by this kind of conversation. But let's remember, God is God. And the Lord Jesus, while He emptied Himself in order to be our Savior, is still God. He is His Eternal Majesty, King of kings and Lord of lords. He is God, and God is spirit. And you can't make a picture of a spirit. Nobody could ever make a picture of a spirit. Our minds can't get hold of what a spirit is. And we'd better remember what God says: "They who worship Him worship Him in spirit and truth." We worship God by faith, not because we see a picture on the wall.
Now the very fact that when you walk over to that picture on the wall, and take it down, and take that picture of Jesus and crumple it up and throw it into the fireplace, that at that point there's going to be a hitch in your heart, and you're wondering, "Oh, what am I doing?" indicates that you have an attachment to that picture that should not be there, that should not be there at all. You looked upon that as a holy picture, as something that was more than just a picture of Jesus. It was something that was to be reverenced. And you find it very difficult to snatch that picture out of that frame and crumple it up and throw it into the fireplace. And that indicates that you've already gone farther than you should with that. By all means, let's not play around with pictures of Jesus. Let's do it God's way.