Arguments for and against Images of the Incarnate Christ
From lecture outlines that were expanded into The Doctrine of the Christian Life, Dr. John Frame identifies five arguments against picturing Jesus:
1. Since God may not be pictured, and Jesus is God, Jesus may not be pictured either.
2. Iconoclasts in the Eastern Church argued that those who venerated images of Christ were circumscribing Jesus’ divine nature. To worship the picture would involve the assumption that his divine nature is limited, circumscribed by the human nature and is therefore picturable. Or it would imply that the human nature alone is pictured and thus is separable from the divine nature.
3. Some have argued that since we don’t know what Jesus looked like, any picture will be a lie.
4. Some take the second commandment to exclude any representations of deity.
5. The danger of idolatry, at least, is always present when pictures of Jesus are used for any purpose.
Frame’s response to argument 1:
1. As we have seen, Scripture does not teach purely and simply that God cannot be pictured.
2. But even if God in himself were in every sense unpicturable, it is clear that Christ, God incarnate, was picturable. He could be seen, felt, touched, as well as heard. His face could be held in memory (and there is surely no suggestion in Scripture that such mental images were sinful! On the contrary, recall the emphasis upon the eyewitness character of the apostolic testimony.) To deny this is docetism, pure and simple. In this respect, clearly, the Old and New Covenants are sharply different. At the establishment of the Old Covenant, there was emphatically no form (Deuteronomy 4:15). At the establishment of the New, there emphatically was (I John 1:1ff., etc.).
Response to argument 2:
The relation between the two natures of Christ is, of course, a difficult matter at any point in theology. I would argue, however, that Jesus himself is, in both natures, in his person, image of God. In him, deity was in one sense “circumscribed,” for all its fullness dwelt in him; though in another sense, God was active beyond the body of Jesus. To picture Jesus is to picture a divine person, not one “nature” or other. To venerate such a picture, I believe, would be wrong for reasons already adduced. I do not, however, think that an adequate argument has been given against pedagogical use of such pictures.
Response to argument 3:
As we’ve said earlier, a picture does not become a “lie” simply by being non-exhaustive. And, in fact, we do know something about Jesus’ looks: He was male, Semitic, in middle life, was known to wear a robe, etc. . . .
Response to argument 4:
As we have seen, the second commandment doesn’t forbid all images of God, only those intended for use in worship, as we earlier discussed it.
Reply to argument 5:
True.
HT: JT
What would be the pedagogical purpose of a depiction of God other than to foster worship? How can the intangible, impermanent, non-material mental image (memory) of Christ’s appearance, in the mind of a person seeing him on earth in the flesh 2000 years ago, be categorized the same as a material, physical representation made my human hands, such as a sculpture or painting? Frame’s arguments (at least as stated in the post) are not convincing and are rather disturbing, coming from a proponent of the reformation. At least he concedes the truth of the last argument against images. However, History proves that images pose not merely the danger of idolatry; they result in idolatry.
Cynthia, You ask, “What would be the pedagogical purpose of a depiction of God other than to foster worship?”
Christ is indeed God, but portrayals of Him seek to underscore His humanity rather than His deity. Christ walked the earth as a real, genuine flesh and blood man rather than some spirit of some kind and it is this that is being emphasized. Speaking personally, I have seen images of Christ all my lifetime but to my knowledge, have yet to bow down and worship one.
As someone has said, “… even if it were admitted that we don’t need images, that wouldn’t mean they weren’t useful, beneficial or edifying. I would say that depictions of the events in the Gospels are useful pedagogical tools, especially given that children will imagine the scenes anyway.”