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
“If someone claims that the Greek says something that none of the translations say, dismiss their idea and walk away. Perhaps if they are commentary writers or scholars, their argument might have some validity; but I am always suspect of someone who bases their interpretation on any basis that you are not able to check… Beware of people who claim authoritative knowledge based on something you can’t check. If they can cite a well-known translation or commentary writer, or if they make a sensible contextual argument, that is one thing. But to dismiss interpretations to the contrary that are held by all translations, be suspicious.” – Bill Mounce
Yes. This, of course, is not what we typically hear about this text. We are told, for instance, that Jesus was tapping into the first use of the law rather than the third here, that rather than telling the young man what he must do to inherit eternal life He was demonstrating that despite the man’s claims, he had not in fact kept the ten commandments. Jesus here is saying, “Well, let’s look at commandment one. Do you have any gods before me? Money perhaps?” This is all true and good exegesis of the text.