Is Making Pictures of Christ Sin?

Having grown up in what you could call "modern evangelicalism", I have never questioned the validity of having images of God the Son, for examle in movies, plays or pictures. As long as you didn't bow down before them, it was alright.

I have recently been studying the first five books of the Bible. As part of this, I studied the 10 Commandments, of which the second says:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. (Exo. 20:4-6, cf. Deu 5:8-10)

I always thought this commandment referred to not worshiping false gods; but this is actually wrong, since the First Commandment already forbids the worship of any other gods but Jehovah (Exo. 20:3). That is, the First Commandment, not the Second, deals with who to worship.

I noted that the Second Commandment forbids two different things: the making of images and the bowing down to them for worship. I was also confused by the appearance of verse 4, which seems to forbid the making of any image of anything, thus forbidding pictures and drawings of all kinds. However, upon reflection, this interpretation was clearly wrong, since God (for example) commanded the Israelites to make sculptures of seraphim and various animals (e.g. Exo. 37).

So if the Second Commandment is not dealing with who to worship, and is not forbidding making images of created things per se, what is it about?

A passage of Scripture that provided the answer in my studies was the account of Israel making and worshiping a golden calf as recorded in Exo. 32. The people of Israel, tired of waiting for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai, ask Aaron to make for them "gods" which they might worship. Aaron complies with their wishes, asks for their gold, and makes a golden calf. Upon its completion, he declares:

These be thy gods [plural], O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (Exo. 32:4)

However, when the same story is recounted in Nehemiah, God's Word says that Aaron declared:

This is thy God [singular] that brought thee up out of Egypt. (Neh. 9:18)

In both cases, the Hebrew word translated "gods" and "God" is Elohim, the plural of Eloah meaning "God" (see Strong's Concordance). In the Bible, the plural Elohim is often used to refer to the One True God (e.g. all throughout Gen. 1), pointing towards the plurality of persons contained in the Godhead.

In other words, Israel did not ask Aaron to help them worship a false, different god. When Aaron made the golden calf and presented it to the people, he did not present it to them as a new or different god, but as the God who "brought [them] up out of Egypt", the One True God! (It seems to me the KJV should have translated Elohim in Exo. 32:4 "God", and not "gods", as done in Neh. 9:18).

When I saw this, it was quite a shock. Israel did not (at least directly) make a false god, but a representation of the true God! And this was sin! Think of the implications: a video clip of a Jesus movie being shown in a modern worship service and the people worshiping as they watch it; little children in prayer picturing Jesus in their minds according to drawings of Jesus that they saw in Sunday school; a drama in which a person plays Jesus to teach the audience what God (the Son) is like!

And so I slowly began to understand the Second Commandment: The prohibition of the making of images of anything created is a prohibition of representing God by anything that is created ("any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth")! That is, while the First Commandment instructs us who to worship, the Second addresses how we should worship the True God. And it gives the specific example of forbidding the use of anything created to represent God.

Checking cross-references for Exo. 20:4 made this even clearer. For example, the Apostle Paul declares:

Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. (Acts 17:29)

We are not even to "think" of God according to anything created! And one of the sins of fallen, wicked men that the Apostle lists is that they

changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. (Rom 1:23)

And I noticed again, that in these passages it is not merely the worship of these images that is forbidden, but it is the actual making or viewing or imagining of representations of God that are identified as wicked sins of the corrupt human heart.

The reason for this prohibition is simple, as God Himself declares:

To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. (Isa 40:18-25)

I realised that it is wicked sin, "abomination" even (Eze. 8:9-10), for us humans to degrade God to being represented by anything created. And much worse, to represent Him by something created that is fallen and sinful! For everything that comes from our hands is defiled with our sins, all our pictures and sculptures, our thoughts. I realised it is the height of man's arrogance to actually act out God the Son in movies, to represent God Himself in the form of the Second Person by sinful humans. How dare we represent or think of God, the infinite, wise Creator of all things, the all-powerful, all-knowing One, according to something He created or even worse something we created?!

And as I thought about it, I realised that even the common evasion of "but we don't worship these images" is not even true. For anyone who watches Jesus movies, looks at drawings of Him, or worse, participates in the production of these things, or worst of all, actually pretends to be Jesus in a play, begins to think of God the Son in such a way. As we pray, these images flick into our minds; as we read the Gospel accounts, scenes from Jesus movies that correspond to the passage being read flash before our inner eye. We use these things to understand who God is. And is that not the express purpose of most Jesus movies, drawings and plays? To teach us what Jesus (i.e. God) is like?

Of course the 2nd Commandment is about much more than simply negatively forbidding the making of images. Positively, it commands us to worship God not according to our own imaginations or ideas, but only according to what He has expressly commanded and required of us. This is often called the Regulative Principle of Worship.

So, although it is difficult and often brings me much personal discomfort, I have resolved by the grace of God to detest any images of Him made by humans hands. I will rest satisfied with the knowledge of God that He has revealed of Himself in His Word. And neither do I think I am any better than others for this understanding, because I know that I can only see these things because my Father has graciously opened my eyes (Mat. 11:25). I pray He would open the eyes of many more.

Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee. For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger. (Deu. 4:23-25)

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. (John 14:21)