On Images (or Against Images)

We live in an image-obsessed culture – everything we do is captured in images: photographs, drawings, videos, and TikToks. Images and images and images and images. They help us think. They help us learn. They help us better understand ideas and concepts. ‘I’m just a visual person,’ some will suggest, ‘so I need to see things in pictures – and if I don’t, I’ll just imagine those images in my mind anyways.’

Given those cultural norms, the reasons for a proliferation of images of Christ might seem obvious as they increasingly appear in TV shows and movies, on book covers and in illustrations for kids books (and story Bibles), or hanging in museums and dining rooms and in churches. We assume these images of Christ aren’t a problem, since Jesus assumed a human nature – ‘these images are simply a representation of the incarnate Christ,’ we reason.

Yet are these images right? Are these images good? Are these images useful? The Reformed and Presbyterian doctrinal standards speak in unison to tell us that any image, of any of the persons of the Godhead, is sinful. Every attempt at making an image of Christ in His humanity falls short of truly representing Christ, and thereby every attempt at making an image of Christ in His humanity is a means of lying (a ninth commandment violation) and making false gods (a first commandment violation), in addition to violating the second commandment.

In Exodus 20, amidst the nine other commandment, the second one reads:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments (Ex. 20:4-6).

Notice that this commandment has two aspects to it: first, it calls us not to create images; second, it calls us not to worship images. Some have suggested that what is meant in this text is merely a prohibition against worshiping images of Christ, but the prohibition is more restrictive than that: don’t even create the image to begin with. The specific command not to worship an image is tagged onto a more general prohibition against images. As these first commandments are all pertaining to the glory and supremacy of God, the danger in creating images is that we will end up creating things that take our attention away from God. Whether they become ‘gods’ to us, or merely idols which keep us away from our Father in heaven, they are a hindrance to our faith and condemned by God. Notice the reason included with this commandment (and the fourth commandment, but no others): God is jealous, and false gods and false images will provoke His anger; yet those who keep His commandments will be recipients of His great love.

Related to this, the Westminster Larger Catechism asks:

WLC 109: What are the sins forbidden in the Second Commandment?

Answer: The sins forbidden in the Second Commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and anywise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; tolerating a false religion; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it; the making of any representation of feigned deities, and all worship of them, or service belonging to them; all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretense whatsoever; simony; sacrilege; all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God has appointed.

Similarly, the Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 35 (Q&A. 96–98) tells us:

Q. 96.  What doth God require in the second commandment?
 A.  That we in no wise represent God by images, nor worship Him in any other way than He has commanded in His Word.

Q. 97.  Are images then not at all to be made?
 A.  God neither can nor may be represented by any means. But as to creatures, though they may be represented, yet God forbids to make or have any resemblance of them either in order to worship them or to serve God by them.

Q. 98.  But may not images be tolerated in the churches as books to the laity?
 A.  No; for we must not pretend to be wiser than God, who will have His people taught, not by dumb images, but by the lively preaching of His Word.

Both the Continental Reformed and Presbyterian confessional standards explicitly and clearly denounce the practice of creating any image of any member of the Godhead – not only physical images, but also mental images. These catechisms certainly set a high expectation, especially when we live in such a visually inclined world and culture.

But perhaps the reasoning is yet unclear. In that case, here are two further arguments against creating images of any person of our Triune God:

First, no image we create, whether on paper or mental, is a full and accurate representation of Christ (and is, therefore, false). Images are merely human, yet Christ was truly God and truly man. Images of Christ specifically and exclusively create images of the humanity of Christ – we can in no wise create an image of the divine nature – and thus an image which depicts one and not the other nature is inherently problematic. I wouldn’t presume that everyone who makes these images or thinks them helpful is a heretic – nonetheless, our proclivity to create images of the God-man Christ Jesus does seem to reveal a latent Nestorianism (that ancient Christian heresy in which the two natures of Christ, Divine and human, are divided; a fact which the fifth-century Definition of Chalcedon sought specifically to deny).

Moreover, in Scripture we aren’t given any specific physical traits as to what Jesus looked like. Every so-called image of Christ is rather either a generic image of an olive-skinned middle-eastern man that could have been anyone from the first century; or it’s an ethnically appropriated version of this generic man. (We’ve all seen the images of white Jesus, though you can find images of Jesus from virtually every ethnic group.) The problem in both cases is that neither is true. If I showed you a picture of a random white American woman with blonde hair and blue eyes in her thirties and told you that was an image of my wife, you would call me a liar the moment you saw my wife (a white, thirty-year-old American with brown hair and hazel eyes). Not only that, but my wife would be offended (rightfully so!) that I would misrepresent her in such a way. It would be better to not show a picture at all than to produce a false one – the same goes with so-called images of Christ.

Second, there seems to be an expectation that one can create an image of Christ and not worship such an image. On the one hand, if the image is a true representation of Christ, then worship ought to be expected – how can we see an image of God in the flesh and not worship? On the other hand, if the image isn't a true representation of Christ, it is false and ought not be created in the first place.

Perhaps you agree with the general idea – images of any person of the Godhead are improper and ought not be made – but find yourself imagining images of Christ when you read the Scriptures or when you pray. I am a visual person, so when I read a novel, I tend to visualize the scenes; the same goes for reading different stories in Scripture. Reading the story of Zaccheus running and climbing the tree to see Jesus provokes mental images of a wee man kicking up dust along the road, pushing aside green leaves on the branches, and straining to get a glimpse of Christ. But what about when it comes to Christ? Admittedly, it is hard not to imagine an image of Christ – perhaps, one might suggest, due to the proliferation of so-called images of Christ in modern evangelicalism – but the difficulty of a task doesn’t determine its appropriateness. Awareness is the first step to curbing our imagination. In the same way, we might urge someone to stop visualizing a traumatic event in their past, we ought to remind ourselves to not create an image of Christ, even mentally – not because images of Christ are traumatizing, but because faithfulness to God’s commandments is good.

To those who are under God’s law not as a covenant of works but as a rule of life, the commands of God are good and gracious and lovely – and He will show His steadfast love to thousands for those who keep His commands.

Colin Fast is the editorial manager at Christian Focus Publications in the Highlands of Scotland and a regular supply preacher in local churches. He and his family are members of Tain and Fearn Free Church of Scotland.