Let’s Stop Imaging Jesus
“It’s a new storybook Bible for children!” as I looked to my wife from the kitchen table. She rolled her eyes in that familiar way and glanced over to the stack of similar books collecting dust.
“Will it make the pile?”
“Not sure. But it’s a thoughtful author, so there’s hope.”
I unpacked it and began flipping through random pages. The Pentateuch. Poetry. “Looking good so far, and impressive artwork!” A talented hand had visually depicted some great moments of biblical history.
I turned to the New Testament. The eagerness to not see a picture of Jesus heightened within me…
“Aw, c’mon!”
“Another one bites the dust?” inquired my wife.
“Another one gone; and another one gone…” The air deflated out of me.
A Beautiful Letdown
As a father, ordained pastor, and teacher, I’ve not lacked resources to teach my children and others about the faith once-for-all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3). Today, Christian parents profit from a plethora of resources instructing their children in the Scriptures. They aid family worship, devotions, and catechesis. Even as my family makes its ten-minute drive to school each weekday, these resources help us map the good laws of God on to our day.
I’ve seen artists create captivating, vivid imagery to tune our hearts toward the wondrous works of God throughout the Old and New Testaments. In recent decades, writers have brought the deep doctrines of the Reformation down to the level of our youngsters, from babes to teens. Some of them have utilized exceptionally gifted artists. I’m grateful for these efforts.
But I’m afraid God has this against us— Let’s stop imaging Jesus.
Give me one children’s storybook bible free of images of Jesus, and I’ll commend it to the world. Why? Because it will tell a better story.
The Moral Law Gets Through
In the beginning, God wrote his commandments on the hearts of our first parents and all their children after them. Whether image-bearers obey it or not, we know God is not seen. God is spirit and does not have a body like men (Jn 4:24). This truth gets through to all of us because it is irrevocably written on our souls. In the garden, Adam communed with God in right relationship and emulated the love of God by keeping his commandments (1 Jn 5:3). After the Fall of Adam, these commandments remained on the hearts of image-bearers, even though sin reigned. Wherever you’re born: Africa, China, America, it doesn’t matter, the law of God is there in us. Do we reject it? Yes. Do we distort it? Yes. But it still gets through.
Centuries and centuries passed, and then God codified his moral law for Israel on Mt. Sinai (Ex 20:1-17). And wouldn’t you know? When God wrote the second commandment on the stone tablet, he affirmed that which was always there on the hearts of men from the beginning: God is to be known and worshipped not by the imaginations and hands of men and women, but by the word of God.
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, cf. Deut. 5:8-10)
Draw me a picture of Eden. It’s all good. Make a movie about the apostle Paul. Sure, as long as it’s not cheesy. But draw me any picture of Jesus or dress up as Jesus in a movie, it is not just suspect; it’s sin. We can’t just be dubious of these images, we need to declare them for what they are: out of bounds, unedifying, sinful. It doesn’t matter what our hearts tell us. The popular appeal doesn’t matter, whether by the hand of a Caravaggio or a Dallas Jenkins. However genteel the image or ruddy the actor, God commands humanity that wherever we go, and whatever we do, we shall not make an image of the LORD our God. As an artist you can’t avoid unrealistic or cartoonish images of Jesus through the images you create of Jesus. Even if you think yours is artistically stylized, it’s still an image that misleads.[1]
So let’s stop imaging the persons of the Trinity. And before we call foul on this commandment, remember, God said it, not me.
The Visible Jesus
When the Incarnate Jesus walked among our world, he was not made by the hands of men. Mary didn’t make him even though she gave birth to him. The hypostatic union is the wonderful work of God alone, and thus, the commandment was not broken.
When Paul walked throughout the city of Athens, he was angered by self-willed images (Acts 17:16). God isn’t supposed to be manufactured. He’s not to be “served by human hands, as though he needed anything” (Acts 17:25). Paul was just as provoked by these images as we are rightfully provoked by the imagery of sexual immorality that our culture feverously propagates. May the church be as sensitive to the second commandment as we are to the seventh.
We don’t image God because “[Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:3, emphasis mine). In other words, Jesus is The Image (icon) of the Invisible God. Those who saw the incarnate Christ were not breaking the second commandment because they didn’t make the image. By God’s design it was fitting for humanity to behold the Son of God at just the right time in redemptive history. Not draw him. Not videotape him. Not image him. But should it surprise us that after the visible ascension of Jesus to Heavenly glory, the disciples needed a reminder to stop gawking at the sky? Jesus explicitly told them not to look for him. Instead, he would give them a Helper. In the moment after Jesus’ ascension, they wanted to see him, but they were called to live by faith; not by sight (Acts 1:10; Jn 14:15-17).
A Better Story
Jesus gave us his written word, not pictures or movies. Scripture is quite clear. When the urge comes to image the Persons of the Trinity, let’s remember Moses. He didn’t have a side project of illustrating God for the kids of Israel or for foreigners like the king of Edom (Num 21:14). “No Israelite could ever make an image of God or any other gods and plead its acceptability on account of its not being used for worship, but only didactic purposes.”[2] Moses didn’t evangelize the kids or the nations with winsome reenactments as God or images resembling God. It would have rendered a holy correction! Sadly, there was a visual side project by Moses’ spokesman–Let’s just say the consequences were just (Ex 32; Deut 9:16, 18).
God is meant to be read, taught, and preached. If Jesus had a different intention for the mission of the church, the apostles would have been all over it. Propagating pictures and plays would have been both visually attractive and highly lucrative for those poor Apostles. Why? Because societies love images. Just consider for a moment the $100 billion dollars amassed in twenty years through the imagery of Netflix. We are a visual people after all. But visualizing God or his Persons is quite clear. It is a violation from imagination to propagation. The apostolic witness explicitly stresses we live by faith not by sight (2 Cor 5:6-7). The flesh is of no advantage since the Spirit gives life (John 6:63). Even for those who saw Jesus rise from the dead, Jesus said it is those who believe without seeing him who are blessed (John 20:29). The apostle Peter writing to the persecuted church said, “though you do not now see [Jesus], you love him” (1 Pet 1:8-9). The power of evangelical persuasion is not in a visual but through the word: read, preached, and taught.
When it comes to the second commandment, we need more reform. I’m not suggesting we immediately pop out stained-glass windows or trash a few books and movies. Pastoral work is needed before such decisions occur. Perhaps contrition is a good place to start. Have some holy reflection on where you’ve ignorantly (or arrogantly) disregarded this commandment. Then go back to your spheres of influence and have some wholesome confession, discussion, debate, and prayer. And after all that, then make the slow but godly efforts to turn the ship.
Christians, it remains binding for us that our minds should neither image, nor our hands create, any depictions of Jesus. He was meant to be worshipped in spirit and truth, not flesh and fiction. So, with the sanctified creativity we’ve received, let’s reform our books and movies, our theology and our missiology, as we wait for his appearing. There is no other icon of Jesus but the perfect Incarnate Christ himself, who will return one day for all to see. Then and only then shall we no longer walk by faith but by sight. For when we see The Image of the Invisible God, that is, when we see Jesus in the flesh, our eyes will be visually overjoyed.
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Aaron Roberts (MDiv, Westminster Theological Seminary) serves as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America at Covenant Presbyterian Church and as part-time faculty at Redeemer Christian Classical School in Virginia’s beautiful Shenandoah Valley.
[1] Kevin DeYoung, The Greatest Story Bible Storybook (Wheaton: Crossway 2021), 11.
[2] James Norris, “Images of Christ: Reconsidering a Common Exception,” Gospel Reformation Network, June 8, 2022, gospelreformation.net. (accessed January 16, 2025).
