Professor John Frame defends the legitimacy of pictures of Jesus in The Doctrine of the Christian Life (P&R, 2008) p484ff, which is just as well as it means we wont have to smash our stained glass windows after Sunday morning's sermon on the second commandment.
Of course pictures of Jesus are not to be worshiped, nor indeed somehow used as a means of worshiping Jesus, as some may have claimed the Golden Calf was a means of worshiping Yahweh.
Pictures of Jesus might help us to hold on to his true humanity
-->. At least, if all the other characters are depicted in your Children's Bible and Jesus is not, there is a danger of some kind of wierd docetism. There is little danger that our kids will worship their picture books. Jesus was a genuine, visible, touchable, flesh and blood human being, God come in the flesh, and therefore pictures of him are appropriate.
Of course, pictures of Jesus are necessarily somewhat speculative. We can assume he looked like a semitic man (not blonde-haired and blue-eyed), but we don't know in detail what he looked like. The same is true of all the other characters in your Children's Picture Bible and most of those on our stained glass windows too.
Frame points his readers to: -->Jeffrey J. Meyers, “Vere Homo: The Case for Pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Niceville, FL: Biblical Horizons, 1993). The link he gives seems to be broken. A PDF file can be found at:http://ruberad.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/vere_homo.pdf (link updated Aug 2014)
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
13 comments:
I think images of Jesus are fine - as Frame says, not to picture him encourages docetism. But I'm not sure about images of God the Father. For a start, the image would be some form of human (e.g. Michaelangelo's bearded old man) and therefore would have a gender. However, God the Father does not have a gender - God is neither male nor female. Depicting God the Father as male, as well as being incorrect, can be profoundly unhelpful when trying to evangelise feminists.
Yes, in general, I agree we shouldn't make images of the Father since he doesn't have a body. Though it seems the Father does appear in some ways in the Bible (e.g. Daniel 7)?
I guess one could imagine artists wanting to depict some attribute of God / aspect of God's character in non-human terms?
Though the Father is not physically male since he has no body, I'm not entirely sure God doesn't have a gender. Doesn't the very title Father imply that we should think of him as male? If not, why not Mother or Parent God?
We would want to say something like that the Father functions as male with respect to the Son, wouldn't we? That is, the Father leads, initiates, has authority over the Son etc.?
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say that appropriate male behaviour is derivative of certain attributes and actions of God, rather than that God is or can be regarded as male?
We think of God as Father and Jesus as Son because the father/son relationship on earth, properly constituted, gives us information about the relationship between the first and second persons of the Trinity. But IMO the analogy does not stretch as far as imputing either with the male gender.
But I'm thinking on my feet here, this may be all wrong...
Maybe.
I think we always want to say that God is the primary thing and human stuff is the secondary thing. That is, human fatherhood is based on the primary divine fatherhood. cf. Eph 3:15. We are made in the image of God. It is not that God is a bit like a good human father so is called Father etc.
Likewise, I imagine that male and female in creation image something of the Trinitarian relationships, perhaps?
Sure, human fatherhood is based on divine fatherhood. But just because human fathers are all physically male that doesn't mean that physical maleness is an attribute of our Father which human fatherhood is reflecting. That would be cum hoc ergo propter hoc. The relationship between father and child is given to us in part so we can learn about the relationship between Father and Son from which it is derived. But that doesn't mean that all aspects of father, or child, or their relationship are there to teach us about Father, Son or their relationship.
I'm not sure about male and femaleness reflecting the Trinity; it's hard to avoid the obvious counter-point that the Trinity has three members, and there are two sexes. The Bible seems to talk more about male/female relations reflecting Christ and the Church rather than any two of the Trinitarian persons.
Presumably we all agree that some symbolic depictions of the Father are acceptable? Could I draw a diagram to teach the Trinity with a symbol for the Father?
Similarly, I guess in a 2 Ways 2 Live presentation the crown stands for God, or perhaps even the Father since Jesus is shown living in perfect obedience under God's loving rule?
Sorry, Gerv, that last post not a reseponse to you!
Afraid you lost me with the old Latin there.
Agreed, there is a danger of an illegitimate totality transfer!
I'm not wanting to say God is physically male.
On male and female in the image of God perhaps Gen 1:27 and 1 Cor 11:3 are of some relevance?
Sorry, Mark. "Cum hoc ergo propter hoc" means "with it therefore caused by it". It's the fallacy of arguing e.g. "The more firemen fighting a fire, the more damage there is going to be. Therefore firemen cause damage." But maybe I actually meant illegitimate totality transfer!
I agree symbolic depictions of the Father are acceptable. I'm not sure they'd fall into the category of "image" anyway.
Neither of the two scriptures you mention, it seems to me, suggest that male/female relationships are somehow illustrative of Trinitarian ones.
Well, it might not prove it, but its interesting to observe in Gen 1 the "let us create" and the "in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them".
1 Cor 11 shows that the relationship between woman / wife and man /husband (the husband is the head of his wife) is analogous to the relationship between Son and Father (the Father is the head of the Son). QED, no?
I would keep an eye out for In Living Color: Images of Christ and the Means of Grace by Danny Hyde.
Also check out "Iconoclasm, Incarnation, and Eschatology" by Vandrunen.
As Psalterium mentioned, my book is now in-print: http://www.amazon.com/Living-Color-Images-Christ-Means/dp/0979367735/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240578164&sr=1-7
Thank you, Danny.
Amazon doesn't tell us very much about your book. Is there somewhere we could look for more?
Could you sum up your view for us?
Do you object to all images of the incarnate Christ?
See www.reformedfellowship.net for more info.
Post a Comment