Question:  Dear Greg,

            Exodus 20:4—is it okay to have a picture of Jesus displayed in a home or a big picture displayed at a church?  What about figurines of Jesus?  I am a non-denominational Christian.

            In Christ,

            Dave

Answer:  Dear Dave,

            Christians are not under the old covenant—including the commandment to which you refer.  The 10 commandments give principles of God’s moral law, but unless they receive modification, reinforcement or restatement in the new covenant, there is no direct command/prohibition for Christians.  Many of the principles in the 10 commandments are, of course, reinforced in the new covenant.

            This commandment speaks more of the cultural context of the Hebrews than it does to the Christian context.  The Hebrews were prohibited from trying to make a likeness of God because they lived within polytheism (paganism) where representations of gods were common and where the representations came to be regarded as reality and were worshipped, bowed down to, given offerings to, etc.  A major sin within the old covenant was idolatry—the literal embrace of the many gods of polytheism instead of the one true God of the Bible (monotheism).

            In the New Testament, in order to bring us the new covenant, God, in the person of Jesus, came to be with us, as one of us, to save us.  Jesus came to reveal God to us.  He was a person, with a body, and he was worshipped.  But, no images/art that have survived were immediately produced and none have survived.  Early representations of Jesus were—as were later ones—representations of what Jesus looked like according to the artist’s own culture, religious leanings and presuppositions, etc.  Thus, Germans painted Jesus to look like a German.  Italians did likewise.  Europeans, of course, had Jesus as white—more white than he would have been—and in so doing were providing truth to the principle that we humans tend to remake God into our own image, after our likeness.  There was and is no sin in depicting Jesus as long as we realize that no one knows exactly what he looked like and that we do not impose our values upon him.  We must not give glory to our culture and ideas rather than to Jesus.

            Stained glass images, representations, etc. are not wrong as long as they remind us of the real Jesus, a historical reality.  However, Christians should not bow down to the image because the image is not reality.  Idolatry occurs when the image becomes reality—particularly in less literate cultures and in religious groups that may be literate but steeped in legalism and tradition.  Art is a creative depiction of reality—not a photograph, but art.  It can inspire, comfort and lead us to a more intimate relationship with the one true God.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht