![]() ![]() It’s not surprising, then, that people often ask us for advice on how to respond to our current culture. Harvest USA is a ministry focused on issues of sexuality and gender. They are meant to cause sexuality to mirror and display our Savior’s faithful, covenantal, lavish, and costly love for us. What about the standards that define our sexuality? They are not mere restrictions, mere arbitrary deprivations to enforce an other-worldly mindedness. And sex? Sex is just one of those dim hints of the life to come. Everything good in this life is but a dim hint of the eternal joy promised to us in Christ. Jesus, the Creator himself become one of us, the source and giver of all that is good, giving us intimacy with God and the promise of an indestructible, unending, glorious life in a recreated universe. The rule, rather than one’s personal exception is that images of God are forbidden-and that is all three persons of the godhead. Every person that argues from these positions argues contra our confessional position and contra historic reformed Christianity. But surely these are not the norm, but the exception. Many will argue that images of Jesus are fine as long as they are only used for teaching rather than worship-think flannel-graphs and children’s books. Others will say that images of Jesus are fine as long as we do not worship them or they stay out of the churches. Well-meaning brothers and sisters will argue that since Jesus took on flesh, we are able to portray him. Some will say that it is a “trendy exception” among ministerial candidates in a larger reformed denomination to take exception to the image prohibition. It is widely debated, even among church officers. Surely you know the exception to the rule. The Puritan Thomas Vincent said: “It is not lawful to have pictures of Jesus Christ, because his divine nature cannot be pictured at all and because his body, as it is now glorified, cannot be pictured as it is and because, if it does not stir up devotion, it is in vain-if it does stir up devotion, it is a worshipping by an image or picture, and so a palpable breach of the second commandment.”Īnd that is not merely his private opinion, it is the confessional position of the Reformed and Presbyterian world. Jesus, as the second person of the Trinity, is not to be imagined, drawn, sculpted, painted, etc. This prohibition is rooted in the second commandment. Reformed believers have always been opposed to the making and use of images of Jesus. It is the highest price ever paid for a single piece of art sold at auction. Christie’s describes itself as “a world-leading art and luxury business.” A painting that, at its last sale (in 2005) was highly doubted among the art world as a Leonardo, sold in 2017 as “the last Leonardo” for a spectacular $450 million. Through the normal media of scholarly debate, provenance building, and good old-fashioned marketing, the painting would make its way to the famous Christie’s auction block. ![]() ![]() She argued that a dark and ominous painting of Jesus Christ called Salvator Mundi was a long lost Leonardo Di Vinci. In 1978, art historian Joanne Snow-Smith quietly began a movement. Let’s throw off images, cling to what is confessional, biblical, and good-and know that there will come a day when you will see him face to face. The Apostle John pleads with believers to keep themselves from idols (I John 5:21) as well as reminds us that when he is revealed we will see him as he is (I John 3:2). ![]()
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