IDOLATRY, ICONOGRAPHY, and INCARNATION

After our brief discussion in class on Sunday regarding the graven images prohibition in the Ten Commandments, I felt we did not do justice to that topic of idolatry. While I still can't deal with that exhaustively here, I'd like to give a few things for you to consider.

My preface or disclaimer to the below comments is that I believe that Christians are always in danger of misusing materials from creation in sinful ways. It is as inescapable as the sin that persistently grows like a metasticizing cancerous tumor in our own bodies, in our hearts, that infects our entire lives. The human heart is an idol factory. The only solution is the forgiveness found in Christ, the death of our sinful self through repentance, and the new life of Christ to spring up in us.

On the flip side, there are different dangers that we confront when we reject material things and adopt a false form of Christianity that emphasizes an "escape of the soul to heaven" from all things of the world "when we die". The Christian faith is built upon the story of how eternal, almighty God of all life broke into material, human history, into time and space, to save us. When we take iconoclasm, the rejection of images to the Nth degree, we end up following someone like Plato instead of Jesus Christ. We end up rejecting the truth of key Christian doctrines, not the least of which are the GOODNESS of GOD'S ORIGINAL CREATION, THE INCARNATION OF JESUS CHRIST, THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, the NEW HEAVENS and NEW EARTH. Rather than completely disengaging the material world, we do much better to engage it and endeavor to use it for God's purposes.

Below are quotes from a Christian church father known in history as John of Damascus, ca. 646-749. I think they are a pretty compelling defense for the use of images/icons in Christian worship.

I do not venerate the creation instead of the creator, but I venerate the Creator, created for my sake who came down to his creation without being lowered or weakened, that he might glorify my nature and bring about communion with the divine nature. (22)

Therefore I am emboldened to depict the invisible God, not as invisible, but as he became visible for our sake, by participation in flesh and blood. (22)

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine is like gold, or silver, or stone, a representation of human art and imagination (23, Acts 17:29)

For it is clear that when you see the bodiless become human for your sake, then you may accomplish the figure of a human form; when the invisible becomes visible in the flesh, then you may depict the likeness of something seen; when one who, by transcending his own nature, is bodiless, formless, incommensurable, without magnitude or size, that is, one who is in the form of God, taking the form of a slave, by this reduction to quantity and magnitude puts on the characteristics of a body, then depict him on a board and set up to view the One who has accepted to be seen. (24)

For the cherubim are not outside creation. Why then does he prescribe carved cherubim fashioned by human hands to overshadow the mercy seat? (28)

 I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation, and I will not cease from reverencing matter, through which my salvation was worked. … Is not the thrice-precious and thrice-blessed wood of the cross matter? Is not the holy and august mountain, and the place of the skull, matter? Is not the lifegiving and lifebearing rock, the holy tomb, the source of the resurrection, matter? Is not the ink and the all-holy book of the Gospels matter? Is not the life-bearing table, which offers to us the bread of life, matter? Is not the gold and silver matter, out of which crosses and tablets and bowls are fashioned? And, before all these things, is not the body and blood of my Lord matter? Either do away with reverence and veneration for all these or submit to the tradition of the Church and allow the veneration of images of God and friends of God, sanctified by name and therefore overshadowed by the grace of the divine Spirit. (30)

Beseleel and Eliab (30, Ex. 31:1-6)

Offerings for the tabernacle (30, Ex. 35:4-10)

12 Stones of Remembrance (32, Jos. 4:6-7)

How therefore shall we not depict in images what Christ our God endured for our salvation and his miracles, so that, when my son asks me, what is this? (32)

Images are an entry point into dialogue about Christ, aka. witness.

“For the honor given to the image passes to the archetype,” (35, Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit)

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life. (54, Severian, bishop of Gabala, Homily on the Serpent, Jn 3:14-15)

The raised up serpent was an image of the passion of the Lord (54)

Yes, Master, I venerate and embrace with ardent longing everything that is yours: your divinity, your power, your goodness, your mercy towards me, your descending to our condition, your incarnation, your flesh…so I venerate your flesh, not because of the nature of flesh, but because of the divinity hypostatically united to it (58).

I entreat the people of God, the holy nation, to cling to the traditions of the Church (58; 1 Pet. 2:9, Ex.19:6)

St. John of Damascus. Three Treatises on the Divine Images. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press: New York, 2003. (Translation by Andrew Louth)

So I guess the bottom line is that spiritual matters are never purely spiritual. Your spiritual life has everything to do with how you live within the MATERIAL WORLD that God has created, that has been completely corrupted by sin. If Jesus came from heaven to earth into this material world to save us, then we are called to engage matter for God's purposes. 

From an artist's perspective, I think more "Christian art" could reflect this REDEMPTIVE process. Would using RECYCLED MATERIALS or reusing and transforming materials in art help to show what God does to our hearts and lives through faith in Jesus Christ?

Thanks for reading. As always, I certainly would invite your comments and questions.

Pastor Karl