Scriptural Reflection

Are images important? In ancient times, the world was dominated by paganism. Pagan religious were many and their beliefs and worship differed in comparison. Their images took varying forms, from replicas of grotesque and unknown creatures to animals, birds, fishes, and half animal and half human adaptations. While idolatrous image worship was common to all these religious, immoral manifestations were an integral part of worship among some of them. In later times, images began to serve a religious purpose in the Christian faith as well, which was quite independent of any pagan influence and pagan affiliation to images.

The Scriptures tell us that images were not used in worship by God's people during the time of the Patriarchs and Moses. At that time, they identified God as the sole supernatural divine entity to whom worship was due. The scriptures do not say that the people attempted to make or made an image to represent Him. If they did, such an image would have been contemptuous of His Divine profile. Besides this, they did not know His outward distinctiveness as He is a spirit nobody had seen.

It was only God's people who knew Him as the true God and worshipped Him in word and deed. It could be seen that image worship was not a part of the Mosaic faith which the Israelites followed. In that background, God did not want idolatrous image worship, which was sinful, to make its way to the religious doman of the Mosaic faith. In due time, God asked His people not to make any carved image and not to bow down before it in worship, as such worship being sinful would offend Him. God's commandment in Exodus 20: 4 - 5 reads: "Do not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them." A violation of this Commandment would have deprived them of God's protection and exposed them to the dangers of satanic response.

Likewise the Scripture in Deuteronomy 4 : 16 - 18 reads: "Therefore, do not become corrupted: Do not make an idol or a god carved in the form of a man or of a woman, or in the form of any animal that lives on the earth, or of any kind of bird that flies in the sky, or of any reptile that crawis on the earth, or of any fish that lives in the water under the earth. When you look at the heavens and you see the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the heavenly bodies, do not prostrate yourself to adore or serve them as gods." This Scripture text clearly refers to the images that the Exodus text deals with and, in addition, to the constellations in the remote regions beyond, not considered divine in God's realm which cannot be made objects of worship.

The Exodus & Deuteronomy scriptures dealt with image worship that was sinful in God's ideology. God's people who followed the Mosaic faith were forbidden from "making any image" for worship, that is, an image of a false god or an image to be used as a medium to represent God in worship. They were also prevented from making images of pagan god's used by the Canaanite pagans in idolatrous worship. In enforcing this prohibition, God intended to prevent His people from using these images in competitive or alternative worship against Him. Being a spirit who had not been seen by any human, it was inconsistent with the Scriptures for them to make an image to represent Him in afictitious.

These two scriptures have to be viewed in their transparancies as being relevant to the present time as well. They preclude Christians from indulging in the worship of images of false Gods. The words "in the form of a man or woman" in the Deuteronomy text refer to objects of worship that are outside God's divine realm and, in that sense, these words do not refer to image of divine entities of the Christian faith used in present day worship.

Some sources that are critical of the use of images in the Christian faith say: Did God's attitude change with the introduction of Christianity? No, for the Bible shows the Cristians likewise avoided the use of images. (Acts 17 : 29). This Scripture in the Acts explains that God should not be thought of as anything material as a statue, whether of "gold, silver or stone." This does not deal with the use of other religious images in the Christian faith.

As we would perceive, the Exodus and Deuteronomy texts do not forbid image worship as such but "sinful image worship" that would be a hindrance to believers in worshipping God. This does not happen in the Christian faith. To Christians the worship of God is supreme and independent of image worship.