I am putting this in IMHO hoping not to start a great debate while also not getting moved from General Questions. Ok, here goes: I’ve never understood why statues of Christ do not violate the 2nd Commandment. Can the SD explain why churches do not find this a violation of making images of God? Have other SDopers been bothered by this, if just a little?
Old church official stance (IANAC, but IAA art historian): Because you are offering devotion/veneration (latria/hyperdulia/dulia) to God/ saints VIA the images, not worshipping images themselves. Gregory I explains it in a sort of ‘telephone to the divine’ manner. Images aren’t the problem, people misusing them can be. But they are useful (with proper education)-- they educate by showing the history/theological concepts, offer exempla of behavior, and offer a devotional focus for veneration.
(Thomas Aquinas: “Religion does not offer worship to images considered as mere things in themselves, but as images drawing us to God incarnate. Motion to an image does not stop there but goes on the thing that it represents.”)
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Some sects do think such statues violate the commandment, though they are in the minority as Christians go.
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The context of the prohibition of graven images is that at the time such images were invariably related to other (false) gods. Note the text: “You shall not make for yourself an idol [graven image], whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” Such idols were typically animals which represented various gods. The sense of the commandment clearly prohibits these, but does not clearly prohibit making an image of God Himself.
Another argument was- in the Old Testament era, while people did have visions of God, it was understood that these were visions & that one could not make an image of God as God as no one has seen God in His very essence.
However, in Jesus, God gave Himself a human image which could be represented, and thus it was now proper to make pictures & images of Jesus.
I’m not sure it’s a great argument, but it strikes me as a pretty decent one.
At one time yes I was bothered by it, but that was early as I was coming to Jesus, but the Grace of God tells a different story:
We are no longer under a written code, but under the guidance of the Spirit of God living in our hearts, guiding us and instructing us.
We can violate the written code if our hearts are right with God and doing His will. King David and the apostles did this and was found blameless in the sight of God. This is the freedom that Jesus offers.
It’s like having a picture of your family on your desk at work. You look at the picture and feel a surge of love for your family, because you’re thinking of the people in the photo and how much you love them. You don’t love the actual material paper photo.
Looking at an image of Jesus reminds you of your love for Jesus – you don’t love or worship the material icon or statue.
Of the protestant churches I have been to here the only ones that had Jesus statues were the Anglicans. My feeling is that as we don’t know what Jesus looked like specifically it is a bit tacky to make a specific image of him (a handsome blood haired blues eyed white person being the worst) I can cope with images like this http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E8BpJEni77I/R3J5GKCToiI/AAAAAAAAAnM/f87rh4PwHO0/s400/jesus.jpg as a representation in much the same way as Gallows fodder
