by David Cox
[C05] ©2008 www.davidcox.com.mx/tracts
This tract can be freely used for non-profit use.

This tract explains the Bible’s pro­hi­bi­tion against using images, icons, and other types of sym­bol­ism in our wor­ship of God. Sim­ply put, God can­not be reduced to an image with­out doing dam­age to the con­cept of God, so God “prefers” (com­mands) that we use no image of Him. If God takes this atti­tude towards vis­i­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tions of God Him­self, then even less is mak­ing a vis­i­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tion of some­thing other than God pos­si­ble with­out incur­ring the wrath of God against you.

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John 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true wor­ship­pers shall wor­ship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to wor­ship him.

There are many reli­gions today that use images in their ser­vices, cer­e­monies, and activ­i­ties. Chris­tians some­times of good churches and doc­trine have started using the fade of “Chris­t­ian” key chains, Bible cov­ers with images, and many other things with reli­gious images. There are two groups of think­ing on this then. First there are peo­ple and groups who say the images are use­ful in some way or another in their rela­tion­ship with God. The other group who think lightly of the issue, and they just are not going to worry about this because they don’t see images as idol­a­try where they bow the knee before it.

What is Bib­li­cal Worship?

We have to define what bib­li­cal wor­ship is. This is that wor­ship that God wants from us. This is the point. Praise is when we rec­og­nize some­thing that God has done for some­body (for their ben­e­fit). We can give praise to God for what God has done for Israel. Thanks­giv­ing is a type of praise, because it is per­sonal. It is what God has done per­son­ally for me. We have to sep­a­rate this things from the pop­u­lar con­cept of praise, which is emo­tion, nor­mally caused by worldly music and a show that pulls us emo­tion­ally to rise up and excite our emotions.

Wor­ship is a spir­i­tual recog­ni­tion of God for whom He is. This revolves around under­stand­ing and rec­og­niz­ing some aspect of God’s moral char­ac­ter. Because of this, in a bib­li­cal church, wor­ship is prin­ci­pally focused on teach­ing, preach­ing, and expo­si­tion in one form or another one or more bib­li­cal texts.

Why do we begin with this? This is because very sim­ply bib­li­cal wor­ship does not con­cen­trate on the exter­nals of the life of the wor­ship­per. The exter­nal forms are not impor­tant, or bet­ter said, they are not what makes up bib­li­cal wor­ship. Bib­li­cal wor­ship has to do with what is “spir­i­tual” and the “truth” John 4:23. This is what God wants in true wor­ship. To explain this, we need to under­stand that true wor­ship is not linked with a site (as in the tem­ple in Jerusalem) nor with an exter­nal form. It is linked with a process, where the will of God (the Bible) is explained to the per­son who wishes to wor­ship God, and then that person’s life changes accord­ing to that word. His atti­tudes, actions, and beliefs are dif­fer­ent after hav­ing wor­shipped bib­li­cally. More­over God explic­itly pro­hibits the use of images in the wor­ship, such as rep­re­sen­ta­tions of God or other con­cepts in the Bible or even out­side of the Bible.

No wor­ship other gods, nor images

Exo 20:2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any like­ness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thy­self to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jeal­ous God, vis­it­ing the iniq­uity of the fathers upon the chil­dren unto the third and fourth gen­er­a­tion of them that hate me;

Here in the 10 com­mand­ments, God pro­hibits the wor­ship and hon­or­ing of other gods. In this con­text we see the pro­hi­bi­tion of the use of images, explic­itly the bow­ing before them, or hon­or­ing them in some way. Later God explains to us this com­mand­ment is because our God is very jeal­ous, and the wrath and pun­ish­ment of God is on all who use images. The idea is very clear here that the use of images and the idol­a­try asso­ci­ated with them is the same thing.

There are not “good” and “bad” images

More­over we see that there is no such thing as good images and bad images, but the pro­hi­bi­tion is wife, for any type of image. The con­cept of an image is what­ever in the sky, in the earth, or under the earth, and this includes everything.

When Paul preached at Eph­esus against the reli­gions present there (espe­cially against Diana) that had images of sil­ver in her honor), Paul was accused because he said “they be no gods, which are made with hands” (Acts 19.26). What we under­stand by that is that every phys­i­cal thing cre­ated by human beings (and equally things that already exist) is with­out any help in man’s wor­ship (even a meteor that fell from hell). The Bible pro­hibits giv­ing honor or rev­er­ence or bow­ing before these (which is an act of sub­mis­sion, humil­i­a­tion, and homage to it).

Rev­er­ence or Worship?

The Catholics make great argu­ments that they honor Mary and the saints through these images, but that they don’t wor­ship them, pre­fer­ring the term “ven­er­a­tion”. [1] The word “ven­er­ate” does not appear in the Bible.

1Pe 3:15 But sanc­tify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a rea­son of the hope that is in you with meek­ness and fear:

So the idea of ven­er­at­ing is one of con­form­ing one’s char­ac­ter to the char­ac­ter of another per­son, even though it may be dif­fer­ent that your own char­ac­ter, or dif­fi­cult to do. At the base of this con­cept is honor, respect, and to give pri­or­ity of the life to another. We may give a mea­sure of rev­er­ence to our par­ents (Exo. 20:12; Heb 12:9) or to the civil author­i­ties (1Pet 2:17; Rom 13:2–7; Titus 3:1–2; 2Pet 2:10; Jude 1:8), but this is not wor­ship in a spir­i­tual con­text. To wor­ship God is to allow God to com­mand, con­trol, and manip­u­late our goals, morals, prin­ci­ples, and eter­nal life. If one ceases to have respect of their par­ents or civil author­i­ties, then this becomes sin.

What things are prohibited?

Deu 4:15 Take ye there­fore good heed unto your­selves; for ye saw no man­ner of simil­i­tude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: 16 Lest ye cor­rupt your­selves, and make you a graven image, the simil­i­tude of any fig­ure, the like­ness of male or female, 17 The like­ness of any beast that is on the earth, the like­ness of any winged fowl that fli­eth in the air, 18 The like­ness of any thing that creep­eth on the ground, the like­ness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: 19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be dri­ven to wor­ship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

Here God touches on every­thing that there is as far as being off lim­its for rep­re­sen­ta­tion in images. This includes man-likenesses, woman, ani­mal, celes­tial objects, or even God Him­self. This would mean that rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Mary, the saints, the apos­tles, and even of Jesus him­self are pro­hib­ited from use in a reli­gious con­text. It is not pos­si­ble to excuse what God specif­i­cally prohibits.

Deu 5:8–9 Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any like­ness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thy­self unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jeal­ous God, vis­it­ing the iniq­uity of the fathers upon the chil­dren unto the third and fourth gen­er­a­tion of them that hate me,

Here we see that we are not to bow down before any image. Exo 20:5 says that we are not to bow or honor them. Every reli­gious image is for hon­or­ing some­thing in some way, invok­ing the God that is involved in that image. Nobody believes that a painted rock is God, but that the image rep­re­sents a god some­where and the painted image is used to rep­re­sent and honor that god. “Serve” means to work for some­one, or to do ser­vice or to fol­low some­one. Catholics take pride in being called and rec­og­nized as “Gau­dalu­panos” (from the Vir­gin of Guadapule).

Catholics say ”The images help us, noth­ing more”

Isa 42:8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, nei­ther my praise to graven images. 17 They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods. 44:9 They that make a graven image are all of them van­ity; and their delec­table things shall not profit; (are worth­less) and they are their own wit­nesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed. 10 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is prof­itable for noth­ing?

God clearly declares that every image is a vain (thing that doesn’t have any spir­i­tual or eter­nal value), and that they “shall not profit” and “prof­itable for noth­ing.” These words mean that they are use­less, that there is noth­ing of use­ful­ness as far as spir­i­tu­ally in these things. They are totally with­out util­ity, worth­less, and more­over they cause peo­ple to go into idol­a­try and causes great spir­i­tual confusion.

How should we wor­ship God?

Act 17:29 Foras­much then as we are the off­spring of God, we ought not to think that the God­head is like unto gold, or sil­ver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.

We see God is not mate­r­ial in his form such that a per­son can repro­duce and make a like­ness of him. On the con­trary, John 4:23 says that we have to wor­ship God in spirit (spir­i­tu­ally) and in truth. This is by under­stand­ing (men­tally) the char­ac­ter, atti­tude, “spirit” (way of doing things), and moral prin­ci­ples of God, and then to impose God’s will and plea­sure in our lives, and prac­tice them. It is to have a pro­found respect for the preach­ing of God’s word, expo­si­tion, and teach­ing of the word of God. It is to be rev­er­ent in church, and to learn with joy and good will, and then have a habit of always putting into prac­tice what you learn for your pri­vate life. The exter­nal forms are not true worship.

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[1] The con­cept of hav­ing rev­er­ence for some­one is the same as used in wor­ship­ping God in the Bible, Neh 1:11; Isa 58:13.