The Bible and Icons
Update: PhatCat weighs in on this discussion here.
Yesterday I was thinking of writing a post on worshipping through icons. Last night I heard a few minutes of John MacArthur and guess what he was talking about? Biblical evidence that worshipping through icons was wrong. There is nothing that can build up you confidence in a Catholic doctrine like hearing a bright bible scholar like MacArthur try and tear it down and fail miserably. Usually his arguments are very convincing. Usually he is right.
He started with 1 Sam 15 where Saul defeats the Amalekites but does not destroy all the livestock as he was commanded. His excuse was he was going to use them to worship the Lord with a sacrifice. So MacArthur sees this as an example of a bad form of worship angering God even when it is directed at God. But the problem was not worship style. The problem was obedience. Look at that Samuel says:
Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
he has rejected you as king.
So MacArthur drags this text into the worship debate when it does not belong there at all. You could say that using the desire to worship as an excuse for disobeying the church would be condemned here. Obedience trumps worship. But how does that apply to icons? It doesn’t.
The next point he made was similar. It was from 2 Kings 18. Hezekiah, in verse 4, breaks into pieces the bronze snake Moses made in Num 21. From this he jumps to the conclusion that using an object in worship is always bad. But what was the real problem? This act was mentioned together with many forms of idol worship. Were they using the bronze snake to worship the one true God? It does not sound like it. They had given it a name, Nehushtan. This sounds more like worshipping the creation instead of the creator rather than worshipping the creator through the creation. So the problem was not the holy object but that the holy object was being used as an idol.
If that was not the case why would God not have commanded the snake be destroyed earlier? It was obviously kept in some venerated way for all these years. That is the only way an object like that would survive. Only when it gets mixed in with the worship of Baal and Asherah is there a problem. Is that so hard to understand? Look at the ark of the covenant. Why is that not an icon? If some objects are OK and some are not then maybe we have to look a little deeper into why.
There is another problem with this. Sure you can apply this to the Catholics and say they are just bad. MacArthur does that and stops there. But what about protestant worship? He says worship of the one true God can be sinful if it is done in a bad way. How do protestants know their worship is good? How can you embrace innovation so easily and without biblical models when you think bad worship form is a serious sin? Don’t they always argue that worship style is irrelevant because the heart is all that matters? Now they are saying that style matters. That is that Catholic worship style is evil regardless of their heart. Somehow protestants are assumed to be immune from evil worship styles.
When protestants talk about there being doctrinal agreement on the most important matters they never include worship style. There is a good reason. There is so much disagreement about that. But does not this argument force protestants to put worship style on the list of important doctrines? If they do then any pretence about Sola Scriptura being adequate goes out the window. There just isn’t enough clear, detailed biblical guidance to know how to proceed. It comes from tradition and from culture. So it is deemed to be unimportant. Of course, Catholics believe liturgy is important. It is ironic that Catholics think so much more deeply about the mass then protestants ever do about their worship. Yet they don’t hesitate to condemn what we do.
I immediately thought of your blog with its constant questioning of “who decides”. The New Testament has no new book of Leviticus telling us what the new liturgy must be like. The early Church was disturbed to find that particular Churches founded under different apostles had slightly different ways of doing things. Gradually pluralism came to be accepted. Jerome famously said, “When in Rome I do as the Romans do”, i.e., he worshipped according to the Roman rite. But clearly, pluralism did not mean there was a free-for-all; a great deal of the eastern councils promulgated many canons regulating the liturgy.
So what are the limits? Who decides? God decides. Who speaks for God? If you decide for yourself, you are contributing earrings for the golden calf.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:44 amOur Protestant brothers might point to a statue of Mary and say “idolatrous icon!”, but what about a crucifix or a painting of Jesus?
Following this thought, what then about a simple cross, which most Protestant churches have hanging up front somewhere?
Christians gaze upon the cross to contemplate our Lord; they watch the Passion of the Christ and put on plays about Jesus (nativity, miracles, death, etc.) that help them to draw closer to God; are these bad things?
January 17th, 2008 at 9:49 amThat is very interesting. I didn’t think of the tie in with questions of liturgy until I was halfway through the post. It is a very interesting subject. The question of obedience being better than sacrifice does seem relevent jusr in a way John MacArthur would not have seen.
Devin,
You are right. The inconsistencies are endless. One question I often ask is when do the musicans or preachers become objects of worship? The idea is that they lead people to worship God but in reality they can become the center very easily. Just ask why a protestant goes to the church he does. Most often they will mention music and/or preaching. Doctrine rarely matters (except when rejecting the Catholic church of course).
January 17th, 2008 at 1:06 pm