Welcome back to our class on delighting in the incarnation. We've been considering ways that it has been applied over the span of church history, especially in the opening centuries. And now we've come to a question like how far can we actually press the incarnation as a theological justification for things? Where we ended up last time was looking at the sacraments, baptism, the Lord's Table, and the sacramental theology, which uses an object to confer a grace, where nature is used to confer a grace. But then it's brought up the question of real presence and the presence of the body and the blood of Jesus in the Table of the Lord. And the incarnation is very commonly used to justify that belief. that just as Jesus, just as the Logos, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, so the body and the blood of Jesus, you know, is present at the table in the bread and in the cup. And so, how far does this incarnation, this fact, and the doctrine that we've considered, how far does it go to justify other theological claims? Could it be that it could justify that Jesus is still here today in other forms, not just bread and wine, but in culture, the way that the German liberal tradition would speak in the 19th century, or in other ways, you know, pertaining to the church? as the Incarnation of Christ. We'll hopefully consider that next week, as the Church ends up being, we often say, the hands and feet of Jesus. In what way is that theologically or biblically correct, and in what way is it not? There are actually right ways and wrong ways to think about the body of Christ, according to Scripture, but the Incarnation is right there again, and it would appear like the Church is just the almost continuation of the incarnation of the Son of God on Earth. And there's no separation between Christ and His Church. These are big questions and I hope you can appreciate the fact that they cover a broad area of theology, a lot of different traditions and a lot of different claims. Today we want to actually say, well, can we judge an entire tradition by the fruit that it brings. You may be familiar with, by their fruit you will know them, Jesus' words in Matthew chapter 7 in the Sermon on the Mount. Can we actually apply that to not just a teacher, but a tradition of teachers that could span centuries? And I'm venturing today Let's explore that. Let's actually see whether the patristic tradition bears out good fruit in its end result. And I think we can see it as a tradition in and of itself if we take the Constantinian era of the 4th century into the 9th century. In the West you move into the Middle Ages. In the East you end up getting cramped by the growing threat of Islam. But there's this large section where Christianity ceased to be persecuted in the 1st and 2nd centuries, 3rd century. It ceased to be persecuted and the emperor profess faith in Jesus, and then pretty soon Christianity is the official religion of the Roman Empire, I think in 380-381 under Theodosius. And a whole new set of circumstances results. One of the big circumstances are a set of councils that begins with Nicaea in 325, and then moves to Constantinople 381 and then to Ephesus and Chalcedon and beyond where you have seven so-called ecumenical councils in that both East and West affirm them. That forms a tight tradition. in which culture is largely the same other than in the West you have the encroachment of the barbarian tribes, many of your ancestors by the way, and in the East you have the encroachment of Islam and yet there's still a cohesiveness such that both sides not only recognize each other but there's actually still some administrative connections between the two for quite a while. as the Roman Empire disintegrates in the West, but maintains its strength and presence in the East and becomes the Byzantine Empire, headquartered in Constantinople. It's a Latin-speaking West and a Greek-speaking East. But until the big break in 1054, where they anathematize each other, they still see each other as one church. And this tradition of creeds and councils, a patristic tradition, is what we're going to actually look at today. And can we judge this tradition by its fruits? It's kind of challenging to do this because there are some benefits that we receive from it. We talked about these early on. We have received a theological language on how to talk about mysteries such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Due to those early controversies, fourth century, fifth century, we are the beneficiaries of technical terminology that is basically heresy repellent. It's like you kind of spray a couple of these words on and the heretics go away. They can't stomach homoousius or consubstantial, that somehow the son is of one essence with the father. They can't stomach that and so they run away. Well, that was a benefit. And we learn that such things are a gift from God. And we're grateful for that. Please note, we believe in a sovereign Jesus, who is head over all things for the sake of the church, at the right hand of God. And as a result of that, even when sin abounds, grace super abounds. That there is nothing outside of his beneficiary control for the good of the church. And so we may end up concluding something about this tradition and yet not write off everything that occurred. It's not all or nothing often when we see things happen in our lives or in the church. And we're grateful for that. Our main topic today is going to be the iconoclastic controversy of the 8th and 9th century. Raise your hand if you have never studied the iconoclastic controversy of the 8th and 9th century. And until five days ago, I basically, or five months ago, I would have basically raised my hand too. Not that I didn't study it in some degree, you know, getting training in church history, but not in any in depth. And so I was intrigued by it when I read the appendix of what it means to be a Protestant by Gavin Ortland. He has one appendix on the veneration of icons. I also read a book by Robert Lethem on Eastern Orthodoxy through Western eyes. I personally think he's too sympathetic to the Eastern tradition. He's Presbyterian though, and so it's not like he's out to get them. He's out to appreciate what we can gain from them. And so I read that book. I had read his book on the Holy Trinity several years back as well and appreciated his knowledge of that doctrine. But Ortland, He's been writing a lot. He's a church historian and now I think is theologian in residence down in Nashville at one church there. But he opened my eyes to see that it's a development in church history that lacks some underpinnings. And it forms an interesting, like how did that come about? George Florovsky, who's a, I think, Russian Orthodox scholar from the 20th century. In my PhD studies, I had to read a long book, I think a two-volume book or something by him on various Eastern fathers. And so I was familiar with the name. He had a 1950 article that I read. He's very sympathetic to the icons, to the use of iconography in the Eastern tradition. If you don't know what an icon is, it's Greek for image. It's basically the holy posters. that they put up in their churches. So they're very elaborate, beautiful paintings of saints. And even of Christ. And of his mother. And so it becomes kind of, in a sense, the eastern equivalent of what the west does with statues. The latins kind of do more statuary, it seems like. And the east really liked their icons and their posters. And so They're very stylish in that there's a format for their appearance. It's not like it's an artistic expression of the artist's inner personality. There's a formula for these things and they're meant to be done in a certain way. And I believe the icon for Christ has actually the Tris Agion, well, no, it's the Ho-On, the equivalent of I Am, He Will Be, which is the Holy Name of God according to Exodus chapter 3. And so, He has the name given to Him by the Father according to John's Gospel, I Am. And it's precious in John's Gospel where he says, I am the bread, I am the light, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He is I Am. So this is what iconography is, and the icons that the Eastern tradition has. And Vlasky was basically saying that the controversies of the 8th and 9th century, the 700s and the 800s, left us without unity. They still remain with us to this day, which is interesting for an Eastern scholar to just say. Not like there's a huge rift, But sometimes if you don't grow up in these traditions, you think that somehow they're all monolithic or uniform and everything. But when you get inside them, they've had their controversies, they've had their fights. Human nature has still been human nature on that side of the aisle as on this side of the aisle. And so, But he has said that it is very important, and there's a lot still unknown. Now, this is 1950. I bought a huge book that Ortland cited, and I didn't read it. It's about this big on the history of this controversy. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach when it comes to studying something. And so may the Lord have mercy on me, because I'll die with several books unread. Maybe they'll be used by somebody else to the glory of God. And maybe someday I'll end up using it, at least for reference. So people are doing work on this controversy and digging up more and more on it. But Meyendorff, who I have read before, John Meyendorff is an Orthodox scholar. I read his book on Christ in the Eastern Tradition. But he has a really good book on Byzantine theology. and a really good chapter on the icons. It was very, very clear. So I'm going to start out with his background to it. He basically says that pagan Greek, the pagan Greek culture had left the Greek people with a love for beauty, a love for art. If you know anything about Greeks and their statues, their love for the human body, very, very big. And so, What Meandorf implies is that, but the emperors of the controversy were not from the Greek-speaking world. They were Eastern emperors and more influenced by Semitic culture and also influenced by the growing threat, Cold War as he calls it, of Islam. And if you know anything about Islam, you know that they hate idols. Anything that smells of idols. icons, statues, everything. They have one God, Allah, and they broke no sun, no other deity, nothing. And so the threat of Islam, its rising presence from starting around 600, but now we're into the 700s, the rise of Islam a hundred years later is now pressing The Christians, like, what are you doing, you polytheists? You believe in a so-called trinity. You believe in three gods. Oh, and look at all your idols. My, my, my. Your whole church is full of them. I see his mother over there. I see the saints over there. Wow, are you guys polytheistic. And so the implication is that some of these new emperors in the Aeswarian dynasty, about 715, are ready to do business and get rid of the icons in order to make a better defense against Islam. It's one of the arguments that's used. Iconoclasm means image smashing. So they're ready to smash some images and pull them out of the churches and get rid of them. They start doing this under Leo III, the emperor in Constantinople in 725. The first purge of icons occurs in 725. It continues under his son Constantine V. His nickname is Corporonimus, nimus is name, I guess corporal means dung. The winners get to name people, I think. So he's the dung-named emperor, Constantine V, because he continued the iconoclasm of this dynasty, which is not the winning side at the end of the day. as the icons and what are called the iconophiles or iconodules, the icon servers or the icon lovers are the ones that won out in this controversy, not the iconoclasts. Well, under the dung-named emperor, there was actually a council that tried to claim to be ecumenical and put an end to this. It was a council in Haerea. And basically it made the argument, again, based on the Incarnation. Everything's got to be based on the Incarnation. When you have an icon, you only have two choices. You either can picture his humanity or you can picture his deity. Now if you try to picture his humanity, we're going to claim you're Nestorian. You have separated his humanity from his deity. And so you are a heretic. But if you claim that you can capture his divinity in a painting, then somehow you must think that the divinity is hidden under his humanity and therefore you are secretively monophysite, one nature. So you are denying the actual two natures of Jesus and you are just holding to one nature, which is also a heresy. So we have you on the horns of a dilemma. If you go that way and you claim to paint His humanity, we're going to say you're that heretic and if you go this way, then you're one of those heretics. And it was actually a pretty powerful theological argument. Now, it ran ashore though, on this basic theological claim. He's human and the human nature is preserved after the union, the hypostatic union. He finds his individualness in the hypostasis of the Logos, the Son of God. His human nature is intact and remains and as such can be painted. So we are affirming Chalcedonian Christology. that there are two natures united in one divine person. And that is why we can draw him. Isn't it? In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 4, you know, when he spoke to you on the mountain, you saw no form. You just heard his voice. Right? You know, so don't make any carved images. Well, now you can actually see his form. Like, you know, Thomas, put your finger here. He's risen from the dead. He's got visible form. He eats fish. You know, so it's like, okay, I guess we could, you know, we could have take somebody had one, you know, smartphone, then I guess they could have taken a picture and posted it on Facebook, you know, or something. And, you know, there it is. They didn't have that technology then, but. Well, that's what won out. And it's interesting, it's two ladies that end up winning the day. Irene, her name means peaceful. Irenaeus in Greek. She was anything but peaceful to her son who was going to reign next. She gouged out his eyes and then, I think, put him in prison or then he died in prison. By the way, please know, the Byzantine Empire when it declared something to be this is orthodox, it was horrendous in its persecution of people. John of Damascus who wrote the definitive defense of icons was actually in Damascus under Islamic control and was faring much better than if he had been under Christian control. because they were cutting off noses and taking out tongues and gouging out eyes and I mean, it was pretty fierce, the battles. And once, by the way, once a political controversy becomes religious, you can almost justify anything by its end result. And it becomes very dangerous often. And so just tuck that away. It may not always be the best to have a religious party in control because it tends to justify extreme measures. And then, so, later on it's a lady named Theodora who finally, I think, packs up the controversy at the end and puts it to rest. These are empresses, I believe. Well, John of Damascus is the one, I should have brought his book. He's the definitive theology for the Eastern tradition and he's the one that actually, you know, solidifies the reasoning for it. And I'm just going to just pick a couple of his reasons. One is, he says, the second commandment no longer applies to us because we're in a new era. Now that can be a valid argument. Please know, right, don't we do a lot of things like that with Old Testament commands, right? Why don't we sacrifice bulls and goats? Because Christ has come. We don't have to do that anymore. The Lamb of God has given His blood. So we don't have to do that. So you could justify maybe something like this. Now that God Himself chose to be human, visible, Free game now to make icons, posters, statues, because he chose that. He made the difference. So the second commandment doesn't apply to today. Second reason of others that he gave is that pictures are the books of the unlearned. If you can't read, you can at least come to a church and see the pictures. Gregory I used this around 600 in the West and he's quite famous for it. It's after him that the West, the Papacy, actually accepts all this stuff. He was hesitant on some things, but he's the one that did give that reason and caution on this. And so, John of Damascus cites it 150 years later. It's now part of the tradition. But probably the biggest things to note, and Mannedorf mentions it, is that Neoplatonism, a philosophy that was Greek philosophy, had left this legacy in the Eastern Church. That, that which is visible gives you access to that which is invisible. That the visible representation can give you a knowledge of the prototype or the original. And so by that means, then if you want access or a window into heaven, An icon is a gift from God. Now you have a window, you have a way to see the unseen world. Now, we do not worship the material, not like we're worshiping paper or paint. We see the image and we go through the image and we venerate and we give respect and honor to the prototype, not to the image. You might think of it like the US flag. Why do you hold the flag and you don't let it drop to the ground? Why do you have a light on at night? Are you a flag worshipper? Or are you respecting your country? And so you might say it like that, where an orthodox person would say, I'm not worshipping these posters. I am venerating what they stand for. And these are windows into the eternal, the unseen world. And so this is probably the main argument. It finds its way all the way in the West in the Council of Trent. It's reiterated there in the 16th century, which is in the Roman Catholic world, far after the split between East and West had occurred. And so this is why So this led to the 7th Ecumenical Council of 787, which, I have the document here, declared, Assembly of Bishops declared the faith that they believe had always been given. They added nothing. It was traditional faith. And they say, to make our confession short, we keep unchanged all the ecclesiastical traditions handed down to us. whether in writing or verbally, one of which is the making of pictorial representations agreeable to the history of the preaching of the gospel, a tradition useful in many respects, but especially in this, that so the incarnation of the word of God is shown forth as real and not merely fantastical, like a fantasy, a phantom. For these have mutual indications and without doubt have mutual significations. We therefore, following the royal pathway, the divinely inspired authority of our Holy Fathers and the traditions of the Catholic Church, for as we all know, the Holy Spirit indwells her, define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life-giving cross So also the venerable and holy images. Now, by the way, Countryside Bible Church, you have a cross in your sanctuary. If I catch any of you genuflecting, or getting a ladder out and kissing it, I'll know this lesson had an interesting effect on you. So it's interesting, we have an image they would have recognized, even in our sanctuary. So also are the venerable and holy images, as well as the painting, the mosaics, as of other fit materials, should be set forth in the holy churches of God, and on the sacred vessels, and on the vestments, and on hangings, and in pictures, both in houses and by the wayside. They would call this merch today. To wit. the figure of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ and of our spotless lady, the mother of God, Theotokos, and of the honorable angels and all the saints and all pious people. For by such more frequently as they are seen in artistic representation, by so much more readily are men lifted up to the memory of their prototype, their originals. and to a longing after them. And to these should be given due salutation and honorable reverence. Not indeed that true worship of faith, Latria, which pertains alone to the divine nature. So don't adore them. Latreya is given only to God. Dulya, or veneration, is given to icons. This is a careful distinction that the Eastern tradition makes. So veneration to the saints, to the icons, not adoration because they're not divine. But to these as to the figure of the precious and life-giving cross, and to the book of the Gospels, after all, the Bible, we venerate this book, and to the other holy objects, incense and lights may be offered according to anxious, pious custom. For the honor which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents. And he who reveres the image, reveres in it the subject represented. I hope you can see the logic that they're using in this. Now at the end of this, there's some anathemas which all councils had anathemas until Vatican II. And then I remember one bishop at Vatican II in the 1960s, he says, where are the curses? and had a whole different mood, okay? But here's, you need to know, this is a different age. There's anathemas in this age. Believing in God, so they say, the holy synod cried out, so we all believe, we are all so minded, we all give assent and have signed, this is the faith of the apostles, this is the faith of the orthodox. This is the faith which has been made firm in the whole world. Believing in God to be celebrated in Trinity, we salute the honorable images. Those who do not so hold, let them be anathema. Those who do not in this way think, let they be driven away from the Church. For we follow the ancient legislation of the Catholic Church. We keep the laws of the Father and we anathematize those who add anything or take anything away from the Catholic Church. We anathematize those who introduced novelty. We salute the venerable images. We place under anathema those who do not do this, anathema to them who presume to apply to the venerable images the things said in holy scriptures about idols. Anathema to those who do not salute the holy and venerable images. Anathema to those who call the sacred images idols. Anathema to those who say that Christians resorting to the sacred images, who say that Christians resort to the sacred images as to gods. Anathema to them who say we're worshiping gods. Anathema to those who say that any other delivered us from idols except Christ our Lord. Anathema to those who dare to say that at any time the Catholic Church received idols. And then this edition of the 7th Ecumenical Council, since the West ended up signing off on it in the 9th century and then put it into canon law in the 12th century, by the 16th century in the Council of Trent, They say here also that we have the images of Christ, the Virgin Mother, and they are to be had and retained, particularly in temples, and that due honor and veneration is to be awarded them, not that any divinity or virtue is believed to be in them, on account of which they are to be worshipped, or that anything is to be asked of them or that confidence is to be reposed in images as was done in old by Gentiles who placed their faith or in idols, the word that I can't make out in idols, but because the honor which is showed unto them is referred to the prototype which they represent in such way that by the images which we kiss and before which we uncover the head and prostrate ourselves, we adore Christ and the saints and venerate the saints whose similitude they bear." So, please note, this is the faith of both East and West. This is not just orthodox because they have icons and the West likes statues. It's both, okay? They both agree you can have icons. And in fact, they say don't take them down. They should be in places of worship. And they're both insistent that it is not the same thing as pagan idolatry. In fact, cursed are you if you assert that of the Catholic tradition. This is not paganism. This is different than that. The veneration passes on to the prototype is the claim. Well, when I was reading Florovsky's Defense of Icons from 1950, he mentioned an interesting letter. It was one of the key documents that the iconoclasts would point back to. It's Eusebius' letter to Constantia, the sister of the emperor. I don't know what it is with Constantine. He had sons named Constantine II, Constantius, and Constans. I guess now he has a sister named Constantia. So it's kind of a, I guess, in the family kind of a thing. But she asked for an image of Christ. from the famous scholar now please note Eusebius of Caesarea is the one who wrote the history of the church for the first two centuries we don't hardly know anything apart from what Eusebius wrote I mean he's the guy she asked him now he is he was a big fan of Constantine I mean he ended up Persecution, this is great. So he actually wrote a book called In Praise of Constantine. So it's not like, he's not, you know, he's in cahoots with this family. And so, but he is offended. He's like, what? You're asking for an image of Christ? This isn't done. This isn't in our churches. We don't have this. Now this is early 300s, early 4th century. There are no... Now, they're not even buildings. Please note, right? Now, there were though pictures. We have from catacombs. We have from the places where Christians met. They would do symbols, like the fish. That started then. Iksus, you know. An acronym for the name of Christ and different things. They would draw symbols and pictures and stuff, but they didn't have images. They didn't draw, in that sense, pictures of Christ. It's shocking and offensive to Eusebius. Now, Forlowski, he basically says, he's so embedded with Origen's theology, we talked about Origen several weeks ago, that he just, it's just, the historical is just not important That's why he doesn't care. Because in Origen, it's all about allegory. Remember that allegory lesson? It's all about allegory. So the history is really unimportant. And that's why, in part, Eusebius can kind of be written off in that way, or at least can be explained in that way. But Ortland, he goes farther with that. I couldn't find my copy of the letter. It had to be pieced together from a later council. We don't have the original letter. It's cited in the controversy itself. And so it's been pieced together. But he actually, you know, mentioned several things. Ortland mentioned several things by, about that letter. that's basically like, not only do we not do these things in the churches, it violates the law, the second commandment. We don't make images. We don't do that. And if we try to make an image of His glorification, how are we going to do that? Only the Father knows what the Son looks like. Only the Father knows the Son. And He's been now, we would say glorified, He would say deified in this literature. And so His humanity is different now. And so you can't get a genuine likeness. Now, again, like I said, Ortland said, Eusebius compares it to idolatry, to paganism. In fact, he said, I came across somebody who had an image of Paul and of Christ, and I took it from them, lest the pagans think we carry around our God. There's another letter that Florovsky passed over, another person and it's Epiphanius, that was also cited in the controversy. Epiphanius is actually a little more interesting because it describes a story. And so, let me get the actual story here. He was passing by a village called Annablatha and he saw a lamp burning. Asking what place it was and learning it to be a church, I went in to pray and found a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church. I think he's the bishop. Dyed and embroidered, it bore an image either of Christ or one of the saints. Now it's interesting to me he didn't care. I do not rightly remember whose image it was. Seeing this, I became loath that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ's church, contrary to the teaching of the scriptures. And I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person." And then he went on to explain that he sent a new curtain to replace the one that he tore up. and made this request. I beg that you will order the pastor, the presbyter, the elder of the place, to take the curtain which I have sent from the hands of the reader and that you will afterwards give directions that curtains of the other sort opposed as they are to our religion, shall not be hung up in any Church of Christ. A man of your uprightness should be careful to remove an occasion of offense unworthy alike of the Church of Christ and of those Christians who are committed to your charge." That's quite a testimony. Contrary to the teaching of Scripture, Opposed as they are to our religion, unworthy of the church. This bishop's testimony from the fourth century. How many of you guys paid your income tax right before the wire last week? Raise those hands high. I did too, okay. I was so happy. I wanted to go out for dinner with my wife. I was like, I made it, yes. Did you know how un-American that is? It took a constitutional amendment for the federal government to tax your income. And it's only about 100 so years old. There's been more years that Americans lived without a federal income tax than they've lived with one. Our country is only about 250 years old next year. And already, we grow so accustomed to our traditions. Well, taxes. It's tax day. Withholding. Milton Friedman, the famous Chicago school economist, came up with that idea in World War II to get more money for the war effort early. I think later he said it was the worst idea I ever had in my life. He regretted it. But government programs, they're very temporary, aren't they? The war is long over, but withholding is with us even to this day. And you and I aren't up in arms, like, this is so un-American. It's like we kind of basically, you know, tell our children, like, suck it up. You just got to live with it. We do too, you know. Traditions become traditions, and all of a sudden it's a new normal. We're in the fourth century, and still icons are not normal. They're not found in the church, but by the time you get to the 8th century, 9th century, they're found in the church. Part of what happens is a whole new dynamic, the Constantinian era. It brought a lot of people into the church who were not, you might say, of persecution readiness. Now it's the favored religion. So it's almost like culturally Christian. You get to that point, like in America, and you start seeing a lot of squishiness and wishy-washiness on different things. So you get a lot of, you get veneration, basically you have the, they call it the respect, might call it veneration of martyrs, is third century. Coming out of that, you get monastic movements, you get saints. You don't even get prayers to Mary until fourth century, I believe, at the earliest. But you start getting pictures in the fourth, fifth centuries and they become pretty normal. That doesn't mean anybody's praying to them or using them for prayer. But they start to become normal, even though some warn that it would be a temptation. There's a lot of quotes that Ortlund has from early church fathers, early Christian teachers against icons and different things. Please note, there was a day in Christianity when not having a building was normal, when not having icons and statuary was normal. The Constantinian era is a patristic tradition of its own in one sense that starts with the first council and its creed and moves all the way to the seventh ecumenical creed. Could it be that they are in lockstep, they use each other to justify each other, and that that tradition should be judged by its fruit? Where does the patristic tradition lead you? It leads you into icons and statuary. And the begging question is, is that idolatry? How should we assess this biblically? J.I. Packer, famous Anglican theologian, evangelical, wrote a very famous book called Knowing God, in which he has a chapter on the true God and the second commandment and not having images. He uses it, like Calvin does, to say that the images were not just created by the art of man, but as Paul says in Acts 17, by the thought of man. So when you create an image of Christ, an icon of Christ, if you're in cahoots in a big tradition or you're trying to do it on your own, you have an idea of what ideal manhood should look like. But do you have a snapshot? Do you know what it looks like? Because I would dare say that Paul said, I can paint you that portrait. Galatians 3.1, before whose eyes Christ Jesus was portrayed as crucified. Like I can paint you a portrait verbally of what the Savior is and I would dare say that the true meaning of the Savior is going to be found in his heart not in his brow or his side or his hands. That what is actually the person is going to be deep down in his spirit as the hypostatic union has the Lagos, the Son of God uniting himself to humanity and then giving himself for us. Can it actually be portrayed in a picture or a motion picture? Of which we've had a motion picture that has basically been a blockbuster icon in American culture. Can it be portrayed that way? Can you actually capture the essence as it were? What is the true nature of the Savior? Or is it the thought of man that then incurs in it? Basically, Packer says that images dishonor God and mislead man by obscuring His glory. And he points back to the Old Testament prophets. I love Isaiah. Isaiah 40 to 48 is some of the best literature on idols in the entire Old Testament. Isaiah 40 says, God measures the stars with the span of His hand and holds the oceans with the cup of His hand. And then he turns to the Jews and said, and where will you find a likeness for me? What image will give you the intensity, the immensity, give you the feel, the right feel of God? It will always lie. It will always lie because it's small. Even the nations are a drop in the bucket. Statism and state gods don't even compare to me. I merely blow on them and they go away. Where will you find an image my likeness? That's a challenge. He makes that challenge. And then, where will you find one that's living? These are static. I'm a living God. So he challenges the idols. You say what you're going to do. Tell us your plan. So that we would know you can actually do something. And then we can fear you. And now I'm going to tell you my plan. And he goes on to talk about Cyrus and then later the Messiah that comes. And he accomplishes his plans. He's the true and living God. When you put it in terms like, I love going back to that chapter because it just puts it in perspective again. I can never visually portray my God and give the right feels. The closest we have is the inspired book of Revelation. It tells us that there's a place for image. But the image is to be conjured up through words and brought to the mind, not through visual not through an icon, a statue. And so, it's really interesting. By the way, it's also interesting that in the late 6th century, there was a meeting in Trullo, I don't know where it's at, that actually said, stop making pictures of John the Baptist pointing to, and then it pictured a lamb. Because lamb pertains to the Old Testament. Picture him as a man. And I thought to myself, well the Book of Revelation has him pictured as a man and that's New Testament. So I don't understand the reasoning on that. I mean I kind of understand the reasoning but it's like the New Testament, the Book of Revelation is our book to meditate on like where's the place of image. But it's a dynamic image in that it's in a drama and it's pictured and replayed in your imagination through words again. And blessed is the one who reads and blessed are those who hear as faith comes by hearing. What ends up happening, it seems, is that word gets diminished as icons and statuary get increased. All of a sudden now it becomes, seems less of the emphasis and reliance on the Word of God to do its work in the power of the Holy Spirit and more ends up happening on the static, statuary, pictorial side of things. Idols by their very definition are attempts to define the deity by the art and thought of man. And Paul challenges, if you've been made in God's image, how do you think that what you make can be an image of him? He's not in your image. You're in his image. Well, Christopher Wright is a missiologist and he's a theologian. He wrote a book on missions and it was his contention, it's been 20 years ago he wrote this book, it was his contention that Christians haven't thought enough about idols. And I'll be honest, I was like, I have my questions about idols. For example, did the pagans actually think that their god was in the statue? It was interesting to find a quote by Porphyry, a Neoplatonist, that said, quote, if some Greeks, Hellenes, if some Greeks are lightheaded enough to believe that the gods live inside idols, Their thought is much purer than the Christians, who think their God lives in a human body. Now he's putting down the incarnation. But I thought that interesting, that first quote. He thinks that some Greeks, if Greeks are thinking that the God actually lives in the idol, they're pretty lightheaded. And now he's neoplatonic, so the visual is meant to portray the invisible and be a means of access to it. So I looked at Wright's 50 pages on idolatry in the Old Testament and said, what did you find when you asked? And he pointed out a place in Isaiah 46, that one passage, where Bel and Nebo are the Babylonian gods apparently stooping down from heaven, concerned that their statues are going to tip over and they want to hold them up. Giving us a feel or an image that the god is actually not in the statue, outside the statue, though represented by the statue. So that's an interesting, if that is so, and it appears to be so, then the pagans' idolatry was not like some lightheaded, the god is stuck inside this thing that I made out of wood, and half of the wood I burned, as Isaiah 44 says, and cooked my food over it, and half of it I made into an idol and bowed before it. It doesn't have eyes that can see, it doesn't have ears that can hear. What is he praying to it for? Because it represents apparently the God, similar to other fertility gods and different things of the pagan culture. If that's so, then it does pose the question whether veneration of icons is a difference is a distinction without a difference. Like you can say, I'm kissing this icon, but I'm not worshipping it. I'm lighting a candle before this icon, but I'm not worshipping it. I am bowing or bending the knee, but I'm not worshipping it. But the word veneration In Greek is proskuneo, proskunesis, which is based on, literally, bend the knee, and it's the same word used in the Gospels for when the disciples bowed or worshipped Jesus in the boat. And when other people in the New Testament would bow, like Cornelius to Peter or John to the angel, they'd say, stand up, I'm a servant like you. Though they'll point to Jacob doing that for Esau, there's something goofy going on there because he sees Esau like the face of a god. And there's something there you can't always trust when a patriarch does something in Genesis, like you should imitate them. Beware of that one. But if I look at plain teaching in the New Testament, you don't bend the knee to a mere creature. And so it looks to be a distinction without a difference. Interestingly enough, Christopher Wright says that the most common description of an idol in the Old Testament is that which is made with human hands. Why, he said, are idols always called that which is made with human hands, the gods? Are they real? No. There's only one God. There's no other God. There's none but me, and I'll give my glory to no other, God says. Yet the Bible also talks about them being real because they're worshipped. And Paul says, and Psalm 106 and Deuteronomy 32 implies demons are behind it. and are supernatural in their effects. So false worship, false gods do have supernatural effects at times due to demons. But the gods themselves are not real. They are not gods. They don't exist except in man's mind. They are the products of human imagination. That's why Christopher Wright says it is appropriate to always refer to them as that which man has made. The idol actually says it well. The God is that it represents is a social construct. Good postmodernist talk here fits well. The God it represents is a social construct of man's own imagination. He, mankind made it. and a culture bought into it. And I dare say, Christian, our culture bought into an idol called nation in the Civil War, when we justified the slaughter of 600,000 to atone for the nation, whether this nation would survive. And all of a sudden, after the Civil War, we paint George Washington in the in seated among the gods in our capital rotunda. We have the Temple to Lincoln. We have Mount Rushmore, where only colossal art can fit American super civilization. And as Pauline Meyer said, an MIT historian who grew up Catholic It's shocking to me, it's interesting, she says, to find that when Americans wanted to parade around their founding documents in the 1920s, they couldn't find any other word high enough than to ransack Roman Catholic piety and create shrines. All that says, we worshiped our nation. Those are indications of genuine worship. The nation was revered. Which is why we do all that fancy stuff with a flag. Should we care for our country? Yes. But in one sense, like Milton Friedman said about John Kennedy's speech, there is no country. It's just we the people. Where did the idea of a country or a nation come from? In a sense it's a social construct that we create and then we worshipped and we're willing to lay down our lives for. Patriotism in that sense is easily an idolatry and needs to be guarded against. I bring that up so that we don't throw the Easterns under the bus and think we're so much better than them. We would never do that. We have the same heart that when we see something that awes us We feel glory and we want to give it glory. When we feel something that we love, we want to put posters like I did with my rock bands in my college days. I plastered my room with my rock bands that I just loved and listened to day and night. That's what I thought about all the time. That was my chief love. I know a lady back in another town, she had Bob Marley posters in her bedroom, all around her bedroom. reggae singer that indicates something in the heart when icons show up and posters show up there's worship going on why because there's glorying there's love or there's fear or trust or I need you things like that are indications of idolatrous behavior in the heart and so The other thing, Gregory Beal had a, he had an article several years ago that led into a book and then he condensed it to 10 pages in another book. I always find those condensed pages, okay? Those are really helpful. But basically his thesis is, from Psalm 115, from Psalm 135, from Isaiah 6, you become what you worship. You worship a statue that cannot see, you become blind. You worship a statue that cannot hear, you become dull of hearing. You lose your understanding. It's like, really? Did the patristic era lose their understanding? Well, could it be, as I read in a history book, that when the icons were tore down in 725, This is what William Cannon, the historian said. He said, a mob of housewives with no more than kitchen implements, mops and brooms beat to death some soldiers as they were removing their favorite icons from a public building. If my love for a poster, supposedly the image of a human being, so-called saint, is so high that I am willing to put to death someone made in the image of God, there's a problem in my life. I am spiritually blind. And zeal for these icons is idolatry. And so I believe that this tradition led to a distinction without a difference and that the church ended up riddled with idols, posters, statues, east and west, and that this tradition led to that. Now, again, where sin abounds, grace super bounds. Is there good that we can gain from that tradition? I believe so. I know I've gained some of the language, but the more I've read Athanasius, the more I realize how far and far and far away he is from the evangelical faith. He's gotten farther and farther each time I read him, because I begin to understand more and more of his context. He defended the deity of Christ, and I will always respect him for that. But I do not respect making Antony into a superhero. where the Logos basically, as it were, inhabited him to such a degree, he could single-handedly tell off the devil and then become a best-seller. That is pushing to idolatry again. And so, just be aware, this is a mixed thing, like your life, like my life, it's a mixed thing. If we add in the sacraments from last week, the real presence, In which, by the way, I did get to read a lot of Brett Salkeld's book and his claim that basically the Catholics, the Lutherans, and the Reformed hold pretty much the same thing on the supper, a real presence. And he tries to make a fancy distinction. It all hinges on a certain distinction, a shift about substance between a realistic philosophy and anomalous philosophy. If that doesn't hold, his book falls through. If it holds, it's an interesting book. But I got, after I've been in the book for quite a while, I realized he's ignoring something. The adoration of the host. Wood John Calvin, who he claims has a real presence. I think it's still more of a spiritual presence, but call it what you will. It represents and it presents the body and blood of Christ, his view of the supper. The reformed tradition and John Calvin was iconoclastic. There would be no bending of the knee or adoring the host. There'd be no tabernacle set up of a real presence as the body and blood of Jesus after the Mass is then taken to a tabernacle and the faithful can adore it. That's not venerate, that's adore because that's Jesus, not just a saint. You can use the word worship to worship those elements. That's blindness and idolatry. As I said last week, at the very least, it's anticlimactic that the Son of God inhabits and dwells in as a temple bread. And then in the Eastern Church, I've never been to a service, but Robert Lethem described it quite well. There's an iconostasis, a big curtain with images on it, with icons on it, icons all around. And behind the curtain is where the mass, as it were, the supper takes place. And then the priest comes out with the incense and senses the participants because they're all part of deity. People are kissing icons and lighting candles, apparently, or things like that. Very different than any service you and I would have here. When it comes to that, these traditions, whether the Roman Catholic adoration of the host or the Eastern Orthodox kissing and sensing, all the deified individuals who have now become God, I think they've slipped into idolatry. They anathematized my faith. If I were to join, Lethem said, if I were to join the Orthodoxy, I would have to curse my faith. They have no doctrine of justification. The Eastern Church doesn't. The Western has a different version of it. Please note, if the early Church in this Constantinian tradition, this patristic tradition, defended the Trinity and the Incarnation, which it did, I think it undid it. by the end of its tradition, not by denying what it affirmed at Nicaea or Chalcedon, but by raising human beings to a God level and deifying human beings, including his mother and saints and even others on earth, so that the glory that should be ascribed to Jesus alone begins to be ascribed to others. There's different ways to deny the holy, deity of Jesus Christ and his unique position. You can do it by subtraction or you can do it by addition. And I am suggesting to you that by the end of this tradition, it was undone by addition and that we should not believe the serpent, you will become gods. The end of 1 John says, we know that the son of God has come. and has given us understanding. That's Incarnation. He has given us a true knowledge of the true God. In order that we might know Him who is true and we are in Him who is true. This one, that one, Jesus is Alethenos Theos, genuine God and eternal life. The next verse is really interesting. Little children, guard yourselves from idols. That's a New Testament command in light of the uniqueness of Jesus. Guard yourselves from idols, and may the Lord do that for all of us. Our hearts are an idol factory, as Calvin says. We can easily be ensnared by other glories. May the weight of tradition, may the beauty of externals, may the authority of human beings not capture our conscience or our heart. We belong to Jesus, bought with a price. May He always receive the glory and with Him, His Father, in the Holy Spirit. Amen.