Recently a good friend of mine was inquiring about a particular situation he was proposing, as a means of working out a principle regarding images of Christ. He asked, “If a man was around Christ and wanted to draw Him, could he? Or what if people asked the Apostles what Jesus looked like, because… I don’t know… they thought they saw Him, etc”
Upon further discussion with Tammy and meditation, I think God has an answer for us regarding that Jesus looks like. He looks like:
Ch 1. The Message of God and The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the cosmos
Ch 2. The Temple destroyed and rebuilt in 3 days
Ch 3. The only begotten Son of God lifted up for the cosmos to see and be redeemed
Ch 4. Living Water that quenches all thirst
Ch 5. He whom the Scriptures testify of
Ch 6. The Bread of Life which came down from Heaven, and gives life forever
Ch 7. He that is sent with the doctrine of the One who has sent Him
Ch 8. The Light of the cosmos, that those who follow Him shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life
Ch 9. He who heals on the Sabbath and is worshipped
Ch 10. The Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep and He who is one with the Father
Ch 11. The Resurrection and the Life who brings the dead to life, and He who weeps
Ch 12. He who draws all men to Himself by being lifted up from the Earth
Ch 13. He who washes the feet of His disciples so that they be made clean
Ch 14. The Way, Truth and Life; the Only Way to the Father and He who sends the Comforter
Ch 15. The Vine that gives the branches fruit, and without whom the branches can do nothing and He who chooses His friends and lays His life down for them
Ch 16. He who has overcome the world and in whom is peace
Ch 17. He who prays for His own whom the Father has given Him
Ch 18. He who’s Kingdom was not of this world, for had it been, His servants would have fought for Him, and He who is King of the Jew and Gentile
Ch 19. He who was the only one who could and did “finish it”
Ch 20. He who defeated death, who came out of the tomb, He who meets with His disciples on the first day of the week, and He who bears holes in His hands and feet, so that the doubting would proclaim, “My LORD, and My God!”
Ch 21. He who gave to His Church gifts to feed His sheep, and tend to His flock
Ch 22. And He who did many other things that if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written
*sigh.. and this only being one or two themes from the many found in each chapter of the Gospel of John. There are months of meditations wrapped up in just that list alone.
What an awesome image; better than a million polaroids of Christ!
Monday, September 26, 2005
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4 comments:
That's SO cool!
But ti doesn't answer my question regarding the actual physical representation of Christ in a medium such as paper/charcoal/finger-paint what have you. =D
It does, in that God would not have us to be concerned about what He looked like physically, but instead gave us multiple illustrations to "behold His glory"!
Just a quick word of explanation. It might not satisfy the inquirer, but at least help them understand at least somewhat more the perspective.
God manifested himself at various times in OT theophanies, but though they saw in those cases a form by way of these theophanies, the children of Israel were still bidden not to make images of God (the prohibition not to make them nor to serve them seen as separate clauses of prohibition).
Historically, iconoclasm in the the reformed tradition has understood the prohibition not to include merely the question of circumscribing the divine nature (which can not be circumscribed, and thus in itself can not drawn), but to prohibit images of the divine Persons, which would include the OT theophanies, as well as Christ because, though they were visible and Christ's humanity was visible, they conveyed forth to them a divine Person. Using a written language form of words such as "the divine nature", etc. (which certainly as an image can not be circumscribed) are not regarded as "images" because they are seen as merely necessary forms for the communication of language and not pictorial representations of deity. What the apostles and others saw was Christ's human nature, and it conveyed to them the Divine Person of the Son, whose nature it was, though it was not of course His only nature. Certainly they could describe what he had looked like if they wanted to (tho they didn't), but to paint or sculpt an image from that to show forth the Son of God was held by reformed iconoclasts to breach the line of the prohibition against images. Images were something that seem to have gradually developed in the first few centuries of the church. Earliest records tend to support that Christians by and large had none (which was one of the reasons they were charged as being atheists, and it seems to be borne out by Clement [prot.4.51.6], Origen [cels.4.31], Miniscus Felix [octav. 32.1-3] that Christians had no images apart from the image God has given us in the eucharist) and some other fairly early writings (e.g., Epiphanius of Salamis [haer.27.6.10] - I'm relying on Jarislav Pelikan for these references here) spoke negatively of some Christians making images of Christ, though by Epiphanius's day, we know that the practice was growing. The major downfall of iconoclasm was probably the inadequate Christology that became wedded to the position in some of the treatises leading up to the 7th century debates, because it tended to claim that one nature representations were only a half Christ and separated His humanity from His deity or else claimed to portray the divine nature itself, whereas the iconodules declared that the image potrays a Person in a nature, not an abstract nature in itself, and if I recall correctly tended to declare that it was nestorian to hold that the Divine Person was not communicated to us by His human nature. It came up again in the 9th century in the west, with some support from Charlemagne, but did take so much root as it did on the eve of the Reformation. I've only seen a little on the 9th century debates, one of which I've actually read (the reply to the epistle of Abbot Theodomir to Claudius of Turin) tends mainly to emphasize the commandment against images rather than Christological controversy over whether Christ's Person was conveyed in the portrayal of His human nature, or whether the divine nature was attempted to be portrayed, or if in not conveying the latter it represented a half Christ.
(Sorry for the long post.)
"What the apostles and others saw was Christ's human nature, and it conveyed to them the Divine Person of the Son, whose nature it was, though it was not of course His only nature."
I think maybe should have read something like
"What the apostles and others saw was Christ in His human nature, as it conveyed to them the Divine Person of the Son, whose nature it was, though it was not of course His only nature."
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