Are Pictures of Christ Unbiblical?

By: Brian Schwertley

In our day it is very common to see pictures of Christ in churches and in homes. Images of the Savior are commonly found on stained glass windows, church entry rooms, Christian school classrooms, living rooms, book covers, Charismatic television programs, church billboards, family Bibles and on the wall behind the pulpit. The vast majority of “Christian” bookstores sell a wide variety of pictures of Jesus. There is everything from the effeminate northern European Messiah to the grotesquely muscular Hulk-like renditions of the Lord. Even in Reformed churches (which ought to know better) pictures of the suffering servant are fairly common in Sunday school materials. Do representations of God’s Son violate Scripture or are such pictures merely works of art that are perfectly acceptable as long as they are not worshiped or used as aids to worship? Keep in mind that low church Protestants who use pictures of Christ insist that the pictures are not used in religious worship at all. They at the most (we are told) are merely artistic renditions used for educational purposes.

While many people who use pictures of Jesus are very sincere and do not bow down to such images, nevertheless the use of such images is unlawful and sinful. There are many reasons why the use of pictures of Christ is unscriptural.

First, the use of pictures of our Lord is a violation of the second commandment. This commandment says, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image – any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments” (Ex. 20: 4-5).

This commandment forbids worshiping rank idols or images of God or any image of anything created. It also forbids the use of images as aids to worship or devotion. Papists for example, would say that they do not worship a crucifix or statue of Christ but that such images are aids or mediums through which to worship the Son of God. “Romanists make images of God the Father, painting him in their church windows as an old man; and an image of Christ on the crucifix; and, because it is against the letter of this commandment, they sacrilegiously blot it out of their catechism, and divide the tenth commandment into two.”

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