IIIM Magazine Online, Volume 3, Number 50, December 10 to December 16, 2001

Music Matters
Show 5

by Robert Barnes

Originally aired Monday at 5:50 P.M. on WTLN 950 AM in Orlando, Florida, Music Matters is a weekly radio show that explores the nature of and antidote for the worship wars that exist in the church.

Welcome to Music Matters! My name is Robert Barnes.

Oswald Milligan said, "Worship is giving to the Lord the glory that is due in response to what he has revealed to us and done to us in Jesus Christ." But what is due to him? What does the Bible reveal to us about how God wants to be addressed? Worship of God in a biblical manner is our focus on today's Music Matters.

Do you know what the second of the Ten Commandments is? Neil Postman said, referring to the second of the Ten Commandments, "At this point in history, iconography became blasphemy so that new ideas about God could enter into the world."

If you will open your Bible to Exodus 20, you'll see that the second commandment reads: You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above, or on the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth.

There is something about that practice of using images of God or other heavenly beings that was dangerous to Christian worship, so dangerous that God outlawed it. Iconography became blasphemy, so that new, transcendent ideas about God could enter and thrive in His church.

Now, some of you may disagree with me. You may point out that the Catholic and Orthodox have been practicing iconography for over a millennia. You may remind me that the Old Testament laws also forbid the blind or physically maimed from participating in worship, and we don't practice those prohibitions today. You may remind me that Jesus came to earth, so we should be able to have images of Him as long as they reflect His humanity, not His deity. You may also remind me that God Himself orders such images to be placed in His temple.

Every one of those objections has some bite to them, and every one deserves a response. I can't give that today, though.¹

What can do is to exhort you to look at your worship service and see if the Scriptures give clear teaching or general principles to affirm the contents of your Sabbath worship. Particularly if Scripture forbids a practice, you need to look hard to see why you and your church should feel comfortable permitting it.

Next week, we'll continue to look at the Biblical nature of lyrics, and I'll point out three popular worship songs that have significant Biblical errors in them. This is Robert Barnes, telling you to go get your hymnal and make sure you are singing the truth, because God thinks Music Matters.

---

1. Briefly, the argument from history cannot be dismissed without critiquing the reasons for beginning and continuing the practice. Images functioned as a catechetical device for the illiterate; this is undeniably good from a teaching perspective. And the visual arts bloomed in this context of religious imagery. But negative effects also came from this use of the visual arts, those still easily verifiable today in the continuing controversy over veneration vs. worship of the people behind the art. These positive and negative impacts, along with the initial reasons and continuing justifications for use of the visual arts that appear to be directly in contradiction to Scripture, should be analyzed before dismissing 1500 years of practice. Second, there is an argument that since some aspects of Mosaic/temple worship have passed away, therefore why not this negative one? This is begging the question — asking the question "Why?" demands a discussion of the relationship of Temple-worship commands to New Testament worship, whether this law is categorized as ceremonial or civil or moral, and more generally, whether the Ten Commandments are automatically "untouchable" no matter how we qualify them. The last point concerning Jesus' humanity is not an argument against the Second Commandment, but a refinement that has been embraced irregularly throughout church history. J. I. Packer reviews this point in "Knowing God" and denies that we can have images of Jesus that exclusively touch his humanity. Others disagree, I being one of them. This means a nativity scene (without halos) is allowed, as would pictures of Jesus being born, getting a haircut, etc., would be allowed. But not of Jesus ascending into heaven, or in his glorified state on the Mount of Transfiguration.