Since Jeremy Tate (from Called to Communion) decided to pop up here and offer guidance to we Protestants on Rome’s views of sainthood, I decided to take a wee peek at his posts. And I ran across a fairly amazing one. It may give the blame-Escondido-firsters pause. Tate’s post is about images of Jesus and he notes that both Tim Keller and John Frame were not exactly ardent defenders of Reformed Protestant interpretations of the second commandment:
It would be an understatement to say I was incredibly excited to see Dr. Keller preach in person. Even to this day, I have the highest respect for the man. As I walked into the Redeemer service, however, I was shocked by the church bulletin I was handed. A gory painting of Jesus, dead on the cross, covered the entire front cover of the bulletin. Having been schooled by “truly reformed” folk in the Deep South I could hardly believe my eyes. The leading church in my denomination was openly violating the Second Commandment! I was so disturbed I could hardly listen to a word of the sermon.
In seminary, however, I came to reconsider what the Bible actually teaches about images. My reason for re-examining the issue had nothing to do with Catholic influences, but rather the teaching of an RTS Professor, John Frame. In Frame’s massive book, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, he takes exception to the historic rejection of images of Christ by Reformed Churches. He makes the argument that having no images of Jesus can lead to practical “Docetism,” the ancient church heresy which claimed Jesus had no physical body. Frame concludes his argument by writing, “So I know of no reason to forbid pictures of Jesus… And there are positive reasons to use pictures of Jesus in the church’s pedagogy.”
Tate concludes with a charitable reading of Keller and Frame:
Here we have two men, both of whom are among the most influential leaders in the Presbyterian Church in America, rejecting the traditional Reformed understanding of 2nd Commandment. These men have not rejected the historic understanding of this commandment in order to stir up trouble in their denomination. Instead, they believe that Christians are actually being deprived of something when images are forbidden. Frame specifically references and affirms the 2nd Council of Nicaea in 787, which affirmed the beneficial use of images in places of worship. These men have been bold in standing against the majority opinion in their denomination in order to affirm what the Catholic Church has always believed. Images are good. Gazing at a crucifix has the effect of freeing us from our habitual skepticism as we see the concreteness of our Savior.
Everyone makes decisions for a variety of reasons, including those who leave Protestantism for Rome. But the reasons for leaving Protestantism are harder to find when know that justification, sola Scriptura, the regulative principle, and Presbyterian ecclesiology matter to being a Reformed Protestant. If you are looking for reasons to denounce the theological scholars who teach and write in Escondido, defending the hallmarks of Reformed Protestantism would not be one of them.
Old Life 
Is there room for these Presbyterian officebearers to wiggle around what The Westminster says on the 2nd Commandment?:
Question 107: Which is the second commandment?
Answer: The second commandment is, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or 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: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Question 108: What are the duties required in the second commandment?
Answer: The duties required in the second commandment are, the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God has instituted in his Word; particularly prayer and thanksgiving in the name of Christ; the reading, preaching, and hearing of the Word; the administration and receiving of the sacraments; church government and discipline; the ministry and maintenance thereof; religious fasting; swearing by the name of God, and vowing unto him: as also the disapproving, detesting, opposing, all false worship; and, according to each one’s place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry.
Question 109: What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?
Answer: The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and anywise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; tolerating a false religion; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature: Whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it; the making of any representation of feigned deities, and all worship of them, or service belonging to them; all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretense: Whatsoever; simony; sacrilege; all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God has appointed.
Question 110: What are the reasons annexed to the second commandment, the more to enforce it?
Answer: The reasons annexed to the second commandment, the more to enforce it, contained in these words, For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments; are, besides God’s sovereignty over us, and propriety in us, his fervent zeal for his own worship, and his revengeful indignation against all false worship, as being a spiritual whoredom; accounting the breakers of this commandment such as hate him, and threatening to punish them unto divers generations; and esteeming the observers of it such as love him and keep his commandments, and promising mercy to them unto many generations.
If they were URC guys would they have a harder time getting around Heidelberg 98?
Q & A 98
Q. But may not images be permitted in the churches
as teaching aids for the unlearned?
A. No, we shouldn’t try to be wiser than God.
He wants his people instructed
by the living preaching of his Word—^1
not by idols that cannot even talk.^2
^1 Rom. 10:14-15, 17; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:19
^2 Jer. 10:8; Hab. 2:18-20
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Anybody interested in this question should reserve Sep 29 on their calendars, and come out for the next Hoagies & Stogies (And in the meantime, to warm up, you can go listen to the audio from this one)
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Note also when Frame says “there are positive reasons to use pictures of Jesus in the church’s pedagogy,” it may well be the case what he means is Sunday School, not necessarily the sanctuary. To many, that’s a significant distinction (note in the comment above, links to two separate debates about images of Christ in worship or apart from worship)
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DG,
Something’s amiss in your last paragraph. Why would “reasons for leaving Protestantism [be] harder to find when [we?] know that justification, sola Scriptura, the regulative principle, and Presbyterian ecclesiology matter to being a Reformed Protestant”? It seems to me that JJS’s wrestling with JBFA and SS were the very reasons behind his decision to leave Protestantism.
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Rube, I agree that the distinction is crucial since (as Horton says) attendance at worship is not optional, but wouldn’t you find it unusual if the house of a Reformed believer was full of icons? It’s not like the regulative principle means you go to a Puritan church but everything else can be Catholic.
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Jeremy
Would it be any more weird for a reformed believer to have icons, or just pictures of loved saints, than it would for them to have a tv as the focal point of their living room. Isn’t the point of the regulative principle to protect worship exclusively? We wouldn’t use the same guidelines for the rest of life would we? Wouldn’t that revoke Christian liberty under the pretense of legalism?
Also, wouldn’t the pictorial representation of Christ be a violation of the second commandment even without the regulative principle coming into play?
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Erik:
The 2nd Council of Nicea can trump the WCF if you want it to.
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Michael T., the answer might be that Jason would not expect to find support for his evolving views from the faculty at WSC unlike the lack of attachment to Reformed truths that he might have found among PCA heavyweights. At least he knew he had to make a choice, rather than simply go with the flow.
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RubeRad,
The trouble with Frame’s caveat supposedly distinguishing between SSchool and worship is that Frame has also told us that there is no real Scriptural justification for preaching, as over and against drama and dance, if not that preaching is teaching is standing on your head is fill in the blank since Frame denies and collapses the reformed understanding of the categories/parts of worship in on itself in order that he may replace them with his novel “forms” of worship. (See his Worship In Spirit and Truth, 1996),
IOW anything goes, all the while he still maintains plausible deniability for what the Frame Worship Children have gone and done with his sincere and naive “many questions” assault on reformed worship/the Second Commandment. (Does the name Schlissel ring any bells?) As we have said before, our professor has no real ground or principles to stand on in opposition to a Lenten sabbath matinee showing of Mel Gibson’s Old Roman Catholic passion play/moving picture show at your local presbyterian church. Rather one would assume he would welcome it heartily.
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I hope I never have to watch John Frame dancing…
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Jeremy: “wouldn’t you find it unusual if the house of a Reformed believer was full of icons?”
John Knox (resurrected already?) “Isn’t the point of the regulative principle to protect worship exclusively? We wouldn’t use the same guidelines for the rest of life would we?”
Very well put, John, that’s exactly the cornerstone of my argument in the debate linked above. And Jeremy, I wouldn’t find it unusual if they were an art historian; in fact I do have a friend who is a professional graphic artist, and the inside of his house does have a very wide variety of pictures of Christ from all different times and cultures.
John Knox: “Also, wouldn’t the pictorial representation of Christ be a violation of the second commandment even without the regulative principle coming into play?”
No, the 2nd commandment is not about mere image making, it is about worship. If it is about just plain images, then we’re not allowed to make any images whatsoever for any purpose, and we’d be Muslim. Also note, if it’s about mere image making, an image of God is the only kind of image that is not forbidden in the text of the 2nd commandment!
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The trouble with Frame’s caveat supposedly distinguishing between SSchool and worship is that Frame has also told us
Yes, there are many things wrong with many things Frame has written. I am no fan; I just didn’t want to let slide an accusation that he approves of images in Reformed worship, when the quote provided does not demonstrate that.
I read the 2nd comm. chapter in Doctrine of Christian Life a few years ago, and if he had allowed images specifically in worship, I think that would have stuck out and I would remember. But I’m not certain.
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Keller’s church had “A gory painting of Jesus, dead on the cross, covered the entire front cover of the bulletin.” Is the bulletin that is being used in a worship service not a “part” of the worship service?
Heidelberg Q & A 98
Q. But may not images be permitted in the churches
as teaching aids for the unlearned?
A. No, we shouldn’t try to be wiser than God.
He wants his people instructed
by the living preaching of his Word—^1
not by idols that cannot even talk.^2
^1 Rom. 10:14-15, 17; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:19
^2 Jer. 10:8; Hab. 2:18-20
Shouldn’t “in the churches” be interpreted as more than just the formal worship service? What about Sunday school? What about a church getting everyone together to go see “The Passion of the Christ”? I realize this is the Heidelberg & not the Westminster, but is the spirit of the Westminster honestly any different?
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And if the second commandment may be broken over here in common space but not there in sacred space, then does the same hold for the third? But something tells me I mayn’t blaspheme anywhere, so why may I selectively idolize?
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Another somewhat obvious point – Since no one knows what Jesus looked like is not every depiction of him necessarily false?
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OK OK folks, I don’t know if we need to rehash the whole images debate here in these comboxes. But Erik I agree with you (and presumably all the other Reformed around here) that Keller’s image of Christ on the bulletin does fall into the category of worship, and thus violates the second commandment. I don’t think I said anything here that would suggest that I approved of that.
And if the second commandment may be broken over here in common space…
To ask the question in those words is to assume that having an image in common space does break the 2nd commandment, which begs the question. Certainly it is possible to break the 2nd commandment outside of church, all you have to do is gaze on a religious image as an aid to prayer. But what if the image is not worshipped?
Another somewhat obvious point – Since no one knows what Jesus looked like is not every depiction of him necessarily false?
Yes, all images are inaccurate (a hypothetical photograph of the actual face of Christ would also be false, because Jesus was not 2-dimensional) but the question is whether inaccurate=sinful. An image of Christ does not necessarily claim to display his appearance, but his (redemptive!) history. Or at least a “good” image. A “bad” image such as your average “glamour shot” of bearded guy staring reverentially towards the Father, cannot make any claim other than to represent the appearance of Jesus, and so is “useful” for no use but sinful uses (speculating about Jesus’ appearance, directing prayer, etc.). But a picture of Jesus whipping moneychangers, or wiping spit-mud into a blind man’s eyes, etc., makes claims about history, and the appearance of any of the subjects of the image are circumstantial.
In fact, even though we’re not talking about worship here, I think we can borrow the element/circumstance distinction; a historical picture portrays history as the element, the appearance is merely circumstance — some appearance must be portrayed if the history is to be portrayed. But for the glamour portrait, there is no element, so the circumstance of appearance becomes elemental!
Anyways, my point is that it doesn’t matter if the circumstantial details of Jesus’ appearance are rendered inaccurately, because they don’t matter; it isn’t necessary for us to have an accurate picture of what Jesus the man looked like (if it was, it would have been revealed to us!)
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Oh yeah, I forgot this bit:
Shouldn’t “in the churches” be interpreted as more than just the formal worship service?
I say no. In the churches is in the churches. See also how the context of Q98 is made more explicit in A98 “living preaching of His Word” — where does that happen? Only “in the churches”.
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Certainly it is possible to break the 2nd commandment outside of church, all you have to do is gaze on a religious image as an aid to prayer. But what if the image is not worshipped?
Rube, what if I slur God’s name but claim it’s not sincere? If you’re like me, you don’t buy such an argument from your kids and any blasphemy is simply not tolerated. So this division between mouth and heart seems torturous. But there such a thing as iconoclasm of a non legalist nature, such that when one’s eyes fall upon icons in art museums it isn’t sinful per se, anymore than viewing films which blaspheme, though in both cases wisdom seems to have some bearing. But putting an icon in one’s home (or church) seems to be a way of playing with fire that seems unwise.
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“not sincere” = “in vain” = commandment broken. Apples and oranges. Although you might make more headway if you tried to make a direct 3rd-commandment application here, like “don’t take the image of the Lord your God in vain” (on the principle of SC55 “The third commandment forbiddeth all profaning or abusing of anything whereby God maketh himself known.”) But the point here is that Jesus’ appearance is not revealed to us; and it is adiaphora.
Your language of “non legalist” “isn’t sinful per se” “wisdom/unwise” all land on my side of the debate. Either images of Christ outside of worship fall into the category of (a) lawful/sinful, or they fall in the category of (b) wise/unwise (where unwise may involve sin). Sounds like you and I both opt for (b).
Except I would say that putting an icon in one’s church goes beyond playing with fire, to actual fire. Which is why confessionally reformed church plants in borrowed church facilities should (and I think do) obscure or cover offending images if possible, or choose other facilities if not.
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Rube,
You still don’t get it.
Frame has collapsed/destroyed the distinctions for reformed worship and consequently what is kosher for SSchool would be the same for worship.
Deal with it.
As for SSchool, G. Ptacek’s Family Worship on Greenville Pres. Press explodes the notion that SSchool can replace catechism and family worship in reformed churches. Which is pretty much what it has done with one of the unintended consequences being the rise in women in office.
But that’s another can of worms.
A more important and largely ignored connection regarding our good professor is that all the FVers pretty much subscribe to Frame’s Revised Principle of Worship.
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Bob,
You still don’t get what I get.
Frame has collapsed/destroyed the distinctions for reformed worship, and consequently Frame is wrong about reformed worship. I.e. he has taken his (in my judgment) successful arguments about the out-of-worship realm, and (having collapsed/destroyed distinctions) misapplied them in the realm of worship. That doesn’t automatically mean he is wrong about outside of worship.
Deal with it.
As for SSchool, thanks for the heads-up, but I never advocated the notion that SSchool can replace catechism and family worship in reformed churches.
And it’s a shame that Frame is buddy-buddy with FV, and that FV subscribe to Frame’s UnRegulated Principle of Worship, but I’d say let’s straighten the FV out on the gospel first before we worry too much about their adherence to the law.
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Rube,
You’re still arguing like Frame.
IOW he thinks images are a lawful and edifying means of instructing someone in the faith whether in SSchool or worship, on the basis in part of channeling John of Damascus’s non sequitur that the possibility of picturing Christ in his day means it is lawful in our own.
My comment about SSchool was only that Frame was already compromised if he affirms the institution. What your views are, I have no idea. If you think pictures of Christ are lawful in SSchool, I am bold to say you are confused and unconfessional, no matter how many modern P&R might agree with you.
Correction, both Frame and the FV need to be straightened out.
He’s wrong on images, as well as the G&N consequences of the Second Commandment.
Much of the modern P&R has got the image thing right, but many times they have no clue what the RPW actually is so they buy into how John frames the question.
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IOW he thinks images are a lawful and edifying means of instructing someone in the faith whether in SSchool or worship
The point of the fact that he has collapsed/destroyed distinctions is that for him, lawful in SSchool implies lawful in worship. For somebody like myself who maintains distinctions and RPW, that jump is verboten.
If you think pictures of Christ are lawful in SSchool, I am bold to say you are confused and unconfessional
Anybody who disagrees with anybody will of course perceive them as confused, but yes, I admit that use of images in SSchool is unpresbyterian, because Westminster is quite clear that no images of any person of the trinity is allowed at any time whatsoever.
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We’re making head way, Rube.
That’s good.
But I don’t know that Frame understands what he has done in blenderizing preaching, teaching, dancing and everything but the kitchen sink as various lawful means of instruction.
As for the charge of confusion, just what exactly does Paul tell Timothy in 2 Tim. 3:15, that from a child (brephos or infant) he has known a Bible coloring book which is able to make him wise for salvation in Christ?
cordially
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I’m sure Frame doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong (any more than you or I understand what we’re wrong about). If he did, he’d repent.
So reading behind your question, you’re saying, II Tim 3:15 authorizes the use of written (verbal, not pictoral) scriptures for children, and where’s my verse commanding coloring books?
I don’t have a verse, I have liberty. Why are you applying the regulative principle of worship to my house?
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Rube,
My question regarding 2 Tim 3:15 has nothing to do with the RPW. Rather it has to do with the primacy and sufficiency of Scripture in preaching and teaching faith in Christ to old and young.
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Indeed, scripture is sufficient, but outside of worship (outside the regulative context), I don’t need to restrict myself to the bare minimum. That’s the point of liberty; things done out of liberty do not require justification.
Also, I don’t do any preaching.
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Also, how does your argument distinguish between coloring books about Jesus, and coloring books about Moses, and coloring books about Spider Man?
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