The Reformed movement began by stripping the altars of icons. But by removing icons from the sanctuary, we did not leave the worshipper with nothing but bare walls. Rather, in rejecting the visual stimulus of the icon, we returned to the God-ordained power of the Word. As Paul writes to the Galatians, “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified” (Galatians 3:1)—not through paint, but through the preaching of the Gospel.

What is an icon? Short answer: an image used in worship. Now, the long answer takes some unpacking.

Defining the Terms: Art vs. Liturgy

The supporters of icons – iconodules – explicitly teach that an icon is not just any image. It is not a decoration or art. Hilarion Alfeyev, a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, notes, “The icon’s purpose is liturgical.” Hence, “A gallery is the wrong place for icons.”^[1] Patricia Miranda explains, “Icons are not ‘art’ in the modern sense of individual expression….”^[2] Rather, they supposedly facilitate a connection between the faithful and the divine. The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America defines an icon as “more than art. . . . The primary purpose of the icon is to aid in worship.”^[3] The Orthodox Church of Estonia teaches that icons “come from prayer to be used in prayer and worship.”^[4] Hence, iconodules themselves clearly distinguish between icons and art or decoration.

Unlike traditional art or decorations, icons act in liturgy as a focal point in worship, supposedly as windows to heaven. The sine qua non of an icon is its intentional use in religious devotion. An image, even of a sacred subject, that is not engaged by the worshipper in liturgy, is not an icon. It may only be art, decorative, symbolic or instructional.

Some Protestants have, in their zeal to avoid idolatry, swept all church art into the icon bin. I appreciate the zeal, but it does not help us see what an icon really is. Since the divinely designed tabernacle and temple of the Old Testament were festooned with art – even carvings of cherubim – we can admit that religious art is not forbidden. Some of us Reformed believers may argue that it’s unwise, given how art has morphed into icons in the past. But it’s not off-limits. What is off-limits?

The Scope of the Second Commandment

That’s what the second commandment tells us (Exodus 20:4-5). The second commandment is most misunderstood. It is interpreted overly broadly by some – especially, again, by us Reformed believers – and overly narrowly by others – especially iconodules.

We must look closely at the grammar of the Second Commandment to understand its full scope. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image” (Exodus 20:4). It begins by forbidding statues (or reliefs), the standard idols of the ancient world. But it doesn’t stop there. It continues with the Hebrew conjunction wə-ḵāl (וְכָל־), meaning ‘and any’ or ‘or any,’ thus including a prohibition of any likeness of anything…’, used for the specific purpose it describes. By adding this clause, God widens the prohibition beyond just three-dimensional statues to include flat pictures, but only prohibited for a particular purpose.

The commandment has a second part, qualifying the kinds of images. It is what is done with the image that makes it prohibited. “You shall not bow down to them or serve them” (20:5). The commandment has two elements: an image and its use in worship, whether that use is called veneration, latria, or whatever. The commandment forbids exactly what we saw defined as an icon.

The second commandment has a unique feature among the decalogue: its specificity. It does not say “You shall not commit idolatry,” and then leaves it up to us to define what idols, or worship, or veneration are. It specifically describes what not to do. Do not bow to an image. When you bow to an image, light a candle before it, burn incense to it, genuflect to it, kiss it, make it a focal point of prayer or adoration in the context of divine worship, you make the image an icon. The second commandment forbids icons.

If the sixth commandment were written like the second, it would say, “Do not take an object and hit someone else to kill them or in any other way cause the death of someone else.” We don’t need such specificity with the sixth commandment. We can be trusted to understand what “Do not kill” means, even if we can’t always be trusted to obey it. But we can’t be trusted to see what a simple “Do not use idols” would mean. Hence, it describes exactly what not to do: do not use an image in worship.

Objection: “The Temple had art, so icons are biblical.”

Iconodules object that since the Tabernacle and temple had art, and since Moses made the bronze serpent, then icons are not forbidden by the second commandment. But we’ve already seen that iconodules themselves distinguish between art and icons. Remember, “The icon’s purpose is liturgical. . . . Icons are not art.” Now, they object that the art in the tabernacle and temple is –ipso facto – evidence of icons. But for those images to be icons, they would have to be used in worship, bowed to, etc. Temple art was decorative, not liturgical. No one bowed to the cherubim, at least never with God’s approval.

Even when Moses made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, the people of Israel merely needed to look at it (Numbers 21:9). They did not have to bow to it or pay the image any homage. Only look. The Lord Jesus made a point of this, with mere looking standing for faith (John 3:14f). Centuries later, however, Israelites began venerating Moses’ bronze serpent. They even gave it a name: “Nehushtan.” It had gone from a benign symbol in Moses’ hands to becoming an icon. Good King Hezekiah did what the faithful always do to icons. He destroyed it (2 Kings 18:4).

Objection: “We venerate (dulia), we don’t worship (latria) icons.”

Iconodules, particularly in Roman Catholic theology, insist that there is a distinction between “latria” (worship due to God alone) and “dulia” (veneration given to saints), and the latter is perfectly acceptable, like pledging allegiance to the flag or affectionately kissing the portrait of a departed loved one. They argue that in veneration, the honor paid to the image passes to the prototype, eventually to God (ideas from John of Damascus [c. 675-749], a medieval theologian). But, as we have seen, the Second Commandment forbids the action of bowing, regardless of the internal intent. It is not focused on whether one’s use of an image in worship constitutes worship (“latria”) of the image (or what it represents) or something supposedly lesser. Rather, it prohibits specific actions: using an image as the focal point of worship, bowing to it. We Protestants can grant that there is a legitimate distinction between latria and dulia (although I don’t) and still note that the second commandment forbids either toward an image. The entire latria vs. dulia distinction is irrelevant because the second commandment forbids what is done with the image, not the attitude toward it.

Objection: “We bow to icons like Joshua bowed to the Ark.”

Iconodules claim that since Joshua bowed “before” the Ark of the Covenant, venerating icons is not idolatry. But the text actually says he was merely “in front of,” literally, in Hebrew, toward the face, as in the presence of the ark (Joshua 7:6). He was not bowing to it or venerating it. Further, this misses the distinct theological function of the Ark. In the Old Testament, the Ark was not an image of God; it was the footstool of His invisible throne. God dwelt ‘between the cherubim’ (Psalm 80:1), in the imageless space above the ark.

When Joshua bowed toward the ark, he was not venerating the cherubim or the box itself. He was bowing in the presence of the invisible God whose glory resided above it. This is the exact opposite of an icon. An icon claims to depict Christ or a saint for veneration. The ark was designed specifically to protect the mystery of God’s invisibility. Joshua bowed to the Presence he could not see, whereas the iconodule bows to the image they have created.

No one bows to an image in the Bible and is approved of. Even an angel – a truly holy, awe-inspiring being – refused to be worshipped or “venerated” by the Apostle John (Revelation 22:8-9). The angel does not tell John that while worshipping him is forbidden, John can “venerate” him, as if there is a difference. Claiming that doing exactly what the Second Commandment forbids is acceptable as long as we call it “veneration” (or “dulia”) is akin to claiming that doing what the Seventh Commandment forbids – adultery – is fine as long as we call it “love-making.” Changing the name of an identical activity does not justify it.

The Lesson of History

We can debate whether or how our church buildings can have art. But there should be no debate that images have no place in Christian worship. Decorations may have a place in worship spaces, but they have no place in the act of worship.

The early church understood this. Hence, the early church strictly prohibited icons, as I documented in “Don’t Convert: Icons and Images in the Early Church.” The early church inherited a fierce strictness against images from Judaism—a zeal best illustrated by a clash with Pontius Pilate. When Pilate marched Roman standards bearing the emperor’s image into Jerusalem, a Jewish mob protested for five days, eventually baring their necks to Roman swords rather than accepting the idols. Stunned by their resolve, Pilate removed the images.

Early Christians shared this ‘aniconism.’ Living in a pagan culture awash in holy images, they understood that statues and pictures easily devolve into idols, a caution Josephus summarized simply: “Our law forbids the making of images.”^[5]

The early church’s strictness against icons was so great that it would make most modern evangelicals – with their stained glass, decorative banners, or pictures shown from projectors – seem lax by comparison. I’m not saying that we must return to the rigorous “aniconism” (opposition to icons) of the early church. The lavishness of temple decorations would suggest we do not have to do so. But we should learn a lesson from the fact that if the church could go from declaring, “Pictures are not to be placed in churches so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration” (Elvira, canon 36) at about AD 305 to full-blown, overt, mandatory iconodulia (venerating icons) by AD 787 (The Second Council of Nicaea) so can we. If the early-to-medieval church can devolve into using icons, we can too.

Iconodules claim icons are merely innocent keepsakes, no different than a wallet photo of a deceased spouse or a flag we pledge allegiance to. If you accept a family photo, they argue, you must accept icons. The reality, however, is that once inside the tradition, the definition shifts back to the narrow liturgical definition of icons we saw earlier. Icons are not merely “art” but “come from prayer to be used in prayer” as “aids in worship.”

The Reformed Alternative: Visible Words

The Reformed movement began by stripping the altars of icons. But by removing icons from the sanctuary, we did not leave the worshipper with nothing but bare walls. Rather, in rejecting the visual stimulus of the icon, we returned to the God-ordained power of the Word. As Paul writes to the Galatians, “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified” (Galatians 3:1)—not through paint, but through the preaching of the Gospel.

An icon is a man-made attempt to see God. The sacraments are God’s ordained way to see Christ. God has given us “visible words” in the sacraments. In the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper and the water of baptism, we have the true physical focal points of worship from the hands of Jesus Himself. We do not need man-made windows to heaven; we have the Word read, the Word preached, and the Word made visible in the sacraments. In those, the eyes of faith look to Christ, the true “icon” of God (Colossians 1:15), and worship.

Dr. John B. Carpenter is Pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church in Providence, NC.

^[1] Original emphasis, Hilarion Alfeyev, “Theology of Icon In The Orthodox Church,” Lecture at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 5 February 2011, https://mospat.ru/en/2011/02/06/news35783/

^[2] Patricia Miranda, “The Tradition Of Iconography,” The National Altar Guild Association, 2011, http://www.nationalaltarguildassociation.org/?p=796.

^[3] Cindy Egly, “Eastern Orthodox Christians and Iconography,” http://antiochian.org/icons-eastern-orthodoxy

^[4] “Icons,” http://www.orthodoxa.org/GB/orthodoxy/iconography/whatisaniconGB.htm

^[5] Josephus, J.W. 2.169, in Josephus: The Essential Writings, trans. Paul L. Maier (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1988), 263.