Abstract
Chapter expands and redirects the context and thesis of a subject that began as an appendix on images of Christ in my Heavenly Directory. The primary expansions of the material consist in altering the thesis of the original appendix in light of further primary and secondary material. This chapter contends that Owen, and the Reformed tradition at large, rejected the use of images of Christ in any form, primarily on the grounds that they negated the biblical emphasis on walking by faith in this world rather than by sight. This meant that the rejection of images of Christ was central rather than peripheral to Reformed theology and that it tied together several strands of the Reformed system of thought into a practical expression. Owen thus represents clearly what became a standard and pivotal feature of Reformed theology, distinguishing it from Lutheranism and others
This chapter is adapted from several segments of my Heavenly Directory, including the appendix. I have expanded the material and reoriented the thesis and aim of the chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
Bridget Heal, “The Catholic Eye and the Protestant Ear: The Reformaton as a Non-Visual Event?,” in The Myth of the Reformation, ed. Peter Opitz, vol. 9, Refo500 Academic Studies (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 321–355.
- 2.
Martin Wansgaard Jurgensen, “The Arts and Lutheran Church Decoration: Some Reflections on the Myth of Lutheran Images and Iconography,” in The Myth of the Reformation, vol. 9, Refo500 Academic Studies (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 356–380.
- 3.
Peter van Mastricht , Theoretico-Practica Theologia. Qua, Per Singula Capita Theologica, Pars Exegetica, Dogmatica, Elenchtica & Practica, Perpetua Successione Conjugantur (Trajecti ad Rhenum, & Amstelodami: Sumptibus Societatis, 1715), 53, 61.
- 4.
See Westminster Larger Catechism 109.
- 5.
Eire , War Against the Idols.
- 6.
The primary source literature on this point is too numerous to list. For a sampling of English authors in addition to those cited below, see Vincent , Exposition of the Assembly’s Catechism, 131; Watson , Body of Practical Divinity, 279–282; Ussher , A Body of Divinity, or, The Sum and Substance of Christian Religion, 230–233; Charnock , Existence and Attributes of God, 121–123; etc. Continental Reformed theologians held to this view as well. See Turretin , Institutes, 11.9–10, 2:51–66; Bullinger , Decades, 1:222–230; Ursinus , Explicarum Catechorum, 697–699; a Brakel , Christian’s Reasonable Service, 3:105–118, etc.
- 7.
This section is adapted from my Heavenly Directory, 80–83.
- 8.
Watson , A Body of Practical Divinity, 270–271.
- 9.
James Durham , The Law Unsealed, or, A Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments, With a Resolution of Several Momentous Questions and Cases of Conscience (Edinburgh, 1676), 1–3.
- 10.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 8–23.
- 11.
Ezekiel Hopkins , An Exposition of the Ten Commandments, with Other Sermons (London, 1691), 3: “The words are but few, called therefore the Words of the Covenant, the Ten Words; but the sense and the matter contained in them is vast and infinite. The rest of Scripture is but a commentary upon them.”
- 12.
See Westminster Confession of Faith 14.2.
- 13.
Watson , Body of Practical Divinity, 270–271; Durham , The Law Unsealed, 8.
- 14.
Calvin , Institutes, 375. 2.8.8.
- 15.
Ursinus , See Explicarum Catechorum, 690–692.
- 16.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 12.
- 17.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 11. See the proof texts in Larger Catechism 99.
- 18.
Thomas Vincent (1643–1678), An Explicatory Catechism, or, An Explanation of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (Glasgow, 1692), 190–197; John Flavel , An Exposition of the Assembly’s Catechism, with Practical Inferences from Each Question (London, 1692), 138–140. Such expansions of the sixth commandment often included lengthy discussions of suicide, or self-murder, as well.
- 19.
Westminster Shorter Catechism 72 .
- 20.
Owen, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, 5; Works, 15:448; Durham , The Law Unsealed, 7; Ursinus , Explicarum Catechorum, 697–698.
- 21.
Owen, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, 6; Works, 15:448–449.
- 22.
Owen, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, 9–11; Works, 15:449–450.
- 23.
Owen, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, 62–63; Works, 15:470. “The main design of the second precept is all making unto ourselves any such things in the worship of God, to add unto what he hath appointed; whereof an instance is given in that of making and worshiping images , the most common way that the sons of men were then prone to transgress against the institutions of God.” Emphasis original.
- 24.
“Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth.” KJV.
- 25.
Thomas Vincent , Exposition of the Assembly’s Catechism, 131: “Why may we not make use of images for our help in our worshiping of God? Because God hath absolutely forbidden it. Because images are not a real help, but a hindrance of devotion, they tend to lessen God in our esteem, who being the living God, and superlatively excellent, and infinitely removed above all his creatures, cannot without great reflexion of dishonor upon him, be represented by a dead image.” So Perkins , The Idolatry of the Last Times, 18: “So soon as God is represented in an image, he is deprived of his glory, and changed into a bodily, visible, circumscribed, and finite majesty.”
- 26.
Owen, Theologoumena Pantodapa, lib. V, cap. 1, 352–353; Biblical Theology, 441.
- 27.
Perkins , Idolatry of the Last Times, 13.
- 28.
Ursinus , Explicarum Catechorum, 686; Amandus Polanus (1561–1610), Analysis Libelli Prophetae Malachiae, Aliquot Praelectionibus (Basliae, 1597), 94–94, 99.
- 29.
Theologoumena Pantodapa, lib. V, cap. 1, 352–353; Biblical Theology, 441: “Bisariam autem a pincipio isto Theologico defecerunt Apostata, primo scilicet respect oiejcti cultus, deinde mediorum.” Such references to Hebrew terms point to the fact that Owen did not merely make dogmatic assertions supported by proof texts. Demonstrating this is the burden of Knapp ’s “Understanding the Mind of God.”
- 30.
Owen, Theologoumena Pantodapa, lib. V, cap. 6, p. 356; Biblical Theology, 461. The original is “Cultus omnis Divnis vel moralis est aut naturalis, vel ad Dei beneplacitum ab ispo institutus; huius inter Apostatas locum occupat arbitrarius.” The same language appears in Communion with God, 170; Works, 2:150. See also chapter 11 of The Nature and Causes of Apostasy from the Gospel, where Owen connected the corruption of corporate worship to apostasy from the gospel. Works, 7:217–222, and A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, 2; Works, 15:448.
- 31.
“And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.” KJV.
- 32.
Owen, Theologoumena Pantodapa, lib. V, cap. 9, p. 376; Biblical Theology, 482. Perkins used the same example along with Jeroboam’s calves and Micaiah’s idolatry in Judges 17. Perkins , The Idolatry of the Last Times, 2.
- 33.
For an older, but still helpful, work on Reformed worship in the context of English Puritanism , see Horton Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans (Orig. pub., Dacre Press, 1948, reprint, Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997).
- 34.
Westminster Larger Catechism 109.
- 35.
Wolfgang Musculus , In Decalogum Praeceptorum Dei Explanatio (Basil, 1653).
- 36.
Musculus , Decalogum, 18.
- 37.
Owen, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God, 5; Works, 15:448; Durham , The Law Unsealed, 7; Ursinus , Explicarum Catechorum, 697–698.
- 38.
Downame , Annotations, on Deut. 4:15 (no page numbers) Musculus , Decalogum, 47. Interestingly, Henry Ainsworth (1571–1622) skipped verses 15–18 in his exposition. Henry Ainsworth , Annotations upon the Five Books of Moses, The Book of Psalms, and Song of Songs, or Canticles (London, 1627), 2:17. Thomas Case (1598–1682), who was a member of the Westminster Assembly , wrote that he and the other men who preached these sermons, “Have not without some regret observed that the larger English Annotations, in which some few only of the late Assembly, together with some others, had an hand, are generally ascribed to the whole Assembly, and usually carry the name of the Assemblies Annotations, as if done by the joint advice of that grave and learned convention” (emphasis original). Thomas Case , The Morning Exercise Methodized (London, 1659), unpaginated preface. We do not know exactly what differences Case had in mind, but this statement at least indicates that the Westminster Annotations do not necessarily represent an exegetical consensus among the Westminster divines.
- 39.
Ussher , A Body of Divinity, 231.
- 40.
I take it for granted at this point that Reformed theology did not forbid all images in every setting, but that images of God or images used as aids in divine worship only were in view. This is the first point that Durham made in the section cited below.
- 41.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 50.
- 42.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 51. Citing Deuteronomy 4:14–15.
- 43.
“What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?”
- 44.
George Hutcheson , A Brief Exposition of the Prophecies of Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, and Zephaniah (London, 1654), 262. For similar arguments with a polemic emphasis against Roman Catholic worship, see Edward Marbury (1581–1665), A Commentarie or Exposition upon the Prophecy of Habakkuk: Together with Many Useful and Very Seasonable Observations (London, 1650), 328–332.
- 45.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 51. Citing Romans 1:22–23 he added, “Every such image must be derogatory to God.” See Charnock , Existence and Attributes of God, 1:121–123.
- 46.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 51.
- 47.
For the implications of the Reformed orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ, see Jones , Why Heaven Kissed Earth, chapter 7.
- 48.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 51.
- 49.
Ussher , A Body of Divinity, 231: “An image can only represent the manhood of Christ, and not his Godhead, which is the chiefest part in him.”
- 50.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 52.
- 51.
Henry Scudder , A Key of Heaven, 129. The argument was that if we cannot depict the Triunity of God within the undivided essence, then we cannot depict any of the individual divine persons. The essence of the entire Godhead is spiritual and invisible and cannot be depicted by images.
- 52.
Durham , The Law Unsealed, 52. This section presents the core of Durham ’s arguments against images. He continued the question on pages 52–66.
- 53.
Vincent , An Explicatory Catechism, 132.
- 54.
Perkins , Idolatry of the Last Times, 15.
- 55.
This was one of the points that Durham made above. On the centrality of preaching in Reformed orthodoxy, see Chap. 6 of this thesis. For an analysis with special reference to preaching Christ, see Chad Van Dixhoorn , “Preaching Christ in Post-Reformation Britain,” in Robert L. Penny, ed., The Hope Fulfilled: Essays in Honor of O. Palmer Robertson (Philipsburg: P & R Publishing, 2008), 361–389.
- 56.
Westminster Larger Catechism 155: The Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of enlightening, convincing, and humbling sinners; of driving them out of themselves, and drawing them unto Christ; of conforming them to his image, and subduing them to his will; of strengthening them against temptations and corruptions; of building them up in grace, and establishing their hearts in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation.” See Ussher , A Body of Divinity, 331: “Since by preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments Christ is as lively painted out, as if he were crucified again amongst us (Gal. 3.1) it were to no purpose to paint him to that end.”
- 57.
Toon , God’s Statesman, 171. Paul Lim calls this “his last known work.” Lim , Mystery Unveiled, 200. If this refers to the last work that Owen knew came to publication then this is correct. However, large portions of his work on Hebrews came to the press after he died. Owen completed these volumes before he died and had planned for their publication.
- 58.
Owen, Works, 1:367–374.
- 59.
See also Turretin , Institutes, topic 20, question V. For Owen’s views on glorification, see Suzanne McDonald , “Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ: John Owen and the ‘Reforming’ of the Beatific Vision,” Ashgate Research Companion, 141–159.
- 60.
Owen, Works, 1:375.
- 61.
This was why Maccovius , for example, argued that justifying faith would cease in the future life. Joannes Maccovius , Loci Communes Theologici (Amstelodami, 1658), 780.
- 62.
Owen, Works, 1:375. “The view which we have of the glory of Christ by faith in this world is obscure, dark, inevident, reflexive.”
- 63.
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”KJV.
- 64.
Owen, Works, 1:376. “That woeful, cursed invention of faming images of him out of stocks and stones, however adorned, or representations of him by the art of painting, are so far from presenting unto the minds of men anything of his real glory, that nothing can be more effectual to divert their thoughts and apprehensions from it.”
- 65.
Owen, Works, 1:377.
- 66.
“My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.”
- 67.
Owen, Works, 1:377. For Owen’s exposition of the Song of Solomon in his work on Communion with God, see the analysis in Paul Lim , Mystery Unveiled, 193–200.
- 68.
It is unclear whether Owen believed that this limitation was due to sin or to creaturely limitation. Eire observed that Calvin and early Reformed authors rooted the inability to behold God in creaturely limitation. Sin exacerbated this limitation.
- 69.
Owen, Works, 1:380. “Should the Lord Jesus appear now to any of us in his majesty and glory, it would not be unto our edification nor consolation. For we are not meet nor able, by the power of any light or grace that we have received, or can receive, to bear the immediate appearance and representation of them.”
- 70.
Owen, Works, 1:379. “It is not, therefore, the mere human nature of Christ that is the object of [faith], but his divine person, as that nature subsisteth therein.”
- 71.
Owen, Works, 1:379–380.
- 72.
Owen, Works, 1:380.
- 73.
Westminster Larger Catechism Question 83 highlights this continuity in the following way: “Q. What is the communion in glory with Christ which the members of the invisible church enjoy in this life? A. The members of the invisible church have communicated to them in this life the firstfruits of glory with Christ, as they are members of him their head, and so in him are interested in that glory which he is fully possessed of, and, as an earnest thereof, enjoy the sense of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, and hope of glory; as, on the contrary, sense of God’s revenging wrath, horror of conscience, and a fearful expectation of judgment, are to the wicked the beginning of their torments which they shall endure after death.”
- 74.
Owen, Works, 1:383. “Being renewed by grace, what it receives here of spiritual life and light shall never be destroyed, but perfected in glory. Grace renews nature; glory perfects grace; and so the whole soul is brought unto its rest in God. We have an image of it in the blind man whom our Savior cured, Mark viii. 22–24. He was absolutely blind, —born so, no doubt. Upon the first touch, his eyes were opened, and he saw, but very obscurely; —he saw men walking like trees. But on the second, he saw all things clearly. Our minds in themselves are absolutely blind. The first visitation by grace gives them a sight of things spiritual, heavenly, and eternal; but it is obscure and unsteady. The sight of glory makes all things clear and evident.”
- 75.
Most of the remaining material in The Glory of Christ develops this theme of seeing Christ in glory.
- 76.
Though both authors agreed that Christ should not receive worship on account of his human nature, William Ames and Johannes Maccovius debated whether believers worshiped the whole Christ in both natures or in his divine nature to the exclusion of his human nature. Ames took the former position while Maccovius adopted the latter. Johannes Maccovius , Scholastic Discourse: Johannes Maccovius (1588–1644) on Theological and Philosophical Distinctions and Rules (Apeldoorn: Instituut voor Reformatieonderzoek, 2009).
- 77.
Owen, Works, 8:547.
- 78.
“And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.” KJV.
- 79.
Compare to Jonathan Edwards , “True Grace Distinguished from the Experience of Devils,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1997), 2:48–49: “He that hath his eyes opened to behold the divine superlative beauty and loveliness of Jesus Christ, is convinced of his sufficiency to stand as Mediator between him, a guilty hell-deserving wretch, and an infinitely holy God, in an exceedingly different manner than ever he can be convinced by the arguments of authors or preachers, however excellent.”
- 80.
All citations in this paragraph come from Works, 8:548–550. For the importance of experimental piety in contemporary authors , see Edward Reynolds , Mediations on the Fall and Rising of St. Peter (London, 1677), 58: “Christ is not truly apprehended either by the fancy or the understanding. He is at once known and possessed. It is an experimental, and not a speculative knowledge that conceives him; he understands him that feels him. We see him in his grace and truth, not in any carnal or gross pretense.” See also Rowe , Heavenly-Mindedness, 103. Cited in this chapter above.
- 81.
Owen, Works, 8:551. Owen’s associate minister, David Clarkson , made similar observations in his book, The Practical Divinity of the Papists Discovered to be Destructive of Christianity and Men’s Souls in Works, 3:9–47. The title of this section was “Real worship of God not necessary in the Church of Rome.”
- 82.
Owen, Works, 8:551.
- 83.
Owen, Works, 8:552: “There must, therefore, an image or representation of him be made unto our minds, or he cannot be the proper object of our faith, trust, love, and delight. This is done in the gospel, and the preaching of it; for therein is he ‘evidently set forth’ before our eyes, as ‘crucified amongst us,’ Gal.iii.1.”
- 84.
Owen, Works, 8:552: “Having a spiritual light to discern and behold the glory of Christ, as represented in the glass of the gospel, they have experienced its transforming power and efficacy, changing them into the likeness of the image represented unto them, —that is, of Christ himself; which is the saving effect of gospel power.”
- 85.
Owen, Works, 8:552.
- 86.
See Chap. 4 for the sufficiency of Scripture in Owen’s thought.
- 87.
Owen, Works, 8:554. “This, therefore, is evident, that the introduction of this abomination, in principle and practice destructive unto the souls of men, took its rise from a loss of the experience of the representation of Christ in the gospel, and the transforming power in the minds of men which it is accompanied with in them that believe.” See Of the Dominion of Sin and Grace in Works, 7:529. For a similar historical argument on the gradual process of introducing images into the church, see Marbury , Habakkuk, 332.
- 88.
After arguing that it is impossible to make images of any person of the Godhead and claim that men do not worship them, Hutcheson concluded, “Such as worship graven images, do proclaim their own brutishness, and that they are as great blocks as these which they adore, when they exalt that which is below themselves, to be above themselves and in God’s room; for what a brutishness is it in a man endued with sense and reason, to make himself dumb idols, which have no sense at all?” Hutcheson , A Brief Exposition, 263. He had Roman Catholic rather than pagan worship in view.
- 89.
Eire , War Against the Idols, Chap. 1.
- 90.
Sibbes , Works, 1:11.
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McGraw, R.M. (2017). Faith Versus Sight: Owen on Images of Christ, the Second Commandment, and the Role of Faith in Reformed Theology. In: John Owen. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60807-5_5
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