Icons or Idols

Last updated on: February 26, 2018 at 5:26 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Icons or Idols 2018-02-26T17:26:12-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Today his family and community will begin the process of burying Billy Graham and will honor his body. This is a good and proper thing to do. We honor the body, because it was part of the man. Humans are souls embodied, eternity in our heart, but death in our immediate future.

Some philosophers have tried to slip this tension by forgetting the body and looking only to the external. We cannot live this way, because the demands of our city, the human family where we live, pull us back to middle earth from highest heaven. Other thinkers have denied the existence of anything other than matter and energy, but the existence of mathematical objects and mind make this impossible to consistently sustain. Once we strongly suspect that something immaterial exists, the elegance of the materialist solution fails.

We are animals with souls, never to be angels, but not merely beasts. As a result true religion will always be a mix of the physical and the spiritual. The tabernacle worship God designed had bright colors, smells, bells, food, and drink. The rituals of the tabernacle pointed physically to the other realm. Ideas were given expression in art. When the people needed a healing, God ordered a snake to be raised up on a pole. If the people looked in faith, they were healed. The image was an icon of God. Like a computer icon, one used it to get to something else. The icon was not the thing, but the signpost to call up the thing needed: healing.

Despite being told not to worship images, no icon was safe from being turned into an idol. Eventually God’s people would worship the icon on the snake on a pole and forget the God of healing to whom that icon was to point. They became like the developers who become drunk on designing great icons for a game and forget the game itself only. God had the old icon destroyed, because it had become an idol.

The more iconic the greater the danger of idolatry. My Dad gave me my great-grandfather’s Bible for Christmas. When I hold or read it, I am reminded of his years of faithful ministry and tied to my family roots. Yet this too, the very written Word of God, could become an idol. This Bible is not my great-grandfather. This Bible is to be read, honored for what it stands for, never worshiped.

The temptation is to destroy all icons. We will dispense with the visible signpost and merely memorize the route to God. Yet this fails. We can turn words into idols, forgetting their meaning, and lavishing love meant for the Beloved on His Words. God help us, but even in a plain room, stripped of all art, I have seen people come to sit in just this seat and become upset when that seat is taken. God met them there and now that place has become an idol.

We cannot destroy all the potential idols without destroying the world, but that would be to destroy humankind. We are, of course, the greatest icon of God, the very image of God in the world. We can worship people as gods and turn venerable friends to idols. God help us.

The solution is the hard road of being embodied souls. We will honor our flag, our relics, and our history while refusing them the worship due only to the Good God. We will love only God absolutely, because only God can stand absolute love.

This is hard. We will constantly having to confess our idolatry. There is no real idol to the man who refuses to worship any person but Absolute Being. All being is an image of that Being. We cannot be iconoclasts in a world where God Himself sanctified the creative tension between Word and flesh in Bethlehem.

He is very God of very God and we could see His glory. See you in the last morning Rev Graham when body and soul are reunited for us all: the very image of God pointing to God in our midst.

Apologetics

Culture

Previous Post

February 25, 2018

The Autobiography of Malcolm X: Read as Young and an Older Man

Next Post

February 26, 2018 This Love for God

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did Isaiah see in his vision in Isaiah 6?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The Lord seated on His throne A chariot of fire A burning bush A ladder to heaven

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »