Christianity is first a hearing religion. The unimpressive “foolishness” of the preaching medium is suited to the Gospel message as are the modest visual media of the sacraments. We know these media are suitable and profitable because God has ordained them. If the words of scripture prompt visual images in our mind, that is natural. If we seek to create and fixate on sentimental images (even if only mental), we go astray according to the Westminster divines. Godliness with contentment is great gain—let us strive to be content with biblical data and media. 

Nothing provides a jolt of controversy like touching the worship rails, Almost every discussion of the Second and Fourth Commandments turns into a skirmish if not a pitched battle. While some Reformed folk would slot issues connected to images, worship music, and the finer details of sacramental administration and Lord’s Day observance into second or third “tiers” of importance, the mere mention of certain ways of applying the Second and Fourth Commandments (ways that seem to comport with the plain reading of the Reformed standards) elicits howls of protest. The sharp reactions around these issues tell us that Calvin was right: worship is of primary importance. People tell you what really matters to them. Hear Machen:
In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight.
Now, since I have no desire to start an actual shooting war I’ll refrain (for now) from talking about instruments, praise ditties and divine boyfriend songs, intinction, “young child communion,” non-elder scripture readers, or whether Christians should watch or even attend professional sporting events on the Lord’s Day…or eat at restaurants on the way to or from. I don’t want to be unreasonable.But let’s talk about pictures of Jesus, not just in public worship or Sunday School rooms but in Christians’ heads—the mental images that the Westminster Divines had in mind (no pun intended).
109. What sins are forbidden in the second commandment?A. The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and any wise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; 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 hath appointed.
The plain reading of this answer to the 109th question of the Larger Catechism is itself based on the plain reading of the Second Commandment. Yet, it is controversial for some presbyters. Some aver that it is impossible to have, make, or use mental images of Jesus so the catechism must have overdone it. But the impossibility of keeping this commandment (not to mention the other nine) seems a poor argument for taking a pass on it or sanding its application down to a more pleasing smoothness.
Our friend Harrison Perkins wrote a fine paper on Westminster and images several years ago. Posting quotes from that article and the reactions to it prompted these reflections. In the article, Perkins showed that Westminster was not alone (as some have suggested) in its concern about mental images.
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Written by H.B. Charles, Jr. |
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
We refuse to get caught up in the hoopla of the experts, not because we are climate deniers. We believe the words of Jesus. Heaven and earth will pass away. Revelation 21:1 says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.”

When I was young, there was a “psychic” whose commercials regularly played on TV. Miss Cleo gave assurances she could reveal your future over the phone. There were clips of phone sessions to prove her assertions. Then she would say in a Jamaican accent, “Call me now!” The caption read: “First 3 minutes of each call free. Must be 18. For Entertainment Only.”
Many make bold predictions about the future. Their prognostications are only useful for entertainment. Jesus is not a part of that list. You can live with confidence in what Jesus says about the future. That’s the message of Mark 13:28-31.
It was Wednesday of Passion Week—Jesus’ last visit to the temple in Jerusalem. As he departed, he predicted the temple would be destroyed. Later, on the Mount of Olives, Peter, James, John, and Andrewasked follow-up questions. Mark 13:4 says: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished.”

“These things” refer to the near event of the temple’s destruction.
“All these things” refer to the far event of the Lord’s return.

Matthew 24:3 clarifies the distinction: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age.”
Mark 13:5-37 records the Lord’s response. It is called the Olivet Discourse. The chapter is filled with prophetic predictions. Some Bible teachers believe these predictions are about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70. A plain reading of the chapter makes it evident that Jesus is talking about his second coming at the end of the age.
Some conclusions about this chapter are more about defending Jesus than accurate interpretation. Jesus is not Miss Cleo. His claims do not need to be defended. You can live with confidence in what Jesus says about the future. What is the basis of your hope for the future? Mark 13:28-31 gives four reasons to live confidently in what Jesus says about the future.
The Practical Wisdom of Jesus
Verses 26-27 predict the second coming: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.” Jesus is coming again definitely, imminently, bodily, visibly, gloriously, triumphantly, and unexpectantly.
How should we respond to this glorious truth? Jesus does not give a radical or fanatical end-time strategy. He teaches a simple lesson of practical wisdom. Verse 28 says, “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.”
“Learn” is an imperative, not a suggestion. The Lord commands the disciples to master the lesson he teaches from the fig tree. The call to learn is what it means to be a disciple. Matthew 28:20 tells us to teach disciples to observe all that he has commanded us. We must accept what Jesus says as true and apply it to our lives.
The lesson is about the coming of Christ and the end of the age. There are three schools of eschatology: premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism. Many Christians subscribe to “pan-millennialism”—it will all pan out in the end. We claim to be on the welcoming committee, not the planning committee. But the coming of Christ is not a subject to leave for theologians to debate. Jesus commands you to learn this subject, which means you can learn this subject.
Verse 28 says, “From the fig tree learn its lesson.” “Lesson” is the Greek word for “parable.” The word means “to toss alongside.” Jesus often taught by tossing a common reality alongside spiritual truth. Many of the parables are stories. Some are simple analogies. This is what we have in the lesson of the fig tree. Most of the trees in Jerusalem were evergreen. Figs trees were deciduous. They bud, bloom, fade, and fall with the passing of the seasons. This changing condition made the fig tree a fitting parable: “As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is coming.”
In the spring, the fig tree branches become “tender” as they fill with sap. Then green leaves began to sprout. When the disciples saw this, they knew what it meant. They did not need expertise in horticulture. Tender branches and growing leaves meant summer is coming.
In Mark 11, Jesus cursed a fig tree with leaves but no fruit. It was a symbol of the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus uses the fig tree to illustrate a different truth here. The fig tree does not represent Israel. It is just a blossoming fig tree that indicates summer is coming. Shakespeare said there were “sermons in stones.” The Lord is always teaching us something. Don’t miss the spiritual lessons in practical things.
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Some in Christendom resented Keller’s stumbled-upon celebrity. Others hailed him as the C.S. Lewis for a new generation. As for Keller, he stayed focused—there was a gospel to preach, cities to reach, souls to save. Even when he was diagnosed with cancer in June, 2020, he scarcely slowed, continuing to work, write, lead, and think—even amidst the chemo, right to the very end.

Long before he planted Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, taking New York City by storm; before City to City galvanized an international urban church planting movement, starting nearly 978 churches and training thousands of Christian leaders; before his endlessly churning mind birthed some two dozen books, many of which are already hailed as Christian classics; Tim Keller was just a kid in Pennsylvania, growing up and grappling with God and reason and himself with all the strength his head and heart could muster.
Born in Allentown in 1950, Keller became a Christian through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship while a sophomore at Bucknell University. He was bookish, even then, nose down in the works of John Stott, F.F. Bruce, A.W. Tozer, and C.S Lewis (to whom he would later be compared). He inhaled words like air (the better written and more sharply reasoned the better), swam in seas of ideas, and wrestled with both the intellectual plausibility and the emotional heart of the Christian faith. By the time he graduated, his path was set: Tim Keller would be a minister of the gospel.
He attended seminary at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary right after college, earning his M.Div in 1975. There, he met his beloved wife, Kathy, and plunged even deeper into the questions of the faith, engaging with Reformed doctrine and learning in the era of Meredith Cline, David Wells, Jack Davis, and J. Christy Wilson Jr.
“1970s Gordon-Conwell [was] a distinct theological phenomenon, and if you don’t understand that then you really don’t understand Tim Keller,” said Reformed Theological Seminary Chancellor Ligon Duncan. “Gordon-Conwell had a ton of confessional Calvinists there in the mid ‘70s, [and] Tim exudes the kind of intelligent, apologetic, reformed evangelical Christianity that was being fostered.”
M.Div in hand, the 24-year-old Keller signed on to pastor West Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Hopewell, Virginia. He served that congregation for the next nine years, slinging sermons like hotcakes (three per week, more often than not), pastoring congregants, and serving his local community. Along the way, Keller found time to earn his D.Min from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1981, and serve as director of church planting for the PCA’s mid-Atlantic region.
In the 1980s, Tim and Kathy Keller moved to Philadelphia, where the couple did urban ministry together. There, Keller taught leadership and communication at Westminster, served as Director of Mercy Ministries for the PCA, and authored his first two books—both related to mercy ministry. By 1989, the Kellers had moved yet again, this time to New York City to plant Redeemer Presbyterian Church. The Big Apple was more dangerous back then, a gritty mission field beset by crime, money, and skeptics. And though most of the other boroughs were chalk-full of churches planted by Christian immigrants from Africa, Latin America, and Asia, Manhattan was overwhelmingly dominated by secularism, with less than 1% of the population identifying as evangelical Christians.
Redeemer started small—with only around 50 members at first. But under Keller’s leadership, the little church began to grow. By the dawn of the new millennium, nearly 3,000 people attended Redeemer’s Sunday service. After the September 11 terror attacks, some 5,400 reeling Manhattanites poured through the church’s doors, searching for meaning, comfort, and hope. Trauma and tragedy fueled a growth spurt, and numbers of new converts soared.
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