Written by R. Scott Clark |
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
The [Westminster] Divines confessed that inward images are forbidden: they are the root of the external images that are obviously forbidden. The rejection of internal images is a good and necessary consequence of the rejection of external images. The god we fashion in our hearts and minds are just as idolatrous as icons of the Father, the Son incarnate, and the Spirit.

Q. 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 (Westminster Larger Catechism, 1647
After the fall we humans are all idolaters at heart. By nature, our first instinct is to fashion gods for ourselves with our hands or in our hearts and minds. When the committee that produced the Westminster Larger Catechism got to the exposition of the Ten Commandments they re-articulated the Reformed rule of worship (i.e., the regulative principle of worship): we may worship God only in the way he has authorized. This rule is biblical and connects us to the ancient Christian church. Other traditions (e.g., the Lutherans, Anglicans, and Evangelicals) ask first whether God has prohibited something in worship. We ask whether God has authorized it. These are distinct views with different outcomes and consequences. Thus, following the consensus of the ancient church, which prohibited images of Christ until the iconodules overthrew that consensus in the eighth century, the Reformed churches across Europe and the British Isles removed images of the holy Trinity, including images of God the Son incarnate, from the Reformed churches and forbid their use.
However much even Reformed people continue to chafe under the rule of worship and the ancient iconoclast position, judging by the objections I have heard from seminary students, fellow ministers, and by the correspondence I have received over the years, one phrase in particular troubles critics and even those who would otherwise subscribe the Larger Catechism: the prohibition of mental images: “either inwardly in our mind…”. Is this phrase warranted or is it an example of over-zealous “Puritans” going just a bit too far in their desire to purify the worship of the churches and prosecute sin to the inner reaches of every man?
The English Reformed gathered at Westminster, who commissioned and comprised the committee did not go too far in Q/A 109. Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635–1711) agreed with the divines:
The seventh sin is to make physical representations of God in our minds. God reveals Himself to the soul of men as a Spirit, doing so in a manner much more devoid of the physical than can be expressed. When the natural man initially thinks upon God, however, he spoils this initial reflection upon God and changes that which is spiritual into something physical. One will either seek to maintain this physical representation of God, finding delight in creating various representations of God in the mind, or it will be contrary to the will of the person engaged in thought, who wishes to have spiritual thoughts of God but cannot do so—this being caused either externally due to people speaking of God, or due to Satan’s influence upon the imagination. The latter is not the sin of the person, but of Satan; that is, if the person is only passively involved, abhorring this, and laboring to resist it (John 4:24).1
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Written by H.B. Charles Jr |
Sunday, April 14, 2024
The church is the embassy of heaven. The Lord’s sovereign rule and reign over the world are put on display through the church. It is the embassy of heaven on earth. The love, holiness, and glory of God should be declared to the world through the church. God wills that “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places (Ephesians 3:10). 

I love the church! This is not the party line I am paid to repeat because I’m a pastor. With deep conviction and unwavering confidence, I believe the church is the hope of the world! And I am not merely talking about the idealized universal church, made up of all true believers in all places at all times. I am talking about the local church, warts and all.
The church matters to me. And the church should matter to you! Why does the church matter?
Jesus builds the church. The first statement about the church in the Bible is from the lips of Jesus: “I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). Jesus did not say, “I will build your church.” Or “You will build my church.” The church belongs to Jesus, and he is personally building it. The church is the only thing on earth Jesus builds – not family, business, or government. He builds the church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
The church is precious. Paul admonished the Ephesian elders to care for the church of God, “which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). If the value of a thing is determined by what it costs or what one pays for it, how valuable is the church? God has purchased the church by the blood of Jesus. It costs the Father the life of his Son to make the church his own. The church is the most precious thing in the whole world!
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Written by O. Palmer Robertson |
Monday, October 30, 2023
The land of the Bible serves a purpose that will outlast its own existence. For eternity, people will praise God for many things. But high on the list will be significant praise for his handiwork in creating this land bridge of the continents, this place where he could carry out the work of redemption for sinners from all the nations of the world. As a grand stage set for carrying out the critical events of the drama of redemption, this land served God and man well.

Several different perspectives on the land of the Bible have arisen in the course of history. In many ways, these various views of the land belong distinctively to the age in which they developed. Yet it is also true that basic elements of these different ways of looking at the land have been present in every human era and are no less present today than they were when originally established. Five perspectives on the land of the Bible warrant special attention.
Five Perspectives on the Land
The Crusader Perspective
The energy spent and the blood spilt because of the Crusader perspective on Palestine is almost immeasurable. Almost a thousand years after the misguided Crusaders made their futile attempt to claim Palestine for Christianity, the land still shows the pockmarks that remain as a result of their presence. Remnants of walls, castles, churches, and cities protrude from the surface of the land wherever the traveler goes. At Caesarea, an impressive moat and fortress remain. With a spectacular view overlooking the Jordan valley, impressive remains of Belvoir Fortress still stand. This significant citadel withstood a four-year siege near the end of the twelfth century before it finally fell to Saladin. The shell of a Crusader castle dramatically occupies the peak of a mountain on the way toward snow-covered Hermon, and the ruins of another mark the halfway point on the way down to Jericho from Jerusalem. At Jerusalem itself, large parts of the city wall date back to the days of the Crusaders.
So what inspired this massive sacrifice of life, limb, fortune, and family? Obviously motivations must have been mixed. But undergirding the whole endeavor was the view that this land was holy and therefore could not remain in the hands of a Muslim community. To protect its sacredness, this holy ground must be wrenched from the infidels without regard for the cost.
Few people today would claim that their view of the land of the Bible agrees with the perspective of the Crusaders. Yet one wonders: is not the commonplace designation of this place as the “Holy Land” tainted with the twisted outlook of the Crusaders? Just what is it that makes this land “holy” in the minds of so many? So long as the “Glory,” the Shekinah, dwelt in the temple of Jerusalem, the land was made holy by the special presence of God. But the departure of the “Glory” meant that the land’s holiness, its sanctification by God’s abiding presence, was no more. Just as the burning bush in the wilderness sanctified the ground around it only so long as the glory of God remained, so this land was “holy” only so long as God was uniquely there.
Indeed, many people may affirm that they sense a special closeness to God as they ”walk today where Jesus walked.” But human feeling cannot be equated so simplistically with divine determinations. In fact, the specific teaching of Jesus was that the time would come when the presence of the holy God would be found neither in Jerusalem nor on the mount of Samaria, but wherever he was worshipped in Spirit and in truth (John 4:21, 23). Material locale simply does not have the capacity to retain divine holiness.
The Crusader perspective on the land of the Bible led well-meaning people astray for centuries. It cost countless families their husbands, their children, their fortunes, and their futures. The same misdirected zeal may not characterize people today who think of Palestine as the “Holy Land.” But this view can mislead severely and substitute a false form of worship for the true. Instead of accepting the biblical teaching that any location can be the most holy place on earth if the one true God is worshipped through Jesus Christ at that place, the land of the Bible is romanticized so that people suppose that if they are there God will be known with special power and truth.
The Pilgrim Perspective
All through the ages, people have felt a compulsion to travel to the land of the Bible. Most individuals make the trek because they naturally associate the land with the events recorded in the Bible. But throughout history, the motivation of many has been a sense of gaining merit with God. Even in the twentieth century, professing Christians travel halfway around the world to be “rebaptized” in the Jordan River, assuming that somehow this water has a greater capacity for cleansing from sins than any other. A yet more subtle version of this same view supposes that a pilgrimage to the land of the Bible will remove the soul’s haze and give a clear vision of the person of Christ.
But Scripture offers no specific blessing for the sinner as a consequence of his traveling to any particular place. Only faith in the sacrifice of God’s Son can bring peace between God and men, and this faith can be exercised equally from any place in the world. It actually brings into question the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to suggest that some physical relocation of the sinner will contribute to restoring him to fellowship with God.
The Zionist Perspective
The rebirth of the state of Israel in 1948 has rejuvenated the belief on the part of many Jews and Christians that the land of Palestine belongs forever to the Jewish people, and that all this land should be returned to them as its rightful owner. On the basis of the promise given to Abraham that the land belonged to him and his offspring forever, it has been concluded that the whole of the land of the Bible remains irrevocably entrusted to the Israelite people. This view has received strong impetus since the termination of World War II. Having witnessed the Holocaust in which six million Jews perished under Adolf Hitler’s “final solution” to the Jewish “problem,” the Western nations of the world have sympathized with the concept of a Jewish homeland. Early considerations proposed Uganda, among other places, as a possible location for displaced Jews. But in the end, everything pointed to the land of their ancestors. First in trickles against armed opposition and then by the tens of thousands, Jews from every part of the world flowed into the land of the Bible. The visitor today cannot but be amazed at the determination of these people who have come to the land. On the tops of obscure mountains, in the midst of barren deserts, up high-rise apartments among others who do not understand their speech, Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, Moroccan Jews, British, Canadian, and Spanish Jews live together. Despite world criticism and complaint, the Jewish people continue to claim this land as their own.
But in what sense is the land, the whole of the land of the Bible, the property of the Jews by right of divine gift and covenant? This question is answered in different ways today even by the Jews themselves. Some among the Hasidim (the most devout of the Orthodox Jews) insist that, by the covenant with Abraham, God gave the whole of the land to Abraham’s descendants in perpetuity. Others would be more modest in their appeal to the promises given to the patriarchs. To them the promise of the Lord insures some right of possession for the Jewish nation today, although their claims would not exclude the possibility of political compromise.
There is of course the difficult, unsolved problem concerning the identification of a “Jew.” For as a Jewish commentator on Genesis has noted, the “Jewish” people never have known “purity of blood”1. Since the time that God established his covenant with Abraham, any Gentle could become a full-fledged Jew by confessing the God of Abraham and, in the case of a male, being circumcised (Gen. 17:12-13). The prevailing definition of a Jew as anyone who has a Jewish mother may have some functional appeal, But since the time of Abraham, a “Jewish” mother might have had not one single drop of Abrahamic blood running through her veins.
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