Pyatcast

Category: Second Commandment

  • Second Incarnational Defense of Idols Rebutted

    Subsequent to my last post, Frank Turk (aka Centuri0n) has submitted a new argument into the comment box of his his own post (link to post). Frank Turk argues: One of the pillars of Tom’s argumentation is that any image of Jesus is necessarily, by definition, a “false image” of Jesus. And the reason for…

  • Smoke and Fire Icons?

    During the recent discussion on images of God, I have heard a couple of folks suggest that God portrayed himself as being a pillar of cloud and fire. A more careful reading of the text shows that while the pillar of cloud/fire was a sign of the presence of God, it was not supposed to…

  • Response to Argument for Idols from the Incarnation

    In the course of the comments on a previous post (link to post), I had asked: What about the prohibition on picturing God? — Why does that prohibition not apply to pictures of Jesus? The response I got from one of my Eastern Orthodox readers was this: “Because on Sinai we saw no image. In…

  • Response to Steve Hays on the Second Commandment

    This is not a full rebuttal to what Steve Hays wrote on the second commandment (link to Steve’s post). Instead, it is a heavily short-handed rebuttal, written with his high level of understanding of Scripture and theology in mind. The goal is to persuade him, not to respond to the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox…

  • Augustine Against Idolatry

    Augustine, commenting on Psalm 75, wrote: “For the cup in the hand of the Lord of pure wine is full of mixed” (ver. 8). Justly so. “And He hath poured out of this upon this man; nevertheless, the dreg thereof hath not been emptied; there shall drink all the sinners of earth.” Let us be…

  • The Apology of Claudius of Turin and His Commentary on Galatians

    I have previously remarked how the icon-favoring council of 787 overthrew the precedent of the similarly sized council of 754, which condemned as idolatry the worshiping of God by images. Some folks have tried to suggest that the iconoclastic controversy was exclusively an Eastern issue. Some have even gone so far as to try to…

  • Evangelicals and Idols: a Reformed Response

    Over at the mixed-religion blog Evangel, Matthew Milliner (a doctoral candidate in art history at Princeton University, and apparently a member of the PCUSA) has attempted to argue that the rejection of icons of Christ is a defect in Christology. When faced with the argument that icons inherently involve an implicit Nestorianism (or perhaps Monophysitism),…

  • God’s Judgment On Babylon

    Thanks to a passage I was reading in Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary on Isaiah, I noticed the following connection. Within Isaiah’s pronouncement of judgment on Babylon we find the following: Isaiah 13:16-19 Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished. Behold, I will…

  • Spurgeon on Crosses in Worship

    The following is something from Charles Spurgeon, who is not always a careful theologian, but certainly has a way with words: I. First, let us enquire, WHAT IS THIS CROSS OF CHRIST to which some men are sadly said to be enemies? Of course, it is not the material cross. It is not anything made…

  • Did Israel Ever Make Idols of God?

    Introduction Some people wonder whether perhaps the 2nd commandment’s prohibition on idolatry is limited to making idols of false gods. One of the questions asked is whether Israel ever made idols of the true God, or whether the idols were always of false gods. There are two or three times that come to mind when…