Does the Bible Forbid My Nativity Set?
00:00:00.000 | Hello, and welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:07.040 | Well, porcelain nativity sets are a popular choice for mantle decor in the
00:00:11.760 | Christian home this time of year.
00:00:13.360 | But are these sets forbidden from our places of worship by the second commandment?
00:00:18.120 | It's a great and timely question sent in to us by a listener named Lisa.
00:00:21.800 | Lisa writes in to ask this.
00:00:23.200 | Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:24.560 | I just started reading Knowing God by J.
00:00:26.920 | I.
00:00:27.080 | Packer.
00:00:28.120 | And in chapter four, he discusses the second commandment.
00:00:30.920 | I've always assumed this referred to actual objects of worship, like
00:00:34.800 | crucifixes or pagan idols.
00:00:37.000 | But Packer seems to say any material or even mental images of all or part of the
00:00:42.400 | Trinity is forbidden.
00:00:44.280 | Perhaps even a nativity set, I wonder, and even frescoes painted inside the Sistine
00:00:49.840 | Chapel.
00:00:50.440 | His argument made sense.
00:00:52.600 | In our finiteness, we can't accurately represent him.
00:00:55.760 | So it would be inaccurate and essentially a lie.
00:00:58.720 | Having grown up in Baptist churches that lean pretty reformed, I'm surprised I've
00:01:02.800 | never heard or thought of this before.
00:01:05.080 | Have you?
00:01:05.960 | Yes, because I've read Packer.
00:01:08.040 | If J.
00:01:11.920 | I.
00:01:12.080 | Packer says something, it would be wise to pause and take it very seriously.
00:01:18.760 | So I got out my old 1973 edition of Knowing God.
00:01:25.320 | And I reviewed chapter four.
00:01:28.600 | It's about idolatry and specifically about the second commandment of the Ten
00:01:34.240 | Commandments.
00:01:34.880 | And let me read the key verses that he's dealing with.
00:01:38.800 | This is Exodus 20, verse four.
00:01:41.600 | "You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is
00:01:47.560 | in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the
00:01:52.160 | earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a
00:01:59.040 | jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and
00:02:04.200 | fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of
00:02:08.560 | those who love me and keep my commandments."
00:02:10.440 | So Packer's point is that this commandment tells us not only not to worship false
00:02:20.080 | gods, which he says would simply repeat the first commandment, "You shall not have
00:02:25.200 | other gods before me," but rather is telling us how not to worship the true God
00:02:32.360 | falsely.
00:02:33.840 | In other words, it's not just about whom we worship, but how we worship.
00:02:39.800 | And he quotes Charles Hodge saying that the point of the second commandment is
00:02:46.600 | this, "Idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the
00:02:55.760 | worship of the true God by images."
00:03:00.280 | And then he says this, that is, Packer says this, "In its Christian application,
00:03:07.400 | this means that we are not to make use of visual or pictorial representations of the
00:03:15.400 | triune God or any person of the Trinity for the purposes of Christian worship.
00:03:23.360 | What it tells us is that," this is still Packer, "What it tells us is that statues
00:03:30.280 | and pictures of the one whom we worship are not to be used as an aid to worshiping
00:03:36.880 | him."
00:03:37.120 | And then he explains why.
00:03:39.640 | Two things.
00:03:40.240 | One, images dishonor God, for they obscure his glory.
00:03:45.800 | They conceal most, if not all, of the truth about the personal nature and the
00:03:52.160 | character of the divine being.
00:03:53.440 | And two, images mislead men.
00:03:56.000 | They convey false ideas about God.
00:03:59.200 | Now, the whole chapter is worth reading.
00:04:01.960 | I encourage everybody, if you haven't read "Knowing God" by J.I.
00:04:05.960 | Packer, it's a modern classic for good reasons.
00:04:10.800 | Now, he's still living and still faithful, I believe, and I would encourage everybody
00:04:15.760 | to pick it up and read it.
00:04:17.200 | Now, Lisa says, "Packer seems to say any material or even mental images of all or
00:04:25.360 | any part of the Trinity is forbidden, perhaps even a nativity scene, I wonder,
00:04:31.440 | even frescoes on the Sistine Chapel."
00:04:35.040 | So I have two responses to that application.
00:04:37.880 | With regard to the Sistine Chapel, I would say not even the Sistine Chapel, but
00:04:44.640 | especially the Sistine Chapel.
00:04:46.720 | I think the spectacular genius and gifting of Michelangelo as an artist has almost
00:04:57.520 | totally eclipsed the fact that the chapel is full of images that not only break the
00:05:04.160 | Second Commandment, but because of the ubiquitous nudity, compounds idolatry with
00:05:11.000 | obscenity.
00:05:11.880 | Now, remember, we're talking about a chapel, chapel, chapel, chapel, not a museum
00:05:18.840 | where worship is to be happening.
00:05:20.920 | We were there a year ago, and when you walked in, the place was crawling with noisy
00:05:24.760 | Americans and the poor guards were saying, "Shh, shh, shh, this is a place of worship.
00:05:29.240 | Shh, shh."
00:05:29.920 | Didn't work at all.
00:05:31.600 | But that's clearly the intention.
00:05:34.080 | And whatever you think of nudity in art, the use of nudity in worship is, I think,
00:05:39.680 | absurd.
00:05:40.680 | Absurd.
00:05:42.200 | And I'm tempted to say, I will say, especially male nudity with single male
00:05:49.880 | priests.
00:05:50.800 | But the point here is that this is a chapel.
00:05:53.960 | This is a place of worship.
00:05:56.320 | And the image of God the Father as a white European male encased in a shape like a
00:06:03.520 | human brain is, I would say, an almost perfect embodiment of what is forbidden in
00:06:10.840 | the Second Commandment.
00:06:11.880 | This is not the way God calls us to worship Him in spirit and in truth.
00:06:18.520 | So if you have a Michelangelo in your church, don't commission him to paint a
00:06:23.520 | representation of God on the ceiling of your church.
00:06:26.120 | Don't do it.
00:06:27.320 | No matter how good he is.
00:06:30.000 | Painting, let me say something positive here, painting is a great part of creation.
00:06:37.360 | And creation is declaring the glory of God.
00:06:42.320 | Artists will never exhaust the glories of God if they confine themselves to the
00:06:48.120 | vastness and complexity of the wonders of creation.
00:06:52.080 | That's what we're supposed to do with it.
00:06:54.520 | Reshape it, remake it, represent it, draw out of it glories.
00:06:59.960 | Plenty to do there.
00:07:01.080 | You don't need to create God the Father on the ceiling of your church in order to
00:07:05.920 | get the Michelangelos in your church busy.
00:07:08.760 | Now, my second and last response to Lisa's sentence has to do with nativity
00:07:13.560 | scenes.
00:07:13.960 | She wonders if the Second Commandment bans the representation of the baby Jesus in
00:07:20.200 | the art of nativity scenes, because he's the second person of the Trinity.
00:07:23.880 | And the same question is raised, of course, in picturing Jesus, for example, in
00:07:28.800 | children's books.
00:07:29.640 | My goodness, they almost all do it.
00:07:31.680 | Should we?
00:07:32.680 | I think the key here is given by Packer himself.
00:07:36.680 | So let me read what he says.
00:07:38.080 | He says, "Historically, Christians have differed as to whether the Second
00:07:42.880 | Commandment forbids the use of pictures of Jesus for purposes of teaching and
00:07:47.880 | instruction in Sunday school, for example.
00:07:49.960 | And the question is not an easy one to settle."
00:07:53.160 | I'm still quoting.
00:07:55.400 | "But there is no room for doubting that the commandment obliges us to dissociate
00:08:02.000 | our worship, both in public and private, from all pictures and statues of Christ,
00:08:08.040 | no less from pictures and statues of his Father."
00:08:12.520 | I agree with that.
00:08:13.520 | So everything hangs on whether we are able to distinguish the use of pictures
00:08:19.880 | of Christ, which may be warranted because he was both man and God.
00:08:25.800 | There's the one difference between the Holy Spirit, the Father, and Jesus, is
00:08:29.000 | that Jesus became part of creation.
00:08:31.000 | Whether we can distinguish the use of pictures of Christ in worship from using
00:08:37.680 | them in other ways that don't involve worship is the question.
00:08:42.640 | Packer's right, I think.
00:08:44.840 | It is not easy to settle this issue because, in a sense, we should be
00:08:50.480 | worshiping in all that we do.
00:08:52.200 | And oh, how easy, how easy for a picture to become the source of our affections,
00:09:00.280 | seemingly for God, rather than Christ himself becoming the source of our
00:09:07.000 | affections.
00:09:07.720 | Now, let's be honest here as I close.
00:09:10.280 | Our house at Christmas time is full of nativity scenes.
00:09:15.040 | I dare say the Piper household has more nativity scenes than 99.9% of the houses
00:09:22.560 | in the world because my wife collects them from all the different ethnicities.
00:09:28.920 | I mean, we've got elephants in the scenes.
00:09:31.800 | They're from all over Africa and Europe and cultures around the world trying to
00:09:36.440 | portray the Holy Family in appropriate ways to their culture.
00:09:40.440 | We love this cross-cultural dimension of Christmas.
00:09:43.200 | He came for all the nations, and the wise men were people from outside Judea.
00:09:47.160 | I hope, I say this hope and I say it carefully, I hope these scenes simply
00:09:54.400 | serve to say one loud, glorious fact in the Piper household.
00:10:00.600 | God sent Christ to save sinners like us.
00:10:06.040 | And look at him in the gospel, Piper.
00:10:08.680 | Look at him in the gospel.
00:10:10.160 | Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, not by seeing images.
00:10:16.680 | That's really good.
00:10:17.920 | Yeah.
00:10:18.200 | Packer's still with us.
00:10:19.320 | I think he's in his early nineties now, 93.
00:10:23.680 | Yeah, bless him.
00:10:24.880 | Yeah.
00:10:25.560 | What a gift he's been to the church.
00:10:27.560 | He really has been.
00:10:28.160 | I had the honor of talking with him on the phone a couple of weeks ago.
00:10:31.920 | And before I hung up, he voluntarily wanted to tell me that he's holding fast to the
00:10:37.560 | gospel and to his theological convictions.
00:10:39.800 | So it was just great to hear him affirm that.
00:10:42.440 | And he wanted me to know, and I assume everybody to know, that he is holding fast.
00:10:47.800 | Loads of implications to ponder in this episode.
00:10:51.200 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:52.120 | That's a great question, Lisa.
00:10:53.360 | Thanks for sending it in to us.
00:10:55.000 | And wherever you are listening in the midst of your busy day, thank you for joining us.
00:10:59.520 | Be sure to subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app in YouTube or in
00:11:03.520 | Spotify.
00:11:04.160 | And for our episode archive or to submit a question of your own, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:11:11.280 | Well, speaking of Christmas time specifics, next time we talk about whether or not Christmas
00:11:16.240 | dinner is the best time for evangelism with non-believers who may be joining you.
00:11:20.520 | What are some factors to consider and what is some practical advice Pastor John has for
00:11:25.120 | those moments to speak of Christ to non-believers around the Christmas time dinner table?
00:11:30.240 | That's up next time.
00:11:31.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:32.480 | We'll see you on Monday.
00:11:33.480 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:11:41.920 | [ Silence ]