Wednesday, July 09, 2008

The Backwoods Presbyterian on the Second Commandment

Benjamin P. Glaser, at The Backwoods Presbyterian has an interesting and informative series of articles on the subject: Images of the Godhead and the Second Commandment

Part 1 - Introduction

Part 2 - What do the Magisterial Reformers Have to Say Concerning Images?

Part 3 - What do the Magisterial Reformers Have to Say Concerning Images? (Cont.) (Including a quotation from the real Francis Turretin!)

Part 4 - Westminster Divines and of the Puritan writers on Images

Part 5 - Theologians of the 19th Century on Images

Part 6 - Bahnsen on Sources of Anti-Nominianism

Part 7 - John Murray on Pictures of Christ

Part 8 - Lesson from Ancient Israel

Part 8 (Cont.) - Application
Enjoy!

-TurretinFan

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes! Enjoyed!!

I remember being about 16 and going to a classmate's house for lunch.

The time was the late 1960's.

On the wall in the kitchen was a painting of Jesus the Christ sitting on a swing of a "modern" day swing set one would see a father erect for his children erecting it in the yard for them to play on.

Jesus is sitting on the swing, not swinging but holding a little girl's doll and the little girl standing next to Him and holding a little boy's airplane and the little boy standing on the other side of Him. It seems that Jesus is catechizing them or at least having fellowship with these two children in their realm and on their turf? If any reader has seen this painting themself and know it better than I and know I am not depicting the scene accurately, please correct my depiction.

Jesus is dressed in a robe and sandals, dress one would imagine He would be wearing when He was not working for His earthly father, Joseph but after work or on the day of rest, while the children, the boy and girl were dressed in modern day clothes, needing no imagination on my part seeing I daily saw children dressed that way.

Something awakened inside me when I looked upon that painting at my friend's house that day.

We artists ought to be led of the Holy Ghost, our Friend and Good Shepherd, the one Third member of Three who is here whether we are "tuned" into His Spiritual Radio Broadcast or not when painting a painting that imparts "Faith" by "seeing" arousing our emotions and imaginations useful to Our God, Who imparts Faith by Hearing and Hearing by the "Word" of God. Isn't it said that a picture is worth a thousand words? In any event, here, Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches:::>

Gen 1:2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.


It is clear to me that Abraham had been given "faith" already for him to "know" that is the Lord and to bow down and worship the Lord coming towards him with an Elect Angel on one side and an Elect Angel on the other side coming with Him to him.

There are in my heart's secret place harbored two meals I would want to have been apart of, being there and eating, one meal is the meal Abraham ordered fixed for those Three, cf. Genesis 18, and the other is the "Breakfast Club meal" Jesus prepared for our good brother and Apostle, faithless Peter:

Joh 21:9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread.
Joh 21:10 Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught."

I just want you to note well both verses, 9 and 10. I am not so much hungry for the fish of verse 10. It's the fish "laid out on the charcoal fire" with the "bread" of verse 9 I am hungry for.

Where did Jesus get a knife to fillet fish? Better yet, which lake did Jesus catch His fish from, the same one those faithless doubting fishermen were fishing that morning? Was it Angels that did the meshy work of catching the fish, cleaning it, baking the bread and so on? Or did Jesus steal fish or buy fish and bread from the fish markets and bakeries?

Come on, someone answer me! :)

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the link. Reading the table of contents as you present it, I think I'll enjoy it a lot.
--Godith