Description
As there are many books currently published which do not subscribe to the general Reformed position on the Second Commandment, we don’t believe that this should necessarily stop believers from perusing the helpful content in such volumes. As such, we are making these packs of ten stickers available for those who subscribe to this position in order to help avoid violations of conscience.
This pack contains 10 x Black & White stickers which measure 50 x 50mm (or 1.9685 x 1.9685 inches). Shipping worldwide.
The General Reformed Position on the Second Commandment:
It has long been noted in the Reformed tradition that pictures of Christ were seen as violation of the second commandment, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exodus 20:4).
Question 109 of the Westminster Longer Catechism answers, when raising ‘What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?’:
“The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, … 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…”
Likewise, Question 98 of the Heidelberg Catechism which posits: ‘But may not pictures be tolerated in churches as books for the people?’ answers it by stating:
“No, for we should not be wiser than God, who will not have His people taught by dumb idols,[1] but by the lively preaching of His Word.”
This position is also taken by John Owen, one of the ablest proponents of Puritan theology, who in his The Glory of Christ (1679) argues:
“Many there are who, not comprehending, not being affected with, that divine, spiritual description of the person of Christ which is given us by the Holy Ghost in the Scripture, do feign unto themselves false representations of him by images and pictures, so as to excite carnal and corrupt affections in their minds. By the help of their outward senses, they reflect on their imaginations the shape of a human body, cast into postures and circumstances dolorous or triumphant; and so, by the working of their fancy, raise a commotion of mind in themselves, which they suppose to be love unto Christ. But all these idols are teaches of lies. The true beauty and amiableness of the person of Christ, which is the formal object and cause of divine love, is so far from being represented herein, as that the mind is thereby wholly diverted from the contemplation of it. For no more can be so pictured unto us but what may belong unto a mere man, and what is arbitrarily referred unto Christ, not by faith, but by corrupt imagination.”