LET GOD BE TRUE

CHAPTER XI

USE OF IMAGES IN WORSHIP

ACCORDING to the express statement of the Creator himself, man was made in the image of God. Not that man had the same form and substance as his Creator, but that as God held universal domination over all creation, so to man was granted the privilege of holding dominion over the earth and its forms of life: the birds, fish, and animals. Toward these he had the responsibility of exercising the same attributes as his Creator: wisdom in directing the affairs charged to him, justice in dealing with other creatures of his God, love in unselfishly caring for the earth and its creatures, and power in properly discharging his authority to carry out the right worship of the Universal Sovereign in whose image he was created. — Genesis 1: 26-28.

² But man's exercise of that dominion did not last long. Man chose to deny the universal sovereignty of his God, and set up images in supposed representation of his Creator. Instead of holding dominion over these lower forms of life, man set them up as objects of worship. He made carved and molten images in wood and

stone and metal, and bowed and prayed to these. (Romans 1:23,25) Man lost his dominion.

³ Some of earth's population, however, chose to recognize the Almighty God. (Genesis 35: 2) To safeguard the Israelites from this religious worship of images in denial of his supremacy, he gave them his law forbidding just such imagery and worship: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." (Exodus 20:3-5) This law was given to them out of clouds and thick darkness and fire, and no form of any kind was discernible, for the very purpose of preventing man's attempt at making an image of the Almighty God. Thus his law became a hedge, a safeguard to a people constantly surrounded by image-worshiping nations. — Deuteronomy 4:15-23.

WORSHIPING IMAGES

⁴ In all cases of those outside that law, the claim is made that what is worshiped is not the image itself, but what is represented by the image. It breaks down into two expressions: (1) that of the claim or theory, and (2) that of actual practice. Among the 'learned' class the images of the gods are mere representations,

picture aids to devotion; while among the less educated the image is real, to which they offer incense, food and drink, bow, and pray, and kiss and worship it. In India, "Du Bois, one of the early Roman Catholic missionaries in India, reports that the common people indubitably worship the image itself, but the better educated repudiate such worship." In China, "Only the higher intelligence regards the holy hill as holy because a spirit lives in it or gives oracles there. To the less developed mind the hill itself is divine." (Origin and Evolution of Religion, E. Washburn Hopkins, Ph. D., LL.D., pages 19 and 21) Such has been the theory and practice of nations not confessing any responsibility under Jehovah God's law. (2 Kings 17:35) But what attitude did God's chosen nation take to whom this law was directly given?

⁵ Constantly that nation of Israel was reminded, "Jehovah is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting King: at his wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able to abide his indignation." Before them was kept the truth that "the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens. . . . Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of

their visitation they shall perish". (Jeremiah 10:10-15, A.S.V.) Yet, with that clear statement before the Israelites, the national practice swung like a giant pendulum back and forth between the correct rejection of all forms of image-worship and the direct violation of God's law by the open worship of images of men, animals, stones, and the gods of the heathen nations surrounding them. (Ezekiel 16:17; 2 Kings 18:4; Judges 2:11-17; Acts 7:43; Amos 5: 26) Jehovah's approval or rejection of the rulers of the nation hinged directly on the action taken by them toward images and image-worship. Periodically faithful rulers and judges, such as Gideon, David, Hezekiah and Josiah, made a clean purge of such mockery of Jehovah's supremacy, swinging the nation back into Jehovah God's favor. (Judges 6:25-27; 2 Samuel 5:20,21; 2 Chronicles 34:1-7,33) But the nation swung too many times away from the proper worship of the Universal Sovereign, until at last, for the very reason of image-worship in denial of Jehovah's supremacy, the nation was rejected and destroyed.  — Jeremiah 22: 8, 9; Deuteronomy 4: 23-28.

⁶ But God was not to be without witnesses to his supremacy. With the announcing of the kingdom of heaven by Christ Jesus came the selection of another people for his name, as Christians. (Acts 15:14) Since the first disciples were from among the Jews, they were at

first considered just an offshoot or sect of Judaism, for they stuck rigidly to God's law against images. It was this hatred of such idolatrous practice that set apart the Christians in a century and in a land that had innumerable gods and deities represented in images of stone and wood. Says McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia, Vol. IV, page 503, "Images were unknown in the worship of the primitive Christians; and this fact was, indeed, made the ground of a charge of atheism on the part of the heathen against the Christians." Their position in this regard was fully in accord with the apostle Paul's authoritative counsel, "Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." (1 Corinthians 10:14) They were witnesses of the true and living God Jehovah and were aware of the nothingness of images: "We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) but to us there is but one God, the Father, . . . and one Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 8:4-6; Isaiah 41: 21-29; 43:10-12; Acts 17:29) As his kingdom announcers, Jehovah's servants were admonished to keep apart from such image-worship. — 1 John 5:19-21; 1 Corinthians 10: 7.

MODERN IDOLATRY

⁷ Religious organizations today, however, do

not take the same position as did those early Christians. The official Catholic position is stated as follows: "The Christian religion has allowed the use of statues and paintings to represent the Incarnate Son of God, the saints, and angels, and these images are a legitimate aid to devotion, since the honour that is given them is but relative, being directed through them to the beings they represent." (Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, page 742) The growth and use of images are explained in this way: "As soon as the Church came out of the catacombs, became richer, had no fear of persecution . . . they began to make statues . . . The principle was quite simple. The first Christians were accustomed to see the statues of emperors, of pagan gods and heroes, as well as pagan wall-paintings. So they made paintings of their religion, and, as soon as they could afford them, statues of their Lord and their heroes, without the remotest fear or suspicion of idolatry." (Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, page 666) "In the fourth century the Christian Roman citizens in the East offered gifts, incense, even prayers (!) to the statues of the emperor. It would be natural that the people who bowed to, kissed, incensed the imperial eagles and the images of Caesar (with no suspicion of anything like idolatry), who paid elaborate reverence to an empty throne as his symbol, should give the same signs to the cross, the images of Christ, and the altar." (Catholic Encyclopedia,

Vol. VII, page 667) With this unmistakable pagan background for image-worship, it can readily be understood why Cardinal Newman in his book An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, page 373, admitted that, among a long list of other things, "... images at a later date . . . are all of pagan origin and sanctified by their adoption into the [Roman Catholic] Church."

⁸ It will not do to argue that such honor given to images is merely "relative", for in actual practice among less-educated Catholics the worship of the image itself is real; and this too is admitted by the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, page 668, which says: "At the same time one must admit that [during the eighth century] things had gone very far in the direction of image-worship. Even then it is inconceivable that anyone, except the most grossly stupid peasant, could have thought that an image could hear prayers, or do anything for us. And yet the way in which some people treated their holy [images] argues more than the merely relative honour that Catholics are taught to observe toward them. . . . [Images] were crowned with garlands, incensed, kissed. Lamps burned before them, hymns were sung in their honor. They were applied to sick persons by contact, set in the path of a fire or flood to stop it by a sort of magic." This was in the eighth century; and after twelve centuries of unlim-

ited opportunity to educate the people of Italy, the public press reported in 1944, when Mount Vesuvius erupted, the humble folk placed their images in the path of the flowing lava to prevent disaster. To this very day the unlearned Catholic people of Mexico, Central America, and South America do exactly as did the Catholic people of the eighth century, even to daily placing before them offerings of food and drink. — Psalm 115:4-8; Habakkuk 2:18,19.

⁹ But are not prayers addressed through images of angels and saints in "relative" worship allowable? No. Prayer is to be directed to God, who says, "I am Jehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise unto graven images." (Isaiah 42: 8, Am. Stan. Ver.) Prayer, instead of being addressed to images of Jesus, saints or angels, are to be addressed to 'Our Father in heaven' and through the living Christ Jesus, not through a lifeless object of wood or stone. (Matthew 6:6-15; John 15:16; 14:13) "Relative" honor to God through an angel was reproved in these words: "See thou do it not. Worship God." (Revelation 19:10; 22:8,9; Colossians 2:18) At Caesarea and Lystra the apostles Peter and Paul likewise rebuked others' bowing before them as "relative" worship of God. (Acts 10:24-26; 14:11-18) Any such "relative" worship through images as visual aids to the worshiper runs directly counter to the Christian

principle, stated in 2 Corinthians 5:7, "for we walk by faith, not by sight."

WORSHIP OF INSTITUTIONS

¹⁰ Image-worship is nothing else than demonism; and continuing in such practice results in a trap to those following that course. As it is written: "And served their idols, which became a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons." (Psalm 106: 36,37, A.S.V.; Deuteronomy 7:16; 32:17) And those demons also set before men yet other images besides those of stone and wood for man's worship and adoration. Political organizations claim divine right and authority, and therefore it is argued that obedience to the crosspatch of earth's political organizations is a "relative" obedience and worship of God. And the claim of all religious organizations is that worship of God must be through one or the other of the multitudinous religious organizations, with their big and little clergy systems as 'representatives' of God. These also are images, works of men's hands, and due for destruction with all other forms of image-worship.  — Micah 5:13; Exodus 22: 20; Zephaniah 2:11.

¹¹ At all times men who have chosen the worship of the living God instead of images have been targets of assault of the wicked demons and men. From the three faithful Hebrew chil-

dren who under penalty of death refused to bow to or worship the golden image of the state (Daniel 3), and on to the early Christians who chose death by stake or being torn by wild beasts in the Roman arena rather than acknowledge any image as god, and down to our very day, Jehovah's witnesses likewise refuse to heil men, salute flags, or worship the totalitarian state. During our twentieth century this has resulted in years spent by them in concentration camps and prisons, and in suffering like things as did faithful worshipers of Jehovah in ages past. But, like them, they now uphold Jehovah's supremacy and are assured of deliverance by him.

¹² In direct contrast, men who do not see the issue involved in image-worship will find no difficulty in bowing down and worshiping the greatest image of all. Christ Jesus warned that, paralleling the announcement of the establishment of his kingdom, there would arise a great "abomination of desolation" claiming the right and authority to rule the earth. (Matthew 24:14,15; Revelation 17:11) Finding its beginning in 1919 in the League of Nations, that abomination rises now in final form, in an international organization for peace and security standing as a great image, a substitute for God's established kingdom. Flying in the face of the Kingdom announcement, religion rebelliously rejects God's kingdom and lauds man's feeble efforts for earth's domination. Such is

open rebellion against God, and, in the face of knowledge, it becomes stubbornness and idolatry that leads to death. (1 Samuel 15:23; Exodus 22:18) At the time of the destruction of that abominable image, its worshipers are taunted with the words, "Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, ... let them rise up and help you, and be your protection." (Deuteronomy 32: 37, 38) All who support and give worship to images are due for bitter disappointment and death.

¹³ It is Jehovah's universal sovereignty that is at issue, and he has declared that men shall know that he is Almighty God, though it be in the destruction of all who refuse to recognize that fact. (Psalm 83) Whether an image be of wood, or stone, or an organization of men, or any other form; whether the worship or praise be direct or "relative", such image-worship runs counter to God's law and will merit final destruction from him at Armageddon. With all the deniers of the living God's supremacy and all substitute mockery of God's kingdom wiped out, and with Jehovah's universal rule established for all time in his reigning King and his kingdom, no more will man worship and set up images of men, animals and organizations. The time will then be when obedient man will again, in the image of God, exercise proper dominion over this globe, directing his own praises and the praises of all to God. — Psalm 150: 6, A.S.V.