Holy Status
Do Catholics Worship Idols?
"Catholics
worship statues!" People still make this ridiculous claim. Because
Catholics have statues in their churches, goes the accusation, they are
violating God’s commandment: "You shall not make for yourself a graven 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: you shall not bow down to
them or serve them" (Ex. 20:4–5); "Alas, this people have sinned a
great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold" (Ex. 32:31).
It is
right to warn people against the sin of idolatry when they are committing it.
But calling Catholics idolaters because they have images of Christ and the
saints is based on misunderstanding or ignorance of what the Bible says about
the purpose and uses (both good and bad) of statues.
Anti-Catholic
writer Loraine Boettner, in his book Roman Catholicism, makes the
blanket statement, "God has forbidden the use of images in worship"
(281). Yet if people were to "search the scriptures" (cf. John 5:39),
they would find the opposite is true. God forbade the worship of statues,
but he did not forbid the religious use of statues. Instead,
he actually commanded their use in religious contexts!
God Said To Make Them
People
who oppose religious statuary forget about the many passages where the
Lord commands the making of statues. For example: "And
you shall make two cherubim of gold [i.e., two gold statues of angels]; of
hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one
cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece of the
mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall
spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings,
their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the
cherubim be" (Ex. 25:18–20).
David
gave Solomon the plan "for the altar of incense made of refined gold, and
its weight; also his plan for the golden chariot of the cherubim that spread
their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the Lord. All this he made
clear by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all, all the work to
be done according to the plan" (1 Chr. 28:18–19). David’s plan for the
temple, which the biblical author tells us was "by the writing of the hand
of the Lord concerning it all," included statues of angels.
Similarly
Ezekiel 41:17–18 describes graven (carved) images in the idealized temple he
was shown in a vision, for he writes, "On the walls round about in the
inner room and [on] the nave were carved likenesses of cherubim."
The Religious Uses of Images
During a
plague of serpents sent to punish the Israelites during the exodus, God told
Moses to "make [a statue of] a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and
every one who is bitten, when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze
serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at
the bronze serpent and live" (Num. 21:8–9).
One had
to look at the bronze statue of the serpent to be healed,
which shows that statues could be used ritually, not merely as religious
decorations.
Catholics
use statues, paintings, and other artistic devices to recall the person or
thing depicted. Just as it helps to remember one’s mother by looking at her
photograph, so it helps to recall the example of the saints by looking at
pictures of them. Catholics also use statues as teaching tools. In the early
Church they were especially useful for the instruction of the illiterate. Many
Protestants have pictures of Jesus and other Bible pictures in Sunday school
for teaching children. Catholics also use statues to commemorate certain people
and events, much as Protestant churches have three-dimensional nativity scenes
at Christmas.
If one
measured Protestants by the same rule, then by using these "graven"
images, they would be practicing the "idolatry" of which they accuse
Catholics. But there’s no idolatry going on in these situations. God forbids
the worship of images as gods, but he doesn’t ban the making
of images. If he had, religious movies, videos, photographs, paintings, and all
similar things would be banned. But, as the case of the bronze serpent shows,
God does not even forbid the ritual use of religious images.
It is
when people begin to adore a statue as a god that the Lord becomes angry. Thus
when people did start to worship the bronze serpent as a
snake-god (whom they named "Nehushtan"), the righteous king Hezekiah
had it destroyed (2 Kgs. 18:4).
What About Bowing?
Sometimes
anti-Catholics cite Deuteronomy 5:9, where God said concerning idols, "You
shall not bow down to them." Since many Catholics sometimes bow or kneel
in front of statues of Jesus and the saints, anti-Catholics confuse the
legitimate veneration of a sacred image with the sin of idolatry.
Though
bowing can be used as a posture in worship, not all bowing is worship. In
Japan, people show respect by bowing in greeting (the equivalent of the Western
handshake). Similarly, a person can kneel before a king without worshipping him
as a god. In the same way, a Catholic who may kneel in front of a statue while
praying isn’t worshipping the statue or even praying to it, any
more than the Protestant who kneels with a Bible in his hands when praying is
worshipping the Bible or praying to it.
Hiding the Second Commandment?
Another
charge sometimes made by Protestants is that the Catholic Church
"hides" the second commandment. This is because in Catholic
catechisms, the first commandment is often listed as "You shall have no
other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3), and the second is listed as "You
shall not take the name of the Lord in vain." (Ex. 20:7). From this, it is
argued that Catholics have deleted the prohibition of idolatry to justify their
use of religious statues. But this is false. Catholics simply group the
commandments differently from most Protestants.
In Exodus
20:2–17, which gives the Ten Commandments, there are actually fourteen
imperative statements. To arrive at Ten Commandments, some statements have to
be grouped together, and there is more than one way of doing this. Since, in
the ancient world, polytheism and idolatry were always united—idolatry being
the outward expression of polytheism—the historic Jewish numbering of the Ten
Commandments has always grouped together the imperatives "You shall have
no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3) and "You shall not make for
yourself a graven image" (Ex. 20:4). The historic Catholic numbering
follows the Jewish numbering on this point, as does the historic Lutheran numbering.
Martin Luther recognized that the imperatives against polytheism and idolatry
are two parts of a single command.
Jews and
Christians abbreviate the commandments so that they can be remembered using a
summary, ten-point formula. For example, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants
typically summarize the Sabbath commandment as, "Remember the Sabbath to
keep it holy," though the commandment’s actual text takes four verses (Ex.
20:8–11).
When the
prohibition of polytheism/idolatry is summarized, Jews, Catholics, and
Lutherans abbreviate it as "You shall have no other gods before me."
This is no attempt to "hide" the idolatry prohibition (Jews and
Lutherans don’t even use statues of saints and angels). It is to make learning
the Ten Commandments easier.
The
Catholic Church is not dogmatic about how the Ten Commandments are to be
numbered, however. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says,
"The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course
of history. The present catechism follows the division of the Commandments
established by Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church.
It is also that of the Lutheran confession. The Greek Fathers worked out a
slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and
Reformed communities" (CCC 2066).
The Form of God?
Some
anti-Catholics appeal to Deuteronomy 4:15–18 in their attack on religious
statues: "[S]ince you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at
Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a
graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or
female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any
winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the
ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the
earth."
We’ve
already shown that God doesn’t prohibit the making of statues or images of
various creatures for religious purposes (cf. 1 Kgs. 6:29–32, 8:6–66; 2 Chr.
3:7–14). But what about statues or images that represent God? Many Protestants
would say that’s wrong because Deuteronomy 4 says the Israelites did not see
God under any form when he made the covenant with them, therefore we should not
make symbolic representations of God either. But does Deuteronomy 4 forbid such
representations?
The Answer Is No
Early in
its history, Israel was forbidden to make any depictions of God because he had
not revealed himself in a visible form. Given the pagan culture surrounding
them, the Israelites might have been tempted to worship God in the form of an
animal or some natural object (e.g., a bull or the sun).
But later
God did reveal himself under visible forms, such as in Daniel
7:9: "As I looked, thrones were placed and one that was Ancient of Days
took his seat; his raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like
pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, its wheels were burning fire."
Protestants make depictions of the Father under this form when they do
illustrations of Old Testament prophecies.
The Holy
Spirit revealed himself under at least two visible forms—that of a dove, at the
baptism of Jesus (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32), and as tongues
of fire, on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4). Protestants use these images
when drawing or painting these biblical episodes and when they wear Holy Spirit
lapel pins or place dove emblems on their cars.
But, more
important, in the Incarnation of Christ his Son, God showed mankind an icon of
himself. Paul said, "He is the image (Greek: ikon)
of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." Christ is the
tangible, divine "icon" of the unseen, infinite God.
We read
that when the magi were "going into the house they saw the child with
Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their
treasures, they offered him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh" (Matt.
2:11). Though God did not reveal a form for himself on Mount Horeb, he did
reveal one in the house in Bethlehem.
The
bottom line is, when God made the New Covenant with us, he did reveal
himself under a visible form in Jesus Christ. For that reason, we can make
representations of God in Christ. Even Protestants use all sorts of religious
images: Pictures of Jesus and other biblical persons appear on a myriad of
Bibles, picture books, T-shirts, jewelry, bumper stickers, greeting cards,
compact discs, and manger scenes. Christ is even symbolically represented
through the Icthus or "fish emblem."
Common
sense tells us that, since God has revealed himself in various images, most
especially in the incarnate Jesus Christ, it’s not wrong for us to use images
of these forms to deepen our knowledge and love of God. That’s why God
revealed himself in these visible forms, and that’s why statues and pictures
are made of them.
Idolatry Condemned by the Church
Since the
days of the apostles, the Catholic Church has consistently condemned the sin of
idolatry. The early Church Fathers warn against this sin, and Church councils
also dealt with the issue.
The
Second Council of Nicaea (787), which dealt largely with the question of the
religious use of images and icons, said, "[T]he one who redeemed us from
the darkness of idolatrous insanity, Christ our God, when he took for his bride
his holy Catholic Church . . . promised he would guard her and assured his holy
disciples saying, ‘I am with you every day until the consummation of this age.’
. . . To this gracious offer some people paid no attention; being hoodwinked by
the treacherous foe they abandoned the true line of reasoning . . . and they
failed to distinguish the holy from the profane, asserting that the icons of
our Lord and of his saints were no different from the wooden images of satanic
idols."
The Catechism
of the Council of Trent (1566) taught that idolatry is committed
"by worshipping idols and images as God, or believing that they possess
any divinity or virtue entitling them to our worship, by praying to, or
reposing confidence in them" (374).
"Idolatry
is a perversion of man’s innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who
‘transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God’"
(CCC 2114).
The
Church absolutely recognizes and condemns the sin of idolatry. What
anti-Catholics fail to recognize is the distinction between thinking a piece of
stone or plaster is a god and desiring to visually remember Christ and the
saints in heaven by making statues in their honor. The making and use of
religious statues is a thoroughly biblical practice. Anyone
who says otherwise doesn’t know his Bible.
SACRAMENTAL
Protestants say that the use of these blessed objects amounts to superstition or magic. However, something that is magical produces effects in itself. There is no power in any of these blessed objects of devotion. The sacramentals produce an effect, but only because God uses them as an occasion to bestow upon us his graces. The use of the sacramental does not produce the effect; rather, God does, but through the sacramentals. This is no different than the time the Jews were healed by looking at the statue of the bronze serpent (Num. 21:8-9), and were able to win in battle when Moses kept his arms in the air (Ex. 17:11-12).
Holy Water
The Sign Of The Cross
Protestants claim that the Sign of the Cross is an unbiblical practice adopted from the pagans around the year 300. Of course, the Sign of the Cross is not explicitly found in Scripture, but the Bible does speak highly of the Cross of Christ: "May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been
For these and such like rules, if thou requires a law in the Scriptures, thou shalt find none: tradition will be pleaded to thee as originating, custom as confirming, and faith as observing them"; "For by the sign of the cross, a man but using it, their [the devils] wiles are put to flight"Indeed, were we to try to reject unwritten customs as having no great authority, we would unwittingly injure the Gospel . . . who taught us in writing to sign with the sign of the cross those who have trusted in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ?".
The Crucifix
The Rosary
Protestants object to the rosary, saying it is vain repetition (Matt. 6:7). But the passage from Matthew that they cite only condemns the pagans, who believed that by repeating words they could bring down favors from their gods simply by the sheer quantity of
STATUES
When
God gave instructions for the building of the Ark, He gave an order in the book
of Exodus 25:18-20 “Make Two winged creatures of
hammered gold, one on each end of the lid. Make them so that they form one
piece with the lid. The winged creatures
are to face each other across the lid; and their outspread wings are to cover
it.”
God
himself commanded, Moses to curve the bronze snake which serve as a redemption
healing for the people of Israel. Mind you this very event took place after the
descend of the Ten Commandment of God. So the people of Israel did not worship
the snake but see it in the deep meaning of their hearts as a means of their
salvation.
That
was why the bible says in the New Testament that “As
Moses lifted up the bronze snake, so will the son of man be lifted up”.
Which we are still remembering through the crucifixes of Jesus Christ. It
doesn’t mean we are worshipping the image but seeing it in the deep meaning of
our heart as an instrument of salvation. Even when Solomon built the Ark Two
Winged Creatures where placed in the most holy city called today (THE BEAUTIFUL
GATE) 1 kings 6:23
Remember
God said in the Old Testament that he shall dwell in the Ark and he shall bless
his people through it. So will he dwell in these holy statues.
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