Why are there crosses and other statues/images in Churches?

Question

why do we see all these statues of Jesus and Mary and crosses in churches? God commanded the Israelites not only not to serve or worship any images/Statues etc but also not to make any for the purpose of worship nor to bow down to them: “You must not make worthless gods for yourselves, and you must not set up a carved image or a sacred pillar for yourselves, and you must not put a stone as a showpiece in your land in order to bow down toward it, for I am your God.” God’s form is not known to men, so to try to represent it, even when God ordered the Isrealites NOT too is wrong surely?

Answer 1

because the majority of people don't like to worship what the can't see, it's like the ones that made the golden calf when moses took too long to come back. now they had heard God's voice and seen the things he did for them but the still wanted to do as God ask them not to do.
Images

Definition: Usually, visible representations of persons or things. An image that is an object of worship is an idol. Those who perform acts of worship before images often say that their worship actually is directed to the spirit being represented by the image. Such use of images is customary in many non-Christian religions. Regarding Roman Catholic practice, the New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967, Vol. VII, p. 372) says: “Since the worship given to an image reaches and terminates in the person represented, the same type of worship due the person can be rendered to the image as representing the person.” Not a Bible teaching.

What does God’s Word say about the making of images used as objects of worship?

Ex. 20:4, 5, JB: “You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them [“bow down before them or worship them,” NAB]. For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God.” (Italics added.) (Notice that the prohibition was against making images and bowing down before them.)

Lev. 26:1, JB: “You must make no idols; you must set up neither carved image nor standing-stone [“sacred pillar,” NW], set up no sculptured stone in your land, to prostrate yourselves in front of it; for it is I, Yahweh, who am your God.” (No image before which people might bow in worship was ever to be set up.)

2 Cor. 6:16, JB: “The temple of God has no common ground with idols, and that is what we are—the temple of the living God.”

1 John 5:21, NAB: “My little children, be on your guard against idols [“idols,” Dy, CC; “false gods,” JB].”

May images be used simply as aids in worship of the true God?

John 4:23, 24, JB: “True worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.” (Those who rely on images as aids to devotion are not worshiping God “in spirit” but they depend on what they can see with their physical eyes.)

2 Cor. 5:7, NAB: “We walk by faith, not by sight.”

Isa. 40:18, JB: “To whom could you liken God? What image could you contrive of him?”

Acts 17:29, JB: “Since we are the children of God, we have no excuse for thinking that the deity looks like anything in gold, silver or stone that has been carved and designed by a man.”

Isa. 42:8, JB: “My name is Yahweh, I will not yield my glory to another, nor my honour to idols [“graven things,” Dy].”

Should we venerate “saints” as intercessors with God, perhaps using images of them as aids in our worship?

Acts 10:25, 26, JB: “As Peter reached the house Cornelius went out to meet him, knelt at his feet and prostrated himself. But Peter helped him up. ‘Stand up,’ he said ‘I am only a man after all!’” (Since Peter did not approve of such adoration when he was personally present, would he encourage us to kneel before an image of him? See also Revelation 19:10.)

John 14:6, 14, JB: “Jesus said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you ask for anything in my name, I will do it.’” (Jesus here clearly states that our approach to the Father can be only through him and that our requests are to be made in Jesus’ name.)

1 Tim. 2:5, JB: “There is only one God, and there is only one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus.” (There is no allowance here for others to serve in the role of mediator for the members of Christ’s congregation.)

See also pages 353, 354, under the heading “Saints.”

Do worshipers have in mind primarily the person represented by an image, or are some images viewed as being superior to others?

The attitude of worshipers is an important factor to consider. Why? Because a key difference between an “image” and an “idol” is the use to which an image is put.

In the mind of the worshiper, does one image of a person have greater value or importance than another image of the same person? If so, it is the image, not the person, that the worshiper has primarily in mind. Why do people make long pilgrimages to worship at certain shrines? Is it not the image itself that is viewed as having “miraculous” powers? For example, in the book Les Trois Notre-Dame de la Cathédrale de Chartres, by the canon Yves Delaporte, we are told regarding images of Mary in the cathedral in Chartres, France: “These images, sculptured, painted or appearing on the stained glass windows, are not equally famous. . . . Only three are the object of a real worship: Our Lady of the Crypt, Our Lady of the Pillar, and Our Lady of the ‘Belle Verriere.’” But if worshipers had primarily in mind the person, not the image, one image would be considered to be just as good as another, would it not?

How does God view images that are objects of worship?

Jer. 10:14, 15, JB: “Every goldsmith blushes for the idol he has made, since his images are nothing but delusion, with no breath in them. They are a Nothing, a laughable production.”

Isa. 44:13-19, JB: “The wood carver takes his measurements, outlines the image with chalk, carves it with chisels, following the outline with dividers. He shapes it to human proportions, and gives it a human face, for it to live in a temple. He cut down a cedar, or else took a cypress or an oak which he selected from the trees in the forest, or maybe he planted a cedar and the rain made it grow. For the common man it is so much fuel; he uses it to warm himself, he also burns it to bake his bread. But this fellow makes a god of it and worships it; he makes an idol of it and bows down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire, on the live embers he roasts meat, eats it and is replete. He warms himself too. ‘Ah!’ says he ‘I am warm; I have a fire here!’ With the rest he makes his god, his idol; he bows down before it and worships it and prays to it. ‘Save me,’ he says ‘because you are my god.’ They know nothing, understand nothing. Their eyes are shut to all seeing, their heart to all reason. They never think, they lack the knowledge and wit to say, ‘I burned half of it on the fire, I baked bread on the live embers, I roasted meat and ate it, and am I to make some abomination of what remains? Am I to bow down before a block of wood?’”

Ezek. 14:6, JB: “The Lord Yahweh says this: Come back, renounce your idols [“dungy idols,” NW] and give up all your filthy practices.”

Ezek. 7:20, JB: “They used to pride themselves on the beauty of their jewellery, out of which they made their loathsome images and idols. That is why I mean to make it an object of horror [“uncleanness,” Dy; “refuse,” NAB] to them.”

How should we feel about any images that we may formerly have venerated?

Deut. 7:25, 26, JB: “You must set fire to all the carved images of their gods, not coveting the gold and silver that covers them; take it and you will be caught in a snare: it is detestable to Yahweh your God. You must not bring any detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will come under the ban too. You must regard them as unclean and loathsome [“thoroughly loathe it and absolutely detest it,” NW].” (While Jehovah’s people today are not authorized to destroy images that belong to other people, this command to Israel provides a pattern as to how they should view any images in their possession that they may have venerated. Compare Acts 19:19.)

1 John 5:21, Dy: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols [“false gods,” JB].”

Ezek. 37:23, JB: “They will no longer defile themselves with their idols . . . They shall be my people and I will be their God.”

What effect could use of images in worship have on our own future?

Deut. 4:25, 26, JB: “If you act perversely, making a carved image in one shape or another [“some idol,” Kx; “any similitude,” Dy], doing what displeases Yahweh and angers him, on that day I will call heaven and earth to witness against you; . . . you shall be utterly destroyed.” (God’s viewpoint has not changed. See Malachi 3:5, 6.)

1 Cor. 10:14, 20, JB: “This is the reason, my dear brothers, why you must keep clear of idolatry. . . . The sacrifices that they offer they sacrifice to demons who are not God. I have no desire to see you in communion with demons.”

Rev. 21:8, JB: “The legacy for cowards, for those who break their word, or worship obscenities, for murderers and fornicators, and for fortune-tellers, idolaters or any other sort of liars, is the second death [ftn., “eternal death”] in the burning lake of sulphur.”

Ps. 115:4-8, JB (113:4-8, second set of numbers, Dy): “Their idols, in silver and gold, products of human skill, have mouths, but never speak, eyes, but never see, ears, but never hear, noses, but never smell, hands, but never touch, feet, but never walk, and not a sound from their throats. Their makers will end up like them, and so will anyone who relies on them.”

Answer 2

The catholic church cannot be accused of being "Bible based" as many of their practices and "traditions" are contrary to the Bible as is their love of idolatry. Yes, there are other denominations that also fall into this same category of idol worship so the text below can apply to any denomination or church that uses these "images", "statues" or "idols".

The use of relics and images by the Roman Catholic Church is common knowledge. Suffice it to spend but a few moments on the matter. About 601, Gregory the Great condemned the use of images in the strongest terms. He very highly commended the Bishop of Marseilles for breaking the images to pieces. Yet at the Council of Trent, A.D. 1545, a decree was pronounced, and is authoritative today, to the effect that "images were to be retained and due honor and veneration to be given them as representing those whose likenesses those images bear." Thomas Aquinas said, "The same reverence is to be paid to the image of Christ, as to Christ himself."

Did you ever see a Catholic statue supposed to be a likeness of the adult Christ in which his hair was not shown as long dropping, perhaps, to the shoulders? The apostle Paul declares that even nature teaches that it is a shame for a man to have long hair (I Corinthians 11:14). Do you think that Jesus would violate that declaration which He moved Paul to record? Did you ever see a statue of Jesus in which He was not portrayed as being beautiful in body? Yet Isaiah said of Him, ". . . when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him" (Isaiah 53:2).

I have said the foregoing in order to point up this statement: no one knows how Jesus looked in the flesh and I submit to you that here is sufficient grounds for withholding such from man, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image 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 nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God am a jealous God . . ." (Exodus 20:4, 5). It is no strange thing that the Catholic Church has entirely eliminated the wording of this second commandment of the Decalogue from its versions of the Catholic Baltimore Catechism, taught in all its parochial schools. The Bible becomes a dead letter to that religion which it condemns.

Life magazine, reporting the ceremonies in Ottawa, Canada, in June, 1947, at the Marian Congress, pointed out that a great procession of devout people knelt and kissed the foot of the giant statue of Mary "Until the paint wore off its toes." Pictures in L’Europeo, an Italian newspaper, of April 5, 1947, shows that devout Catholics in Naples continue to crawl at full length on their stomachs before the images of their Madonnas and lick the ground with their tongues on their way to the statues. Some years ago, the New York Department of Health was compelled to put a stop to this practice among the Italian people in the Bronx, because it resulted in so many cases of tetanus. Such idolatry!

Answer 3

Many religions rely on ceremony, rituals, and icons to help them focus on the purpose of their beliefs. The Catholic and Orthodox versions of Christianity rely heavily still on the icons of their faith. They started mostly as a conversion tool for the Pagans of their day as well as a teaching tool so others could visualize the story and scriptures that were taught. Not all Christian faiths have these said icons and never use them but hold fast to the Christian rituals of semblance rather than the Jewish rituals of old. The cross is the easiest to recognize after the Christian religion grew in acceptance. The old symbol of the fish <>< was discarded because it was a secret symbol to indentify others of the faith and to avoid persecussion from Rome. With it's acceptance, the cross was used to symbolize the new freedom of the faith and let others know what type of religion was being worshipped in the area as it moved through the west. As for the apostles, mary, and jesus statue representations, the Catholics will argue that it is to show reverence, but we all know that they began not as a symbol of reverence but as a standing monument to the pagans in the area that their "gods" and "messengers" were more important and were more numerous than those of the pagans. But I know I will get a lot of thumbs down for telling the truth of their iconic religious beliefs.
Blessed be and Peace

Answer 4

Read Exodus 25
in which the Israelites were COMMANDED to fashion and honor religious images of heavenly beings(in that case Cherubim Angels). The Bible directions for the Temple has God commendingsatatues and other religious symbols to be set up in the Temple and Tabernacle(1 Kings 6&7)
Replacing God with anything 'on the earth,below, above or beneath it or in the waters below it" is forbidden by all monotheist religions and has been constantly taught by the Catholic Church and her protesant daughters

God also commanded the Isrealites to make a statue of the serpent in the desert(which Jesus said represented Himself) and venerating, looking up to it as asymbol of God;s merciful deliverance(Numbers 21)

Christians honor the cross as a symbol of Jesus saving us by His death and resurrection.Christians make statues and pictures of jesus because we believe that Jesus is the express image of God,God made flesh, and to deny that images can be made of him(even if we do not know what he really looks like) is to deny that jesus is really human and the same goes for images of saints.

Answer 5

Perhaps you need to go back and read a bit more scripture in context....then you would not be so confused:

Deut. 4:15 - from this verse, Protestants say that since we saw "no form" of the Lord, we should not make graven images of Him.

Deut. 4:16 - of course, in early history Israel was forbidden to make images of God because God didn't yet reveal himself visibly "in the form of any figure."

Deut. 4:17-19 - hence, had the Israelites depicted God not yet revealed, they might be tempted to worship Him in the form of a beast, bird, reptile or fish, which was a common error of the times.

Exodus 3:2-3; Dan 7:9; Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32; Acts 2:3- later on, however, we see that God did reveal himself in visible form (as a dove, fire, etc).

Deut. 5:8 - God's commandment "thou shall not make a graven image" is entirely connected to the worship of false gods. God does not prohibit images to be used in worship, but He prohibits the images themselves to be worshiped.

Exodus 25:18-22; 26:1,31 - for example, God commands the making of the image of a golden cherubim. This heavenly image, of course, is not worshiped by the Israelites. Instead, the image disposes their minds to the supernatural and draws them to God.

Num. 21:8-9 - God also commands the making of the bronze serpent. The image of the bronze serpent is not an idol to be worshiped, but an article that lifts the mind to the supernatural.

I Kings 6:23-36; 7:27-39; 8:6-67 - Solomon's temple contains statues of cherubim and images of cherubim, oxen and lions. God did not condemn these images that were used in worship.

2 Kings 18:4 - it was only when the people began to worship the statue did they incur God's wrath, and the king destroyed it. The command prohibiting the use of graven images deals exclusively with the false worship of those images.

1 Chron. 28:18-19 - David gives Solomon the plan for the altar made of refined gold with a golden cherubim images. These images were used in the Jews' most solemn place of worship.

2 Chron. 3:7-14 - the house was lined with gold with elaborate cherubim carved in wood and overlaid with gold.

Ezek. 41:15 - Ezekiel describes graven images in the temple consisting of carved likenesses of cherubim. These are similar to the images of the angels and saints in many Catholic churches.

Col. 1:15 - the only image of God that Catholics worship is Jesus Christ, who is the "image" (Greek "eikon") of the invisible God.

Answer 6

Not all churches do this... images... I agree with you on. The Catholics and Greek Orthodox are into this stuff. Crosses on the other hand... are not worshipped. They are a reminder of the event itself. Just like the tassles at the end of a priest' hem are a reminder of God... so is the cross a reminder of what was done for Christians who have been forgiven.

Answer 7

I think of it like the pictures of family members on the mantle.
Nobody worships the photos and no church encourages Christian to worship an image.
If you want to eliminate images in church then take the Muslim approach and eliminate all images in your life.

Answer 8

The bronze serpent Moses had forged and greater on the stick someway controlled to proceed to exist each and all of the wanderings and battles of the Israelites for better than seven hundred years. lots of the encircling pagan Canaanite countries worshiped serpents as gods of fertility and mystical ability. And via the years, the Israelites began to mimic their friends and to handle this bronze relic of God's forgiveness as a deity in and of itself (2 Kings 18:3-4). like the classic Israelites, hundreds of thousands worldwide huge at present are inadvertently worshiping the serpent mutually as thinking they're worshiping the Lord. they have slowly, unwittingly been sucked into base idolatry. regrettably, many Christians have completed an identical subject with the emblem of the circulate by way of fact the classic Israelites did with the bronze serpent. interior an identical way the Israelites have been to no longer worship the serpent on the pole, we are to no longer bow down or to wish earlier a circulate. Neither are we commanded to make the sign of the circulate on our persons. there is no mystical ability or distinctive characteristic in this image of an historical torture enforce! while Jesus pronounced to His disciples, "If any guy will come after me, permit him deny himself, and take in his circulate, and persist with me" (Matthew sixteen:24), He replaced into commanding His followers to undergo the circulate, to no longer placed on the circulate. Revelation speaks of being saved no longer via the circulate, yet via the blood of Jesus. It replaced into the circulate as a demonstration of Jesus' love and sacrifice that Paul and the disciples exalted, no longer the revolting tool itself. Hebrews 12:2 says, "looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the excitement that replaced into set earlier him persisted the circulate, despising the shame, and is desperate down on the final hand of the throne of God." The redemption of the circulate is what must be the concentration of Christians.

Answer 9

You've got bigger problems mate - Jesus contradicted Levitical an hebrew tribal law (working on the Sabbath, not washing hands before the sacred meal, etc). Given your way of reading the Bible you are a Jew, not a Christian. Nothing wrong with that - I love Judaism - but you shouldn't confuse the two.

Answer 10

Well some of those statues are very old and worth a lot of coin. Made by legends....you don't expect them to just throw them away do you??? I mean really, concealing the truth from the masses is one thing. They can explain away the statues....

Answer 11

They are graven images. Its about picking your Jesus...believe what you want and cast out or skew what you don't want, isn't it so nice that Christianity is such a flexible religion?