In God’s commands to Moses concerning the tabernacle, given just a few chapters after the giving of the Ten Commandments, is this instruction: “Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains woven of fine linen thread, and blue and purple and scarlet yarn with artistic designs of cherubim you shall weave them.”Ī similar command with respect to the Ark of the Covenant instructed Moses to have two cherubim of hammered gold at the ends of the mercy seat. The Biblical Parametersīut was this done contrary to the command of God? Look at Exodus 26:1. And a recently unearthed synagogue of the last few centuries before Christ has paintings of biblical scenes on its walls. In both the tabernacle and the later temples there were images used, especially of the cherubim. Certainly we know that even in legal-minded Israel, paintings and other artistic representations used to help the people remember spiritual truth were not at all unknown. The use of representations for instruction and as aids to piety goes back to the earliest centuries of the Church, and likely they were there in some form from the very beginning. Nor were they invented by an apostate medieval Church. The history of icons and of their use in the Orthodox Church is not only fascinating but instructive. So, the question is, do those icons, those paintings portraying Christ, His Mother, the saints, and special biblical events, come under the category of graven images? And the Bible, specifically the Old Testament law, does say, “Thou shalt have no graven images” (Exodus 20:4, KJV). That particular Church, like most Orthodox Churches, was very beautiful. His reference, of course, was to the icons, painted images of Jesus Christ and His followers who, through the centuries of our history as the Church, have been portrayed for all to see. “It’s pretty,” he said, “but doesn’t the Bible warn against graven images?”
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