TURRETIN ON IMAGES

Francis Turretin on Images (SOURCE):

TENTH QUESTION
Whether not only the worship but also the formation and use of religious images in sacred places is prohibited by the second commandment. We affirm against the Lutherans.

I. In the preceding question we treated of the worship of images. It remains to inquire further concerning their use—whether by the precept concerning images, besides the adoration, the making of them is also prohibited. Here we come into collision not only with papists, but also with Lutherans who (although they are opposed to and condemn the worship of images as unlawful and superstitious) endeavor to defend the making of images (eikonopoiian) and their use in sacred places as legitimate (if not for worship, at least for history and as the reminders of events).

Statement of the Question.
II. The question is not whether all images of whatever kind they may be (even for a civil and economical use) are prohibited by God (as if the plastic [plastike] art and all pictures as well as statues were condemned). Although this was the opinion of some of the ancients, Jews as well as Christians (as appears from many passages of Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and others who thought that all use of images should be absolutely interdicted in order to withdraw Christians the more easily from the dreadful idol-mania of the Gentiles), still that this is a false opinion even the structure of the tabernacle and temple alone can teach (in which various figures of cherubim, oxen and other things were ingeniously wrought by skillful artists under the direction of God). Thus we do not condemn historical representations of events or of great men, either symbolical (by which their virtues and vices are represented) or political (impressed upon coins). But we here treat of sacred and religious images which are supposed to contribute something to the excitation of religious feeling.

III. The question is not whether it is lawful to represent creatures and to exhibit with the pencil historical events (either for the sake of ornament or for delight or even for instruction and to recall [mnemosynon] past events) for this no one of us denies. Rather the question is whether it is lawful to represent God himself and the persons of the Trinity by any image; if not by an immediate and proper similitude to set forth a perfect image of the nature of God (which the papists acknowledge cannot be done), at least by analogy or metaphorical and mystical significations. This the adversaries maintain; we deny.

IV Finally, the question is not whether it is lawful to have in our houses representations of holy men for a recollection of their piety and an example for imitation. Rather the question is whether it is right to set them up in sacred places; for instance in temples and oratories, not for worship and veneration, but for strongly impressing believers and exciting their affections by bringing up past things (which the Lutherans hold with the Council of Frankfort; we deny).

Proof That the Use of Images is Unlawful.
(1) From the Second Precept (Ex. 20).
V The reasons are: First, God expressly forbids this in the second commandment, where two things are prohibited-both the making of images for worship and the worshipping of them. Nor can it be replied (a) that such images are meant by which men endeavor to express the essence of God; not, however, those by which either God or the saints are represented in appearance. The falsity is evident from this—that there would be no necessity of prohibiting this because no one is so simple and insane as to wish to represent the spiritual essence of God by any external and corporeal symbol. If we would speak accurately and philosophically, not even the smallest essence of the creature can be set forth, but only the external lineaments. (b) Nor can it be replied that it refers only to images of false gods. Moses himself clearly explained not representing God (Dt. 4:12); yea, even God himself (the best interpreter of his own law) intimates this (Is. 40:18). Hence the Israelites representing God by the image of a calf were sharply rebuked and heavily punished (Ex. 32). Pious kings of the Jews no less than of the heathen removed idols, even as God had laid both commands upon his people that they should demolish the altars of the Canaanites, break the statues and not make molten gods for themselves (Ex. 34:13, 17).

2. From the Nature of God.
VI. Second, God, being boundless (apeiros) and invisible (aoratos), can be represented by no image: "To whom will ye liken God? or what likeness" (or "image" as the Vulgate has it) "will ye compare unto him" (Is. 40:18). Paul refers to this in Acts 17:29: "Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." Hence God in promulgating the law wished to set forth no likeness of himself, that the people might understand that they must abstain from every image of him as a thing unlawful; yea, even impossible: "Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; (for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you . . . lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female" (Dt. 4:15, 16*). This the apostle condemns in the Gentiles "who changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things" (Rom. 1:23). Indeed this was not unknown to various Gentiles, who thought it unlawful to wish to represent the deity by an image. Plutarch: "He (Numa) however, forbids any image of God, like man or any animal; nor was there before among them any sculptured or graven representation of God. Indeed during all those preceding 160 years they continually built temples and erected sacred buildings, or shrines; still they made no corporeal representation, judging that it was not holy to liken better things to worse, and that God could be apprehended by us in no other way than by the mind alone" (Plutarch's Lives: Numa 8.7-8 [Loeb, 1:334-35]). Thus Antiphanes: "God is not discerned by an image, is not seen by the eyes, is like to no one, wherefore no one can learn him from an image" (De Deo+). And Herodotus: "The Persians have neither statues nor altars, and think those who make them insane, because they do not (like the Greeks) think the Gods to be the offspring of men" (Herodotus, 1.131 [Loeb, 1:170-71]).

3. Because It Is Connected With the Danger of Idolatry.
VII. Third, that ought to be distant from sacred places which does not belong to the worship of God and is joined with danger of idolatry. Now images in sacred places do not belong to the worship of God, since indeed God has expressly removed them from his worship by the law and they are connected with the most imminent danger of idolatry. For men (especially uneducated men prone by nature to superstition) are moved to the worship of them by the very reverence for the place, as experience shows. As Brochmann properly acknowledges, "Rather ought all images of whatsoever kind to be removed than that we should permit them to stand in a public place for the sake of religious worship against the express command of God" ("De Lege," 7, Q. 1 in Universae theologicae systema [1638], 2:46). In vain is the reply made here that indeed the occasion of sin per se is prohibited, not like wise that which is by accident; otherwise the sun ought to be taken away from the heavens since it has afforded the occasion of idolatry to innumerable persons. Therefore the abuse should be removed, but not the lawful use of them. For the abuse indeed ought not to take away the legitimate use, if any such is granted from the appointment of God (which the adversaries suppose; we deny). Second objection: that only worship makes images unlawful, from which Lutherans profess that they shrink. We answer that although they are not expressly worshipped by them (as by the papists) by bowing the knee and burning incense to them or offering prayers, still they cannot be said to be free from all worship; if not direct, at least indirect and participative because they hold that by images and the sight of them they conceive holy thoughts concerning God and Christ (which cannot but belong to the worship of God, so that thus they really worship God by images). Finally, if they are not worshipped by them, they can be worshipped by others (namely by papists if they enter their churches) and so render the use of them in churches unlawful (exposed to the danger of idolatry) by which idolaters are confirmed in their error and innumerable persons-not only unbelieving Jews and Mohammedans, but believing Christians-are scandalized.

VIII. Our ancestors cannot therefore be blamed for their zeal at the time of the Reformation in causing all images to be removed from sacred places. They did nothing here which was not commanded by God (Num. 33:52; Dr. 7:5; Ezk. 20:7) and confirmed by various examples of kings and emperors. In destroying idols and purging all sacred places of every kind of idolatry, the latter labored diligently, as was done by Hezekiah, who "removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it" (2 K. 18:4). For this reason various emperors obtained the name of "imagebreakers" (iconoclastarum).

IX. Although God sometimes manifested himself in a visible form and in such an appearance is described to us in Scripture (when members and bodily actions are ascribed to him), it does not follow that it is lawful to represent him by an image. (1) The same God who thus appeared nevertheless strongly forbade the Israelites to fabricate any representation of him (to wit, God could employ speech, bodies and symbols, in order to testify his special presence; yet not on that account may man make unto God an image and statue in which he may exhibit himself to man). (2) Those bodily appearances were exhibited only in vision, shadowing forth not the essence of God, but in some measure his works and external glory; indeed extraordinary not ordinary, temporal not perpetual, not presented openly to all, but shown to individuals, especially in the spirit. Therefore they have nothing in common with images. (3) It is one thing to speak metaphorically concerning God in accommodation to our conceptions; another to form a visible representation of him as if true and proper and exhibit it publicly to the eyes of all.

X. The making of images is not absolutely interdicted, but with a twofold limitation-that images should not be made representing God (Dr. 4:16), nor be employed in his worship. Therefore to make images and to worship them are not to be regarded in the second commandment only as means and end, but as two parts of the divine prohibition. Images are prohibited not only inasmuch as they are the object or the means of worship, but inasmuch as they are made simply for the sake of religion or are set up in sacred places.

XI. From a mental image to a sculptured or painted image, the consequence does not hold good. The former is of necessity, since I cannot perceive anything without some species or idea of it formed in the mind. Now this image is always conjoined with the spirit of discernment by which we so separate the true from the false that there is no danger of idolatry. But the latter is a work of mere judgment and will, expressly prohibited by God and always attended with great danger of idolatry. Hence it is falsely asserted that it is no less a sin to present images of certain things to the mind or to commit them to writing and exhibit them to be read, than to present them to the view when painted. For there is a wide difference between these things.

XII. The consequence does not hold good from the figures of the temple at Jerusalem to the images of Christians. The former were commanded and the latter not; those typical and fulfilled in the New Testament, these not; the former placed almost out of sight of the people and danger of adoration, which cannot be said of the latter. Nor is Christian liberty to be brought up here (which is not the license of doing anything whatsoever in relation to the worship of God, but is the immunity from the malediction of the law and the slavery of ceremonies). Since the former figures pertained to these, they also are to be considered as equally abrogated in the New Testament.

XIII. So far from images being rightly called "books of the common people" and aids to piety and religious devotion, the Holy Spirit testifies that they are "teachers of vanity and lies" (Jer. 10:8; Hab. 2:18). There is another book to be consulted by all (learned as well as unlearned) which makes us wise and teamed (to wit, Scripture, which is to be continually read and meditated upon by believers that they may be made wise unto salvation). But the pope takes this away from the people that they may be involved in inextricable error and that he may not be convicted by it. He substitutes other dumb books by which ignorance is not removed but nourished because he does not fear that they will mutter anything against it. So while for teachers he gives stones, the people are turned into stones and become no wiser than their teachers. Hence Augustine treats of the images of Peter and Paul (by occasion of which certain persons fell into error): "Thus forsooth they deserved to err, who sought Christ and his apostles not in the sacred writings, but on painted walls" (The Harmony of the Gospels 1.10 [NPNFl, 6:83; PL 34.1049]). (2) It would have been bad for the Jews to whom God denied those books (to whom nevertheless as more simple they were more necessary).

XIV Whatever may be said of the utility of images in sacred places cannot and ought not to be opposed to the command of God forbidding them. That is taken for granted, not proved. Sacred signs are the sacraments, not images. The ornaments of churches are the pure preaching of the word, the lawful administration of the sacraments and holiness of discipline. The means for keeping the mind attentive are the presence and majesty of God himself and the difficulty and excellence of sacred mysteries.

XV It is not sufficient to cast images out of the heart by the preaching of the word unless they are removed also from sacred places (where they cannot remain without danger of idolatry).

"That which God alone effects no image ever can."—Andreas Karlstadt

If someone should come along and say that images teach and instruct lay persons, just as books do scholars, you must answer, "God prohibited images, therefore I intend to learn nothing from them." If someone should come along and say that images remind us of, and recall for us, the suffering of the Lord and often cause someone to pray an "Our Father" and think of God when otherwise he would not pray or think on God, you should reply, "God has prohibited images." Similarly, Christ says that God is spirit. Everyone who truly worships God, prays to God in spirit, Jn. 4:24.

All who worship God through images worship falsehood. They are focusing on the appearance and external signs of God. Yet, their heart is far from God, creating its own idol in the heart and being full of lies, as Isa 44:20 says, "In their foolishness and ignorance they worship them [images], neglecting to say, "I have falsehood in my right hand."

No Christian can deny that spiritual prayer is a divine work which God alone effects. It is written in Jer 33:6, "I will show them the prayer and adoration of peace and truth." That which God alone effects no image ever can. You also must not say that an image of Christ brings you to Christ. For it is eternally true that "no one comes to me unless my Father draw him." All who come to Christ must have learned from God, Jn 6:44. They cannot have been admonished or taught by images to come to Christ. Even if all images on earth were to stand together, they would still not be able to elicit from you as much as a small sigh toward God.

—Andreas Rudolff-Bodenstein von Karlstadt, "On the Removal of Images"/The Essential Carlstadt. Translated and edited by E.J. Furcha.

R.A. Torrey Against False Christs

R.A. (Reuben Archer) Torrey (1856-1928) was the second dean of Biola University. Below are selections from some of his writings, which condemn false christs.

But this morning we are to study a marked characteristic of our Lord that is of a very different sort, His Manliness. In most of the paintings of our Lord the face is not only to a marked degree womanly, it is positively effeminate and weak. The same is true of the pictures of Christ Jesus drawn in words in many pulpits. It is not a true picture of The Real Christ. I cannot endure the paintings of the face of Christ, they make me indignant. They dishonor my Lord. [emphasis mine]

...

Just what I mean by "Manliness" will be clear as we come to consider how the Manliness of The Real Christ (not the Christ Whom artists paint from their own fancy, but the Christ Who actually lived on this earth and Whose perfect portrait God Himself has drawn in the Bible) was manifested.

—R.A. Torrey, The Real Christ

So then if we accept the teaching of Jesus Christ, we must accept the entire Old Testament and the entire New Testament. It is either Christ and the whole Bible, or no Bible and no Christ. There are some in these days who say that they believe in Christ, but not in the Christ of the New Testament. But there is no Christ but the Christ of the New Testament. Any other Christ than the Christ of the New Testament is a pure figment of the imagination. Any other Christ than the Christ of the New Testament is an idol made by man's own fancy, and whoever worships him is an idolater.

—R.A. Torrey, The Bible and its Christ

There are many today who stumble at things they find in the Bible. They say that these things cannot be God's Word, and so they give up the Bible and, ultimately, they give up Jesus Christ; for anyone who gives up the Bible is bound to give up Jesus Christ sooner or later. They may use His name still, and speak in a very complimentary way about Him, and they may call themselves "Christians" and even pose as preachers, but they have really given up Him; they have given up the only Real Christ there is—the Christ of the Bible. Any other Christ than the Christ of the Bible is a fictitious Christ, a pure figment of the imagination, a false Christ, an Anti-Christ. They give up, first, His Virgin Birth, then they give up His literal Resurrection from the Dead, then they give up His Atoning Death, then they have no Christ left, only a shadow, an empty dream. The Real Christ has gone. They have no Real Christ, Christ Jesus, and they are "without Christ . . . having no hope, and without God in the world." (Eph. 2:12.) They are doomed and ultimately damned.

Now, this is no new thing. It is not at all peculiar to our day, as many seem to fancy. It is not peculiar to the twentieth century, nor to the nineteenth century. In our text we see the same thing in the first century. We see that when the Lord Jesus Himself was here on earth, those who had been "His disciples," those who had followed Him, those who had come to Him and professed to be "learners" in His school, stumbled, even at what He Himself said, and shook their heads and said, "This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" and then we read, "From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him." If men who professed to be disciples of Christ and saw Him with their own eyes and "beheld His miracles," and who on the immediately preceding day had been of the five thousand who saw the five small loaves and two small fishes multiplying in His hands, stumbled at something He said, just because, with their dull, puny brains they could not take it in and, therefore, stupidly and wickedly threw it overboard, because, as Jesus Himself said to them, they had not faith (vs. 64) and, therefore, had not sense enough to just trust the Son of God, when they could not see, is it any wonder if men today are so foolish as to throw the words of Jesus Christ overboard because they cannot fully take them in, and throw the Bible overboard because there are in it what appear to them, "hard sayings"?

—R.A. Torrey, Is the Bible the inerrant word of God

There is no Christ but the Christ of the Scriptures; any other Christ is a mere figment of the individual imagination.

—R.A. Torrey, Will Christ come again?

G. Campbell Morgan on the Second Commandment

From The crises of the Christ:

Project the ruined man into immensity, and a ruined god is the result, only the ruin is worse than the ruined man. In the magnified man there is magnified evil and intensified failure. That is the history of all idolatry. Man having fallen, demanded a god, and having lost the knowledge of the true God, has projected into immensity the lines of his own personality, and thus has created as objects of worship, the awful monsters, the service of which, in process of time, has reacted in the still deeper degradation of the worshiper. All false deities are distortions of the one true God, and the distorted idea is the result of the ruin of the image of God in man.

Referring to the idolatry of Ephraim, the prophet Hosea declared, "And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsman." "Idols according to their own understanding." That understanding being darkened, the idol resulting was a libel upon God.

—G. Campbell Morgan

Download and read G. Campbell Morgan's commentary on the Second Commandment here (p. 177-181). The work is from Morgan's commentary on the Ten Commandments; however, William Revell Moody provided it in Record of Christian Work. From Morgan's commentary:

When God said, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor the likeness of any form; thou shalt not bow thyself unto them nor serve them,’ it was because he knew that if men, who had lost their sense of Him and His presence, made something to represent Him, it would be a false representation, and men would thereby get false notions of Him, even as they sought to worship.

...

The essential fact of God is that He is limitless, that He is eternal, that He is self-existent, there being no end to His being, and no limit to His power. Limitlessness lies at the heart and center of the thought of God, and the moment a man makes an image, he denies the essence of God. For that reason God forbade that there should be the making of any images; for, not only is the image false, it is misleading.

J. Vernon McGee's book Love, Liberation & Law, also quotes Morgan:

To pass on to children a wrong conception of God . . . is the most awful thing a man can do . . . When a man puts something, as the object of his worship, in the place of God, he passes on the same practice to his offspring. What a terrible heritage he is thus handing down to the child!

But notice the gracious promise standing side by side with the waring: . . . "Showing mercy unto a thousand generations of them that love Me, and keep My commandments."... Here is a remarkable comparison-God visits the iniquity to the third and fourth generation; but He shows mercy unto the thousandth generation! If a man will commit to his posterity a worship which is true, strong, whole-hearted, and pure, and will sweep away all that interferes between himself and God, he is more likely to influence for good the thousandth generation that follows him than a man of the opposite character is to touch that generation with evil.... Whenever a man stops short of that face-to-face worship of the Eternal God, he is working ruin to his own character, because he is breaking the commandment of God. (Morgan, The Ten Commandments, pp. 34, 35)

Albert N. Martin Against Celluloid Jesus

Here is the audio. Below is the transcript via SOVEREIGN GRACE BIBLE CHURCH OF CEBU (sgbc.faithweb.com):

A Transcript, The Passion Movie: not to see
Albert N. Martin | Sunday School Class
Trinity Baptist Church, Montville, New Jersey

This is a minimally edited transcription of a message delivered in the Adult Bible Class of Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday, February 22, 2004. The full recording is available on the church’s website at www.tbcnj.org.

Ash Wednesday, one of the most important days in the Roman Catholic Church calendar, was chosen as the date for the premiere showing of Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ. For many weeks magazine articles, newspaper columns, TV interviews, and Internet websites discussed and debated both the virtues and the potential vices of this film. The movie itself is a two-hour, graphic, brutal, and shocking attempt to visually capture the last twelve hours of our Lord’s life, culminating in His death upon the cross.

Michael Medved, the nationally known film critic, columnist and radio broadcaster and a practicing Orthodox Jew, has stated regarding this film:

It will draw eager audiences and become a box-office hit; due in part to prerelease controversy, the "must see" factor has reached an almost unprecedented level of intensity among both committed Christians and the cinematically curious. Mainstream Christian leaders of every denomination will embrace the film as the most artistically ambitious and accomplished treatment of the crucifixion ever committed to film. Some critics and scholars will criticize Gibson for his cinematic and theological choices in shaping the film. But any attempt to boycott or discredit the movie will, inevitably and unquestionably, fail.

No one who has actually seen the movie, as I have, would seriously challenge these conclusions . . .

Gibson financed the film on his own precisely due to his determination to realize his own traditionalist Catholic vision of the gospel story without compromise to the sensitivities of profit-oriented accountants or other religious perspectives. Jewish leaders feel wounded that he never consulted them on the script or historical details, but he also left out Protestant and Eastern Orthodox traditions.

Some of you have asked your pastors to give you guidance about seeing the film and whether you should encourage members of your family to view it. What I present to you is just that: it is your pastors’ attempt to set before you the biblical precepts and principles which ought to guide your conscience in making a well-informed and righteous decision for yourself and for your family. And so I have entitled my lecture, The Passion Movie: To See or Not to See.

First of all, let me address four things for which we ought to be thankful in connection with the production of, widespread interest in, and subsequent showing of this film.

FIRST, we can be thankful in our hearts and thankful to God that the historical events central to the gospel of Christ have become the subject of national awareness, widespread discourse, and public engagement. Since the cross of Christ is central to the Christian message — as Paul said, "I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2) — we as the people of God ought to be thankful that the historical events of His passion are now a subject of widespread discussion and public discourse. Frankly, this is much better than the discussion about Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl several weeks ago and about "A-Rod" coming to the Yankees. We should thank God that people are talking about something of worth.

SECONDLY, we can and ought to be thankful to God that Mel Gibson has determined to produce a film that for the most part seeks to reproduce the biblical narrative concerning the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus with a good measure of literary integrity. Note that my words are qualified. However, Mr. Gibson has resisted the pressures of political correctness and historical deconstructionism that would re-write the gospel records and completely alleviate any thought that the Jewish leaders had any special responsibility in the crucifixion of our Lord. I have watched his interview with Diane Sawyer, and his manly determination to do what he felt was right was refreshing in a wimpish age. In fact, I find myself drawn to a man who acts like a man. In his manliness Mr. Gibson has determined not to be bullied from his vision and desire and, as a result, for the most part there is a good measure of literary integrity in handling the gospel records.

THIRDLY, we can be thankful that this film has forced serious disciples of Christ to wrestle with critical issues that are central to an uncompromising, comprehensive obedience to the Word of God. A true disciple of Christ is determined that in every area of his life the Word of God will govern his steps. He gladly confesses, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my pathway." The fact that something has become a "must see" movie should count for nothing. The child of God should not be pressured by the "must see" climate created by clever marketing techniques, but he is pressured by his Bible to do what is pleasing to his Lord.

FINALLY, we can be thankful that this film will afford Christians some unusual opportunities to speak to unsaved associates regarding the Lord Jesus Christ and His saving work. For example, when I went to pick up some medication yesterday my pharmacist, who is a Middle Eastern man, asked, "Are you going to see the movie?" He did not even give the title to it, because it is so much the part of public discussion. I responded, "For good reasons I am not going. Tomorrow morning in our Bible class, I will be laying out some biblical perspectives which will indicate why I cannot in good conscience go. Perhaps some time we will have opportunity to talk about the matter." So the door is wide open for further opportunity to witness of my Christian faith to this man.

So, since we believe that this is God’s world, governed by His providence, we must look upon the reality of this movie as an outworking of the sovereign decree of God by which He governs all men and their actions according to His sovereign will.

But beyond the things for which we can give thanks, we must address the foundational biblical issues which ought to be seriously considered in deciding whether or not to see this movie, or to encourage others to see it. We are not to consider emotional, psychological, or societal issues, but the biblical issues which lay claim to your conscience as a Christian. And I trust that your prayer would be that threefold prayer that I mentioned last Lord’s Day:

Where I am ignorant, Lord, teach me.
Where I am wrong, Lord, correct me.
Where I am right, Lord, confirm me.

I am not so naive as to think that everyone sits here with a neutral attitude. Some of you are waiting for me to be your "champ" because you have already been persuaded that you shouldn’t go and no one else should. Others of you are fearful that I am going to be your "chump" because I may discourage you from attending this movie. Dear friends, I have no desire to be champion or chump. I am a minister of the Word of God and you are professed disciples of Christ. My one desire is to set before you principles which I trust will help you better to determine the will of your Master as revealed in the Scriptures.

Many man-hours have been spent by your pastors in bringing these things together. We believe that the following concerns are the foundational biblical issues which ought to be seriously considered by any child of God before he views this movie now or fifty years from now.

1. The film’s dominant preoccupation with the physical brutality and the physical sufferings of Jesus is inconsistent with the Bible’s emphasis upon the reality and dominant nature of his spiritual sufferings. Mr. Gibson has said in a number of interviews that this film is meant to shock. It is intentionally, unabashedly brutal. Not only are the biblical narratives carried out in visual representations, but even additional acts of brutality are shown that are not at all mentioned in the Scriptures. This assertion could be documented.

W hen we open our Bibles, however, there is a modest restraint with respect to the details of Jesus’ physical suffering. For example, in Matthew’s account we read these words, "Then he released Barabbas to them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified" (Matthew 27:26). As the Holy Spirit has embalmed in ink from the pen of Matthew what He wants us to know about the sufferings of Christ, He says, "When he had scourged Jesus." That’s all! There are no gruesome details, no gory specifics, no attempt to create a mental image of lash after lash after lash, and the blood spurting from His back. "When he had scourged Jesus." Then verse 35 says, "Then they crucified Him, and divided his garments, casting lots." There is a modest restraint with respect to the depiction of His physical sufferings on the cross.

But when we turn to the biblical record with regards to the suffering of the soul of Jesus, beginning in Gethsemane, God gives us unusual details in three different gospel accounts. Jesus begins to be sorely troubled and says to His disciples, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death" (Mark 14:34), and he falls upon the ground. He comes back to the disciples, and says, "Could you not watch one hour?" and He staggers again. Luke gives us this unusual detail of His continuing agony in Luke 22:44: "Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground." The first mention of His blood in an explicit way does not have anything to do with any physical sufferings. No one has laid a hand on Him. No wound has been opened. It is the suffering of His soul. "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death."

Likewise with the ongoing account of the crucifixion, there is no record that our Lord cries out under any of the horrors of physical abuse. But it is at the end of the three hours, when He is plunged into darkness and in His soul is drinking in the dereliction, abandonment and forsakenness of God, that He cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46). The soul of His suffering was the transaction between Jesus and his Father, and not that which was laid upon Jesus by men. An older writer stated it accurately when he affirmed, "the soul of His suffering was the suffering of His soul."

I am not discounting the horror and the brutality of Jesus’ physical sufferings. What I am saying is that this film gives undue emphasis upon the physical sufferings of Christ. It is inconsistent with the Bible’s emphasis upon the reality and dominant nature of His spiritual sufferings. Those sufferings are described for us in the language of 2 Cor. 5:21, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us," or Gal 3:13, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us." In the language of the hymn we sing, "But the deepest stroke that pierced Him was the stroke that justice gave."

Any Christian jealous for God’s emphasis with regard to the suffering of his Lord must ask the question, "Do I want to subject my mind and the walls of memory to a film which has an emph asis inconsistent with the emphasis of my Bible?" That is a question you need to ask.

2. The film’s detailed depiction of the death of Jesus on the movie screen is an unwarranted re-enactment and representation of His death. On the eve of His crucifixion Jesus himself gave us a physical and visible means of representing His death: "This is My body which is given for you" (Luke 22:19). At the supper He took the cup saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you" (Luke 22:20). Jesus did not give any directive that someone should go with a charcoal pencil and capture visually the details of His death. He said that He would give His followers the means of remembering Him as their crucified Savior. The Lord Jesus gave one physical, visual representation of His death.

As the Synod of Constantinople in 753 decreed, "The only admissible figure of the humanity of Christ, however, is bread and wine in the holy Supper. This and no other form, this and no other type, has He chosen to represent His incarnation."[2] It is not without significance that this detailed depiction of the re-enactment and representation of our Lord’s death is in the mind of its very devout Catholic director, Mr. Gibson, a parallel to the re-enactment of the death of Christ in the blasphemous action of the Mass. A current article comments, "It is crucial to realize that the images and language of The Passion of the Christ flow directly out of Gibson’s personal dedication to Catholicism in one of its most traditional and mysterious forms "the l6th century Latin Mass."[3]

Listen to Mr. Gibson’s own words: "'I don’t go to any other services,’ the director told the Eternal Word television network [that is the Roman Catholic conservative television network]. ‘I go to the old Tridentine Rite. That’s the way that I first saw it when I was a kid. So I think that that informs one’s understanding of how to transcend language. Now, initially, I didn’t understand the Latin" But I understood the meaning and the message and what they were doing.’" According to Tridentine theology, when the priest with his back to the laity holds up the host, he is offering Jesus Christ afresh. Hence, so often the priest faces a crucifix above the altar in which there is an organic connection between Christ upon a cross and Christ offered up in the consecration of the host. There is an intimate, conscious connection. Quoting again from the article, "The goal of the movie is to shake modern audiences by brashly juxtaposing the ‘sacrifice of the cross with the sacrifice of the altar — which is the same thing,’ said Gibson. [4] As a devout Catholic of the old school, Mr. Gibson is accomplishing his goal.

So I say that the detailed depiction of the death of Jesus on the movie screen is an unwarranted re-enactment and representation of His death and leaves people open to be sympathetic to the blasphemy of the Roman Mass.

3. The film’s visual re-enactment of Christ crucified, as a medium of conveying the message of the gospel, is a radical and arrogant substitute for the God-ordained medium of presenting Christ crucified to a sinful world. How is Christ crucified to be presented to a sinful world? Listen to this quote from Mr. Gibson that is on a flyer from nearby Clearview Cinema: "This is a movie about love, hope, faith, and forgiveness. He [Jesus] died for all mankind, suffered for all of us. It’s time to get back to that basic message. The world has gone nuts. We could all use a little more love, faith, hope, and forgiveness."[5]

According to Mr. Gibson, it is time to get back to the message of Christ suffering for us. And what is his medium of getting that message out? His film. That is his passion, and that is his purpose. In Mel Gibson’s own experience he was fascinated as a boy with the mystery of the Mass. It wasn’t anything conveyed by language to the understanding, it was the mystery and subjective mystical experience of the Mass. He acknowledges that he departed from that practice for years and went into a horrible lifestyle of addictions of one kind and another. In his own words, speaking to Diane Sawyer, he said, "I stuck my proboscis into every pool of that which the world had to offer, and it left me empty." It was moving. But do you know what brought him back and rescued him? It was coming back to the Mass, coming back to the experience of his childhood, with a fascination and pre-occupation with a crucified Christ.

Many Protestants also view this movie as an effective means of communicating the gospel. Listen to one pastor who says, "This is a window of opportunity we have. Here’s a guy who’s putting his money into a movie that has everything to do with what we do. Churches used to communicate by having a little lecture time on Sunday morning. People don’t interact that way anymore. Here’s a chance for us to use a modern-day technique to communicate the truth of the Bible."[6] Everywhere we hear that evangelicals are buying up seats in local theaters, encouraging their people to go and bring their seeker friends to it. This movie, they say, is a marvelous tool of evangelization.

But I ask the question, my dear fellow believer: is this the God-ordained medium of conveying to a lost world the knowledge of Christ crucified as the way of salvation? The Scriptures answer unequivocally, no.

We read in 1 Cor. 1:18 that "The word" (that is, the logos, or the message) "of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." Is the power of God to be seen in the cross as presented visually? No, the power of God comes in the cross presented as a word, a word defined by God. Paul continues in verse 21, "For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe." Here Paul uses the Greek word "kerugma" - the "thing preached" - which means both the message, and the method. Verse 22 continues, "For Jews request a sign" - they say, "W e are visual people; bring your gospel to us with visual validation." God says, "No, I have chosen a message, and a method, and I won’t capitulate to your demands."

Galatians 3:1 says, "O foolish Galatians...before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified." Paul said that the Galatians had Christ set before their eyes as crucified. How did he do it? Did he come to Galatia with a traveling "passion play" troupe? No! Read on: "This only I want to learn from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" Christ was set forth crucified by a message that they heard. It was by apostolic proclamation, by "the word of the cross."

Dear people, you and I must have the spiritual fortitude to stand with God’s method. We must refuse to allow men, however sincere they may be, to replace the wisdom of God. "In the wisdom of God it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe."

4. The film’s graphic and extended portrayal of the physical brutality involved in the sufferings of Jesus, culminating in His crucifixion, has produced and will continue to produce a plethora of spurious spiritual experience. Certainly you are aware of the fact that we live in a day of the resurgence of ubiquitous spirituality - New Age spirituality, another dimension beyond the physical, stroking rocks to stimulate your spirituality. People are always prone to false religious experiences, but in such a climate of heightened spirituality how much more are people vulnerable to spurious spiritual experiences. Our forefathers were very conscious in times of revival, when there was heightened contagion of emotion, that people were vulnerable to spurious experience. They wrote essays and preached sermons on how to distinguish between true and spurious spiritual experience. Jonathan Edwards’s Religious Affections was his effort to sort this out. He recognized that the devil can come, as Paul says, as an angel of light and a minister of righteousness. No more wide an avenue does he have than when emotions are highly agitated. And when emotions are highly agitated in a religious context, people are most vulnerable to having a spurious religious experience.

Now, what is going to happen? People are going to sit in theaters and react emotionally. If they were all alone it would be bad enough, but human emotion is contagious. And even if you were seeing all the same things done to one of those malefactors who were crucified to the left and right of Jesus, unless you were dead as a human being you could not help to be moved to tears that a fellow human being would be so brutalized. But because the one being brutalized is this central religious figure, this innocent man, there will be multitudes that will experience a spurious religious experience. I say it will be spurious because there will be no biblical conviction of sin; there will be no biblical understanding of the gospel; there will be no repentance; there will be no saving faith; there will be no new creation in Christ; there will be no baptism leading to involvement in evangelical, Bible-believing churches. People will return to Rome by the droves. Then they will go back to the Super Bowls and to their salacious movies on Sunday afternoons. But they will say that they have had an experience, and surely all must be well.

Jesus said in Luke 23:28 to those who were seeing Him being brutalized and were weeping, "Do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves." My blessed Lord does not need your sympathy, nor mine or anyone else’s in a movie theater. He demands that we weep for ourselves - our sin, our alienation from God, our wretched pride and rebellion. Then we would we fall at His feet, not with human sympathy but with adoration and worship because the Holy Spirit has shown us who Jesus really is in His person and in His work.

5. The film undermines the biblical doctrine of the absolute sufficiency of Scripture. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." God gave a complete Bible to make complete men. Or read the last words of the Book of the Revelation where the curse of God is pronounced upon any who subtract from the words of the book or add to it (Rev. 22:18-19).

I said in my opening positive statement that there are things for which we can give thanks, that there was a "good measure" of literary integrity and "for the most part" a reproduction of the text of Scripture. But Mary has a place in this film that she does not have in the Word of God. There are incidents in an attempt to depict the devil that are totally unfounded in the Word of God. In fact, they have their roots in a visionary nun who claims to have the stigmata - the marks of Christ - upon her. I quote from a recent article, "The Passion of Mel Gibson: Why Evangelicals are Cheering a Movie with Profoundly Catholic Sensibilities," in the March 2004 edition of Christianity Today by the editor, David Neff: "Mel Gibson in many ways is a pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic. He prefers the Tridentine Latin Mass and calls Mary co- redemptrix" - and may I add, he does so without shame. "Gibson told Christianity Today: ‘I’ve been actually amazed at the way I would say the evangelical audience has - hands down - responded to this film more than any other Christian group.’ What makes it so amazing he says is that ‘the film is so Marian.’ Gibson knows Protestants don’t regard Mary in the way Catholics do, and Gibson goes beyond many Catholics when he calls her ‘a tremendous co-redemptrix and mediatrix.’"[7]

Where does Gibson get some of this fill-in stuff? According to the article by David Neff:

Gibson told how actor Jim Caviezel, the film’s Jesus, insisted on beginning each day of filming with the celebration of the Mass on the set. He also recounted a series of divine coincidences that led him to read the works of Ann Catherine Emmerich, a late-18th, early-19th - century Westphalian nun who had visions of the events of the Passion. Many of the details needed to fill out the Gospel accounts he drew from her book, Dolorous Passion of Our Lord.

Here is one such detail from Emmerich: [A]fter the flagellation, I saw Claudia Procles, the wife of Pilate, send some large pieces of linen to the Mother of God. I know not whether she thought that Jesus would be set free, and that his Mother would then require linen to dress his wounds, or whether this compassionate lady was aware of the use which would be made of her present... I soon after saw Mary and Magdalen approach the pillar where Jesus had been scourged;...they knelt down on the ground near the pillar, and wiped up the sacred blood with the linen which Claudia Procles had sent."[8]

Neff continues,

Gibson does not follow Dolorous Passion slavishly, and at many points he chooses details that conflict with Emmerich’s account. But the sight of Pilate’s wife handing a stack of linen cloths to Jesus’ mother allows Gibson to capture a moment of sympathy and compassion between the two women, and the act of the two Marys wiping up Jesus’ blood gives Gibson the opportunity to pull back for a dramatic shot of the bloody pavement.

Another detail picked up from Dolorous Passion is just as dramatically powerful, but much more significant theologically. Emmerich writes that during Jesus’ agony in the garden, Satan presented Jesus with a vision of all the sins of the human race. "Satan brought forward innumerable temptations, as he had formerly done in the desert, even daring to adduce various accusations against him." Satan, writes Emmerich, addressed Jesus "in words such as these: ‘Takest thou even this sin upon thyself? Art thou willing to bear its penalty? Art thou prepared to satisfy for all these sins?’"

Gibson shows Jesus being tempted by a pale, hooded female figure, who whispers to him just such words, suggesting that bearing the sins of the world is too much for Jesus, that he should turn back. And from under the tempter’s robe there slithers a snake. In a moment of metaphorical violence drawn straight from Genesis 3:15, Jesus crushes the serpent’s head beneath his sandaled feet.

These details from the film's opening sequence announce Gibson's acute consciousness of the cosmic battle between good and evil - between God and the devil - that is played out behind earthly scenes of violence against the innocent Jesus.[9]

But where does the Bible say that the devil was tempting our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane? There is not a word! To me it is incomprehensible to think that Christians who claim to believe in the absolute sufficiency of Scripture can sit passively and allow words to be put into the mouth of our blessed Lord, and actions to be portrayed by an actor representing our Lord, and not rise up in holy anger. Our forefathers spilled blood for the absolute sufficiency of this blessed Book. The reason we can come here this morning with an open Bible because of their blood which was shed in martyr doom against those who would add to Scripture such visions and phantasms and the decrees and counsels of men. This movie, I say, denies the absolute sufficiency of the Word of God.

One author says in another Christianity Today article concerning prior films that portrayed Jesus too humanly:

Where those films failed, partly because they demystified Jesus so thoroughly that he seemed to lose his divine authority, Gibson succeeds, by shooting much of the film from Jesus' own point of view and by using flashbacks to create the impression that we are being drawn into the flow of Jesus' own memories. When Jesus sees a man with carpentry tools, he thinks of his days as a carpenter; when he sees the street filled with people shouting at him, he thinks of his Triumphal Entry a few days before; when he sees Golgotha, he thinks of the sermon he gave on another mountain in which he told his followers to love their enemies."[10]

But who is Mel Gibson to get into the head of my blessed Lord, and tell me what He thought? Has he become God? Do you feel this, dear people? Here is a man who professes to get into the mind of my sovereign, omniscient, divine savior and wrongly represents those thoughts as "fact" to multitudes who will never read their Bibles. As far as they are concerned, the Jesus on the celluloid is the Jesus that is. but that is not the Jesus of Holy Scriptures.

6. The film promoted and will continue an undiscerning ecumenical climate. Whether Mel Gibson is a true Christian through all of his Catholicism, that is, whether he has come to cast his soul in naked faith upon the Son of God revealed in Scripture, I am of no position to answer. But that question and its answer are totally irrelevant with regard to evaluating the film. As a devout Catholic, Mr. Gibson is seeking to promote a film that even the front page of Christianity Today acknowledges to be a catholic film. Subtle and not-so-subtle nuances of Rome percolate through this fil. And because we live in an age of pragmatism people say, ":Oh, it did so much good, I know that this person was concerted as a result," and so on.

What are we doing? We are saying that the issues that were brought into focus in the Reformation are merely a tempest in a teapot. The issues for which men died at stake are really irrelevant. The real issues is, "Does it work?" But you see that the Apostle Paul did not have that disposition. In Galatians 1:8 he wrote, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." Let him be accursed of God. The decrees and the pronouncements of the Roman Catholic Church place the curse upon you and me for believing that we are justified by faith alone in Jesus Christ. By contrast, the apostle Paul pronounces the curse upon those who propagate a gospel at variance with the true, biblical gospel of salvation by faith alone. With this wholesale jumping into bed with Romanism, this film has and will continue to promote an undiscerning ecumenical climate. It will more and more marginalize those of us who do believe that the issues of reformation theology are still vital issues.

7. This film gives unquestioned approval to the arrogant and blasphemous activity of a sinful man attempting to portray the sinless God-Man. "Blasphemy" means to speak irreverently or profanely of or to God. the Jesus of the gospel records was true man, but He was equally true God. He was the Word made flesh. Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the father" (John 14:9). deity is mirrored in and through His sacred and holy humanity. He is truly human, yes, and no one emphasizes that more than I do. But He is true God! The compassionate look in His eyes was not mere human compassion, but was divine compassion. When anger reflected in His eyes, it was divine anger.

Yet of this actor it is said, and here I quote Lorenza Munoz of the Los Angeles Times with regard to Jim Caviezel:

Unlike Willem Dafoe's conflicted Jesus in "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988) or Jeffrey Hunter's sweet-natured Jesus in "King of Kings" (1961), Caviezel's Jesus could be a character in a silent film. He evokes emotion mainly through his eyes and through haunting visuals that could have served as paintings than scenes from a motion picture.

In fact, Caviezel's ability to stir emotion with a glance has become his trademark. "You look into his eyes and there is a whole lot going on," says Rowdy Herrington, director of "Stroke of Genius," in which Caviezel plays golf great Bobby Jones... "It makes you imagine a lot of things."

In the brief moments during the two-hour Passion in which Caviezel in not drenched in blood, he emits sincerity with a smile and tenderness with a glimmer in his eyes (which were colored brown in post-production for the part). But it is hard to say whether the average moviegoer will notice him over the unrelenting violence. More than launch his career as a mainstream star, The Passion may ignite a fire for him among evangelical Christians and Conservative Catholics.

And perhaps it was a role Caviezel, a devout Catholic active in the religious community, was raised to play . . . Caviezel has no qualms about letting the world know he is religious. He is proud of his faith and relishes talking about it - even though Hollywood publicists have asked him to refrain from proselytizing in interviews . . . He has raised eyebrows among journalists for talking about visions of the Virgin Mary, and for not wanting to do nude scenes with Jennifer Lopez in "Angel Eyes" or Ashley Judd in "High Crimes" for fear of offending his wife of eight years, Kerri, a schoolteacher.

He waves away a question about where he worships. he said he attends mass in both Latin Tridentine and in English.

How did he prepare for the role of Jesus? "I walked on my pool twice a day - it's hard to do," he says, smiling.[11]

For this man to be placed on the screen and for any Christian to go and sit and watch him without objecting, I cannot imagine. For it then gives unquestioned approval to the arrogant and blasphemous activity of this sinful man attempting to portray the sinless God-Man.

8. The film constitutes a blatant violation of the Second Commandment. This is the capstone issue, and one that I trust you will wrestle with before God. Some would rest the whole case on this, I have tried to build up to it, rather that work down from it. But when the Lord God spoke from heaven and wrote with His own finger upon tablets of stone He said, Exodus 20:4, "You shall not make unto thee a graven image nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down yourself unto them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God." God would have no visual representations made of Himself as God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit.

There is an excellent article by Professor John Murray called, "Pictures of Christ," and I urged every believer to read it. Its structure is relatively simple. He sets out the thesis that is anyone presents a picture of Christ it certainly must increase our understanding of who Christ was and to increase our love and devotion to Him. To present it for any other reason it would be blasphemous, would it not? To present a picture of Christ to make people ignorant of Him, and to think less of Him than they should, is blasphemous. Mr. Gibson would say yes, the purpose of his film is to accurately portray the Lord Jesus so that people may appreciate Him and love Him more.

Professor Murray then lays out the case for the use of pictures, and then he has three powerful arguments against them. I think they are unanswerable. The last two rest firmly down upon the Second Commandment. And then he summarizes:

What is at stake in this question is the unique place which Jesus Christ as the God-man occupies in our faith and worship and the unique place which the Scripture occupies as the only revelation, the only medium of communication, respecting him whom we worship as Lord and Saviour. The incarnate Word and the written Word are correlative. We dare not use other media of impression or of sentiment but those of his institution and prescription. Every thought and impression of him should evoke worship. We worship him with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God. To use a likeness of Christ as an aid to worship is forbidden by the second commandment as much in his case as in that of the Father and Spirit." [12]

Furthermore, I would be grieved because of what I fear may happen should you view the movie. The next time that we come to the Lord's table and sing, "When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died," would there not be a great temptation to bring to mind the actor's face? Image worship would go on in this very building, as much as if you projected his face on the back wall and said, "Look, there is Christ." Idolatry begins in the image of the heart.

I have struggled for years to get out of my mind Warner Sallman's "Head of Christ" that was hung in a place of worship when I was a child. When I became a Christian and thought of my Lord at the right hand of my father as I directed my prayers to Jesus who has physical form in heaven, Sallman's "Head of Christ" kept coming into my mind. It took years to scrub it out, but with a little flip of the switch it could be there again. I am not to worship Jesus according to the half-effeminate artistic sensibilities of Mr. Sallman. I am to worship Him as He is revealed in the Word of God and in the full glory of His godhood and His manhood.

As we close, let me give some practical counsel in order to seize the opportunity to witness. First, don't attack the movie with uncoverted people or with Christian friends who go to see it. A servant of the Lord must not strive. Secondly, use the interest in this movie to direct conversation to the central issues of the gospel. The movie does not answer the two most important questions about the death of Christ: who was it that died, and why did He die?[13] Direct the conversation towards these topics. And thirdly, use the tools we are going to make available to you such as John Piper's book, "The Passion of Jesus Christ". Prayerfully distrubute such tools and seize this opportunity to witness.

Notes
1. Michael Medved, "Gibson's Right to his 'Passion,'" Christian Sceince Monitor, February 2, 2004, page 9.
2. Quoted by John Leith in Creeds of the Churches.
3. Andrew J. Webb, "Five Reasons Not to Go See The Passion of Christ," posted at http://groups.yahoo.com/bbwarfield/message/16961.
4. Ibid.
5. Advertising Postcard, Clearview Cinemas.
6. See note 3.
7. David Neff, "The Passion of Mel Gibson" Why Evangelicals are Cheering a Movie with Profoundly Catholic Sensibilities," Christianity Today, Volume 48, Number 3, March 2004, page 30
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Peter T Chattaway, "Lethal Suffering," Christianity Today, March 2004, page 30.
11. Lorenza Monuz, "In the Eye of the storm," Los Angeles Times, February 15, 2004, page E8.
12. John Murray, "Pictures of Christ," posted at http://www.datarat.net/DR/pic.html as reprinted from the Reformed Herald, February 1961.
13. Pastor Martin seeks to address these questions in a subsequent message titled, "The Passion: What the Movie Doesn't Tell You," Sermon #TE-178, available online at www.tbcnj.org.

Credit
This transcript is from a Sunday School class led by Pastor Albert N. Martin on Sunday, February 22, 2004 at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey, USA. copyright 2004 Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, NJ. All rights reserved, www.tbcnj.org. With thanks for various contributions from other sources. Audio of this message is available on our website.

Use of this Material - Terms of Use
Permission to print and distribute is granted for non-profit and church use provided it is printed or distributed unedited in its entirety free of charge and includes the Credit and these Terms of Use.

Note: I would caution a warning when referring people to John Piper, since Piper said "God broke the Second Commandment when he became incarnate" and endorses the use of forbidden images (source: John Piper and the 2nd Commandment note the link to the audio is broken on the original discussion, but can still be found here: http://media.desiringgod.org/audio/c...0204_panel.mp3): The Passion Movie: To See or Not To See - SermonAudio.com