Mel Gibson’s “Passion”

In the midst of the furor that has
arisen surrounding Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ,
there is an important theological issue at stake that is
surprisingly being overlooked by most Christians and critics of
the film. The issue is this. If Jesus Christ is truly God, as
Christians claim Him to be, how can He be portrayed in a motion
picture when He expressly forbids the MAKING of material
representations of His person in the second commandment
contained in Exodus 20:4?

God reiterates this warning to Israel, in
Deuteronomy 4:12-16, by reminding them that since they had heard
only a voice, but saw no form when
He spoke to them from the mountain, they were not to corrupt
themselves and make a material representation of Him in the
likeness of a male or female. As God is a Triune Being, it was
God the Father, together with God the Son and God the Holy
Spirit all speaking together as the Godhead in Exodus 20:4 and
Deuteronomy 4:12-16.

In 1John 5:7, the apostle John
writes ” For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the
Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost and
these three are one.”  
Jesus Christ says in John 10:30 that “I and My Father are One.”
In Genesis 1:26, God said, “Let us make man in
our image. The Father, the Son and The Holy
Spirit are all equally GOD, who speak and act in perfect
unity.          

 In Romans 1:22-23, Paul states
that idolatry involves the exchanging of the glory of the
incorruptible God for an image made like corruptible man. And,
in Acts 17:29, Paul speaking to the Epicurean and Stoic
philosophers of his day, had this to say, “Forasmuch then as we
are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the
GODHEAD is
like unto gold, silver, or stone, graven by art
or man’s device.”

Jesus told the religious
leaders of his day in John 8:24 “I said therefore unto you, that
you shall die in your sins: for if you believe not that I AM
he, you shall die in your sins.” Jesus, by using the
expression “I AM” in this verse and later in verse 58 is
identifying himself as Yahweh of the Old Testament, The I AM
THAT I AM, The Self-Existing, Eternal God who spoke
to Moses from the burning bush in Exodus 3:14 and gave the Ten
Commandments to the children of Israel from Mt. Sinai
prohibiting the making of material representations of His person
in Exodus 20:4 and Deuteronomy 4:12-16.

Furthermore, where in the
Scriptures is there a written record of Jesus’ physical
appearance while he walked the earth? Although the apostles,
who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, (2 Peter
1:20-21) claimed to have heard,
seen, looked upon
and handled that which was from
the beginning,
THE WORD OF LIFE, they left behind no written record of what
Jesus looked like. (1 John 1:1-2) Yet, the Scriptures declare
that Jesus Christ is the image of God. (Colossians
1:15; Hebrews 1:3) and that in Him dwells the fullness of the
Godhead in bodily form. (Colossians 2:9) How then can a
picture or image capture the essence of the divine and human
natures of the God-man? Those who have truly come to know Jesus
Christ through the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit as He
is revealed in the written Word of God, need no images to convey
to them who God is since they have come to know that Jesus
Christ himself as He is revealed in Scripture
without the use of pictorial images is the express
image of the invisible God. (Hebrews 1:3; 2 Corinthians
3:18) Jesus said, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet
have believed.” When Philip asked Jesus, “Lord show us the
Father and it will satisfy us?” Jesus answered, “Have I been so
long with you and you have not known me, Philip? He that has
seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:8-9a)

By creating pictures and images
of Christ in books, videotapes, films, and upon the stained
glass windows of churches, men have gone beyond Scripture and
added to the biblical revelation of Christ. Did not God warn
against adding to His Word in Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Proverbs
30:6 and Revelation 22:18? Wouldn’t then an image claiming to
represent Jesus, therefore, be by definition, “another Jesus”
just as the apostle Paul warns the Corinthian house assemblies
about in 2 Corinthians 11:4?

Tragically, centuries of religious tradition
have so corrupted the minds of many within Christendom to the
extent that when people speak, and think, of Jesus, they think
of Him in terms of these false images and pictures that have
been deeply engrained on their subconscious minds from their
youth. That is why Mel Gibson’s upcoming film can be so widely
embraced by so many without even the slightest discomfort. When
children grow up being told by their Sunday school teachers and
other religious authority figures that the pictures they see
displayed in instructional materials, books, videotapes and on
the stained glass windows of their churches are “Jesus Christ,”
who just happens to be white skinned with blue eyes and long
flowing hair, then they begin to subconsciously identify God as
a white since these are the predominate images that they see
reinforced around them. And tragically, it is all based upon a
lie that many subconsciously have come to embrace as the truth. 

 The early Christians, however,
in obedience to God’s commandments, created no pictures or
images of Christ.  Philip Schaff in his eight volume series
The History of The Christian Church, under the title
Images of Christ, points this out when he writes, “The primitive
church…had no images of Christ, since most Christians at that
time still adhered to the commandment of Moses (Ex.xx.4); In
addition, the church was obliged for her own honor, to abstain
from images, particularly from any representation of the Lord,
lest she should be regarded by unbelievers as merely a new kind
and special sort of heathenism and creature-worship…. The first
representations of Christ are of heretical and pagan origin.”

 Everett Ferguson, in his book
Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 2^nd
Edition, reemphasizes when he writes, “Asclepius was presented
as the most human-loving of the gods.. His influence is seen in
certain features of the Sarapis cult, and his portraiture
influenced artists in depicting Sarapis and Christ.”
[Emphasis mine]  

In his thought-provoking book,
The Vanishing Word: The Veneration of Visual Imagery in the
Postmodern World, Arthur Hunt further explains how the
images of pagan gods came to be incorporated into the worship of
the church. “Pagan idols were also rechristened. Of course,
images have always been a staple of paganism…Jesus and John the
Baptist were the first to appear over the church altar, then
Mary (Queen of Heaven and Earth), the saints and the angels. The
pictures and statuettes were all too familiar with the older
system. Jesus looked like Horus, the Egyptian sky god; and Mary
bore an uncanny resemblance to Isis, the goddess of royalty…The
unlearned received their ideas about religion from the mosaics,
paintings, sculptures and stained-glass windows adoring the
churches. It was here that paganism and Christianity were
visually reconciled.” It is indeed a frightening prospect to
consider that some of the pictures that are widely used in
Christian circles to represent “Christ” may, in fact, be
depictions of the Roman god Asclepius or Horus, the Egyptian sky
god!!

So if God expressly forbid the
making of images to represent Him, and Christians in the early
church did not create images and pictures of Jesus Christ, who
authorized the use of such images in direct violation of God’s
Word? History records that it was the Roman Catholic Church, who
at the Second ecumenical council of Nicaea in 787 AD,
legitimized the use of images of Christ. “We
decree with full precision and care that…the revered and holy
images, whether painted or made of mosaic or of other suitable
material, are to be exposed in the holy churches of God, on
sacred instruments and vestments, on walls and panels, in houses
and by public ways. These are the images of our Lord, God and
Savior, Jesus Christ.. The more frequently they are seen in
representational art,
the more are those who see them drawn to remember and long for
those who serve as models, and pay these images the tribute of
salutation and respectful veneration. . Indeed, the honor paid
to an image traverses it, reaching the model and he who
venerates the image, venerates the person represented in that
image.”

The Council further pronounced anathemas upon
the iconoclasts who were opposed to the use of deity images. “If
anyone does not
confess that Christ our GOD can be
represented in his humanity, let him be
anathema. If
anyone does not
salute such representations as standing for
the Lord…let him be
anathema.” Could this have been a precursor for
the widespread worship of the IMAGE OF THE BEAST prior to the
second coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? 

It is indeed ironic that Mel
Gibson, a traditionalist Catholic, has produced this film with a
false image of “Christ” that is based on the apparitions of the
Catholic mystic, Anne Emmerich, who claimed to have seen visions
of the passion, death and resurrection of “Christ” which were
recorded in her book The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus
Christ. And for Mr. Gibson to claim that he was lead by the Holy
Spirit to make this movie, I would say this. The subjective
witness of the Holy Spirit can NEVER lead anyone to do
anything that is contrary, or opposed, to the objective truth of
Scripture.

Interestingly, a new Catholic
website Catholic Passion Outreach has this to say about the
film. “Mel Gibson’s forthcoming epic film, The Passion of the
Christ, will soon hit movie theatres around the country.
Evangelical Christian churches are viewing this movie as the
greatest opportunity for evangelization in centuries. Until now,
the Catholic Church has been slow to respond. The question that
needs to be asked is will a Catholic movie created by a Catholic
director result in Catholics
leaving the Church due to proselytizing by other churches?”’

It is obvious that Mel Gibson sees this film as an excellent
vehicle to “spread, strengthen and share the Catholic faith.” In
an interview with Peter Boyer, published in The New Yorker,
September 15, 2003, Gibson is quoted as saying that “there is no
salvation for those outside of the (Roman Catholic) Church.. I
believe it…that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with
it.” 

Yet, it is absolutely amazing to see how
Gibson has garnered the support and endorsement of so many
evangelical leaders who are enthusiastically embracing this film
that will further solidify the image of a counterfeit Christ
upon the minds of millions of moviegoers. If these evangelical
leaders truly believed that Jesus Christ is God, the I AM
who spoke from Mt. Sinai in Exodus 20:4, then they would know
that He cannot be pictured – films are simply moving pictures –
and they would not be widely endorsing a film that promotes this
idolatry. As Tupper Saussy points out in his book Rulers of
Evil: Useful Knowledge About Governing Bodies,
“What more damnable heresy could there be than depicting a God
who condemns images, with an image? Wouldn’t an image
purporting to be Him have to be in reality, by sheer force of
logic, the image of another God?”

The Passion of the Christ, therefore,
undermines the biblical teaching of the deity of Christ,
presenting another Jesus than the Jesus of biblical revelation.
Truly we are living in the days foretold by true Jesus Christ
himself in Matthew 24:4-5.

Lorin Smith

Christian Research Projects