I find it interesting that all populations believe Jesus looked like their kind.
Italians like a light haired Jesus with blue eyes. Franco Zeffirelli, the director of Jesus of Nazareth (my favorite movie about Jesus) picked an Italian boy with bright blue eyes to play the 12 year old Jesus....I was taken aback.
But I think we humanly need something to think of when we think of God. I wonder what the OT believers imagined God to look like.
Of course God is spirit and who knows what this looks like....
The thing is what we tend to think we need is often not provided or promoted by God as something to that effect, for example, making images.
Personally, I think the images hindered me and not helped, you could not know Jesus or the Father through cement images crafted by men. The Godhead included as Paul said,
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.
I believe it's in Isaiah where he says that there was nothing about the Son of Man that would bring attention to him (in a physical sense).
Yeah, that image is often not the one on religious displays, its often a handsome face gentleman. And if you put all the Jesus images into a police lineup and they would all be considered different men (not the same).
Who knows whose image you are actually bowing down before.
This one here always reminded me of Sylvester Stallone lol
True. The disciples on the road to Emmaus did not recognize Jesus, but scripture states that it was because they were not meant to recognize him...or maybe they had just heard of him and didn't know what He looked like. They DID recognize Him when He broke bread with them at their home.
I'd say this is true for Mark 16:12
Yes, before then no, so I dont think outward images (since he stood there as one) could be of any help
2 Cor 5:16 Yes. We're not to look at persons on the outside, but on the inside...just as we're to look at Jesus for His INNER qualities...how He looked on the outside is irrelevant -and maybe this is another reason why the disciples did not recognize Him....He wanted them to know Him by the BREAD THAT HE OFFERED!
No stones being turned to bread here.
I'd say that Catholics also look at the INSIDE, INTERIOR life of Jesus. I don't think there's any difference between how a Catholic views a statue of Jesus or how a Protestant does. It's just a statue...a symbol.
Paul does call these things graven images, they can be figures such as the brazen serpent which was destroyed by Hezekiah because they burned incense to it. From what I understand the EO calls the Brazen serpent an "icon" and justify the censing of icons (when it was destroyed because they did that).
Sometimes its like calling adultery "an affair" changing the words of things that are graven art and mans devivce. In Christ was the fulness of the Godhead and says
we ought not to think that
the Godhead is
like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. I would think that would include Jesus Christ.
Amen.
@Pearl in post no. 63 made an interesting observation:
Jesus is the Body
God is the intellect
The Holy Spirit is the spirit
We could say it's the 3 parts of God and the 3 parts of man.
The LORD is shown as having a soul, and I did not see that
Psalm 11:5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence
his soul (nephesh) hateth.
And here is the LORD's soul
and spirit mentioned here
Isaiah 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom
my soul (nephesh) delighteth; I have put
my spirit (ruwach)
upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
And
the LORD making
the soul of Jesus (in whom)
his own soul delighteth an offering
Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD
to bruise him; he
hath put him to grief:
when thou shalt make his soul (nephesh)
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Then the same verse compared between OT and NT
OT Hebrew
Isaiah 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect,
in whom
my soul (nephesh) delighteth; I have put
my spirit (ruwach )
upon him:
he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
NT Greek
Mat 12:18 Behold my servant, whom I have chosen;
my beloved, in whom
my soul (psyche) is well pleased: I will put
my spirit (pneuma)
upon him,
and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.
Also, did God have a physical body when he created man in his own image?