©1996 by Thomas F. Heinze
Reproduced by permission

To those who live in the fringe areas of Roman Catholicism the problem of images does not seem as important as it actually is. At its center in Italy the attitude toward images is still the criteria which most Catholics use to distinguish between Catholics and Protestants. They will say, "Oh! You're an Evangelical! You're the ones who don't believe in the saints, aren't you?"

Catholic dogma states, "It is permissible and profitable to venerate images of the Saints." These images, and the saints which they represent, are extremely important to the religious life of the people of Italy and of other strongly Roman Catholic countries. This is not only true in the church itself, but it is also true of the less official folk religion. Multitudes who almost never darken the door of a church consider themselves devoted Catholics simply because they are devoted to one or more Catholic images.

Perhaps the one most important fact which distinguishes Bible believing Protestants from their Catholic neighbors is the Protestant insistence that each individual needs to know God personally. In fact, the very reason that Christ came to earth, died for our sins, and rose again was to take away the sins that separate us from God, so that we can know Him in a personal way. The Bible teaches that each individual should have a continual relationship directly with God; not a long distance relationship through an image or the saint that the image represents. One of the major themes in the Bible, from its beginning in Genesis, all the way through to the last book, Revelation, is the Lord's hatred for images. The reason is that they separate man from direct contact with Him by providing something else to pray to and trust in.

Most Catholics are very surprised to find that one of the ten commandments prohibits the use of images. I quote the second commandment, not from some Protestant publication, but from the Roman Catholic Bible. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers' wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6).

While the Catholic Church regularly teaches the Ten Commandments in its catechisms, it consistently eliminates the commandment quoted above. Nevertheless, it is always found in whatever Bible, whether printed by a Catholic or Protestant printing press. If you have a Bible, why don't you look it up right now?

If you have a Roman Catholic Catechism, why don't you open it up, too. You will not immediately notice that the commandment against making images and bowing before them has been eliminated, because there will still be ten commandments, but if you will read the first three commandments in both the Bible and the Catechism, you will notice that the second commandment, the longest of all, has been left out in the version found in the Catechism. The omission has been hidden by splitting the tenth commandment into two. Here is how the tenth commandment reads in the Catholic Bible: Thou shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male or female servant, nor his ox or ass, nor anything else that belongs to him. (Exodus 20:17). In the Catechism, the part about not coveting your neighbor's wife becomes the ninth, and the rest, servant, etc. are grouped together to form the tenth. These commandments are repeated again in Deuteronomy 5. In this second passage it is not as noticeable that the last commandment has been split in two to camouflage the theft of the second. This is probably why the Catholic church normally uses the review of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy instead of the original giving of the commandments in Exodus.

The fact that the second commandment is skipped altogether and the omission hidden shows that it is not a matter of the Catholic Church interpreting it differently from the way others do. If they did not understand that it condemns their images why would they have removed this commandment from the catechism and from other popular Catholic teaching?

Some, in an attempt to justify praying to images, say that if we had to literally observe the second commandment, we could not even have photographs of our friends and loved ones. The Bible clarifies this point in a passage which specifies what images it is condemning. The prohibited images are those that people venerate or worship: Do not make false gods for yourselves. You shall not erect an idol or a sacred pillar for yourselves, nor shall you set up a stone figure for worship in your land; for I, the Lord, am your God (Leviticus 26:1). Notice that here, as in Exodus, it speaks of a purpose for using the image, for worship, the same Hebrew word is often translated "to bow down." This purpose would not exclude normal photographs of your friends and family. An obvious exception is the practice of praying to photos of dead relatives.

Others try to avoid God's clear teaching by stating in an authoritative way that He is only referring to pagan images and not their "Christian" images. However, we notice that:

• Moses, speaking to the Hebrews, God's chosen people and not to pagans, told them that the Lord had not shown Himself to them when He gave them the ten commandments for a precise reason: So that God's people would not make images of God Himself, You saw no form at all on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire. Be strictly on your guard, therefore, not to degrade yourselves by fashioning an idol to represent any figure, whether it be the form of a man or a woman… (Deuteronomy 4:15-16, read also verses 17-29). What was prohibited here was not a pagan image, but any images that God's chosen people might have made of God Himself or of men or women.
• God praised a king of the Jews for destroying a brass serpent which had previously been made at His express commandment and which His people, after a certain period of time, had begun to venerate. The Bible says of this king, He pleased the Lord, just as his forefather David had done. It was he who removed the high places, shattered the pillars, and cut down the sacred poles. He smashed the bronze serpent called Nehushten which Moses had made, because up to that time the Israelites were burning incense to it (2 Kings 18:3-4).
  Images Are Prohibited in the New Testament

  Others, in trying to escape the clear teaching of God's word, claim that images were prohibited in the Old Testament, but are now allowed since we are no longer in the times of the Old Testament, but of the New. The fatal weakness of this argument is that it is just not true! The New Testament speaks a great deal about images, and always against them, just as does the Old Testament.

  One of the earlier passages to be written in the New Testament is 1 Corinthians 10:14, I am telling you, whom I love, to shun the worship of idols. This theme runs right through the New Testament. We even find it in 1 John 5:21, one of the last books to be written in the New Testament. There we read, My little children, be on your guard against idols.

  In between these verses which I have quoted are others, too numerous to list here, but I encourage you to look them up for yourself. You will see that images are prohibited more or less all through the New Testament: 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10:7; 12:2; Acts 7:39-42, 17:16, 29; Romans 1:23; 1 Peter 4:3; Rev. 2:14, 9:20, 21:8, 22:15.

  History of Idolatry in the Church

  The churches of the first centuries did not use images (with the exception of the symbol of the fish, used like a logo and not an idol). Images first entered the church for ornamental use around the end of the third century. By 400 A.D. they were also being used for instructional purposes, and only in the centuries following were these images regarded as sacred. They were then accepted for veneration by the Roman Church in the council of Nicea in 787 A.D. and in that of Trent in 1562 A.D.

  According to Catholic tradition, when a person prays to or worships the image of a saint, he is venerating the saint himself. This explanation, however convincing it may sound, can never justify praying to an image, because God commands us not to. This fact has been understood by some of the most important people in the Catholic church. Under the reform started by Pope John the twenty-third, many of the images were taken out of the churches. Pope John, and several other popes who followed him, also tried to cut down on other idolatrous practices of the church, such as carrying images in processions.

  Whose Images?

  In the majority of cases, the images that are venerated are not really images of the saints, as there were no cameras during the lives of most of them and not many of them posed for painted pictures. The obvious consequence is that frequently the images actually are those of models that later artists hired. Many artists created both religious and non-religious art and used the same models for both. Sometimes the artist's models were very religious people, but often they were not. On other occasions the mental pictures in the mind of the artists determined how the saint would look. This becomes obvious as one recalls the pale complexion common to many of the "Madonnas," and then remembers the famous black "Madonnas."

  One lady learned that what people are praying to are often not really images of the saints. While walking her dog, she passed by the door of an artist's studio. The artist stepped out and stopped her to ask if he might clip a bit of hair from her dogs' tail for the eyebrows of a saint he was making. She willingly gave him the hair he wanted. Then as she walked away, she realized, "This means that I am going to be bowing down to the hair of my dog's tail!" She put a stop to her own idolatry then and there.

  Images Are One of the Major Subjects of the Bible

  The fact that so many passages of the Bible deal with images makes it quite obvious that in God's estimation, this is an extremely important issue. I have already pointed out many of the passages in the New Testament. While the subject is too vast in the Old Testament to list all of the passages, the following are among the most important, and reading them will make God's view of images very clear. In addition, their sheer numbers cannot help but impress us with the importance of this subject in God's sight: Exodus 23:24, 34:13-14; Leviticus 19:4, 26:30; Numbers 33:52; Deuteronomy 5:8-9, 9:12-17, 16:21, 27:15; 1 Kings 14:9, 22-23; Psalms 78:58, 97:7, 106:19-20, 115:4-9, 135:15-18; Isaiah 10:10-11, 30:22, 31:6-7, 42:8-17, 44:8-20, 45:20, 46:6-7; Jeremiah 10:3-16, Ezekiel 16:17-21, 30:13; Daniel 3:1-18; Hosea 11:2, 13:2-4; Micah 1:7, 5:12-13; Habakkuk 2:18-20.

  Should We Pray to the Saints Themselves?

  At this point, someone might suggest that even though it is wrong to pray to images, perhaps it would be all right to pray to the saints themselves, that they may serve as mediators between us and God. Jesus, however, said that no man could come to the father except by Him (John 14:6), and 1 Timothy is even more specific: And the truth is this: God is one. One also is the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all. Christ is our mediator, because it is He who brings us into contact with God. He paid all that God required for our sins, so that we sinners may pray directly, "Our father..."

  Another translation puts it this way, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men. Why would God tell us that Christ Jesus is the only mediator if it is a lie, and there are really many mediators?

  A priest phoned to discuss this verse with me on a call-in TV program. Trying to point out a loop hole in this verse that would allow Catholics to pray to the saints, he stated: It is not that the saints can answer prayer directly, but they pray to Jesus who in turn prays to God the Father who answers the prayer. Knowing the Catholic doctrine, I asked, "Are the saints omniscient and omnipresent, so that they can understand thousands of prayers from all over the world in many different languages, all at the same time?" He, of course, had to answer, "No, only God is omniscient and omnipresent, the saints can't hear and understand all those prayers." Realizing the implication of what he had said, he tried to repair the damage by saying, "God the Father hears the prayers and tells the saints what it was that the people asked for!!!"

  He was right that only God can be in all places at once to hear the thousands of prayers coming from all around the world at the same time. Can you think of a good reason not to pray to Him in the first place?

  God loves us. He wants to be our friend and our Father. He asks us to pray directly to Him, to have communion with Him, to honor Him and to praise Him. He feels left out when we venerate someone or something else. The Bible tells us that He is jealous of our love, and helps us understand this by giving us the illustration of a husband who doesn't want his wife going out with other men. What are we saying to God when we turn our backs on Him and pray to a saint? It is a great offense to infer that He is not as kind, considerate, and compassionate as the saints are.

  Let's examine an example which literally hundreds of Italians have used to show me why I should pray to the saints. They say, "If you wanted a job in a certain factory, and your uncle was the friend of the owner, you would not go directly to the factory owner yourself. You would ask your uncle to go to the owner for you". In this illustration, the uncle represents the saint, and the factory owner represents God. The illustration implies that the saint, represented by the uncle, knows and loves you, and wishes to help you, while God, who is represented by the factory owner, does not. The truth is that God knows and loves us, and asks us to come directly to Him in the name of Jesus Christ, the only mediator.

  The Bible never infers that any saints, living or dead, sympathize with us more than God does, nor does it even once mention the possibility of anyone praying to or through them. It does, however, say of Christ, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet never sinned. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and favor and to find help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16, read also Ephesians 3:12). He knows, and he cares!

  Christ Himself tells us to whom we should pray. Matthew 7:7-11, begins: Ask, and you will receive…It ends, If you, with all your sins, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to anyone who asks him! John 15:16 adds that we should ask the Father in Jesus' name. It was not you who chose me, it was I who chose you to go forth and bear fruit. Your fruit must endure, so that all you ask the Father in my name he will give you. A study of the prayers in the Bible will show you that all were addressed to God the Father, and none to saints who had died.

  Do Protestants Believe in the Saints?

  What I have just said will lead some to state, "The Protestants don't believe in the saints! " Actually, we do believe in the saints! However, we believe what the Bible says about them, which is very different from Catholic tradition. We believe in them so much that we want to obey the commandments that God inspired them to write in the Bible. Among other things, they have told us that we are to pray to God and not to saints or images. In addition to trying to obey what the saints have written in the Bible, those saints who were really saints, serve as examples to us. The Bible calls all who are sanctified through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, "saints", a word which in the New Testament is used to refer to believers as a group, not to distinguish one person as being more saintly than another because he did miracles or lived a purer life.

  In the Bible the term "saints" is used to describe people who were still living. Paul's writings in the Bible use the word a great deal. Let's examine how he uses it. …to all the saints who are at Ephesus... (Ephesians 1:1). (I have quoted this from the older Roman Catholic Douay version which agrees with almost all other translations. The new Catholic translation which I have been using, though generally quite accurate, translates this word in other ways.) See also Ephesians 1:15,18; 2:19; 3:8,18; 4:12; 5:3, and 6:18; Romans 1:7; Acts 9:13,32; 26:10. One cannot help but be struck by the fact that the word "saint" was consistently used in the plural to refer to the groups of normal Christians.

  The believers from the church in Corinth were saints (1·Corinthians 1:2, 6:11, 14:33). Yet they still had some extremely grave defects and sins and Paul could not speak to them as to spiritual Christians, but as carnal (1·Corinthians 1:11, 3:1, 6:5-8, 11:22).

  Why Don't Protestants Pray to the Saints?

  In addition to the clear statement, God is one. One also is the mediator between God and men…, there are other reasons why we do not pray to the saints:

  • God gives us no example in the Bible of anyone who ever prayed to the saints or venerated them, nor does He give us any indication that He wants us to do this.
  • The Scripture further says: You shall do homage to the Lord your God; Him alone shall you adore (Luke 4:8).
  • In the Bible, we find illustrations of both men and angels refusing to permit people to bow before them, and in fact teaching that this should not be done. As Peter entered, Cornelius went to meet him, dropped to his knees before him and bowed low. Peter said as he helped him to his feet, "Get up! I am only a man myself." Acts 10:25-26, see also Acts 14:13-15, and Revelations 22:8-9).
  • The apostle Paul, one of the "saints", explained to the Philippians that he could only be of help to them alive. (Philippians 1:23-26).

  To answer the argument that saints do answer prayer with miracles, we must respond with the reminder that spiritual manifestations (including miracles) can come from two different places: God, or the devil and his demons. God's command is that we must not make images. When miracles seem to be done by the saints, and convince more people to take part in the idolatrous practice of praying to someone other than God, these miracles can hardly be from God.

  In addition, there are a number of saints who have been deposed by the Catholic church because historic studies have shown that they never existed. Saint Philomena, for example, was supposed to have miraculously healed Pope Pious the Tenth. However, more recently this saint was debunked by another pope and his investigating commission as pure fable. In spite of the fact that the official position of the church now is that no such person ever existed, those who are faithful to her image claim that it continues to perform miracles.

  You, too, can become a saint if you will come through faith in Jesus Christ who said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me. (John 14:6). It is not an official statement by the church that makes one a saint, neither is it earned by living a sinless life or by doing miracles. God makes saints out of sinners: …we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10, read also Acts 26:18). Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to take away your sins, and you too will become one of the saints.

  Table of Contents Next: Chapter 5 - Why Are Evangelical Pastors Permitted To Marry? Previous: Chapter 3 - Whar Is The Most Important Difference Between Protestants And Catholics?