Beware of Icons

 

An Icon (ˈīˌkän, ikon, image) is a two dimensional religious painting of Christ or the saints. Typically an iconographer paints using Tempera, which includes an egg to create the golden halo. While artisan sculpts the image there is deep spiritual prayer, contemplation, and carving into the image. What is alarming is what Eastern Orthodox believe about icons: 

“The Orthodox Church teaches that an icon is a two-way door of communication that not only shows us a person or an event but makes it present. When we stand in front of an icon we are in touch with that person and we take part in that event. The historical event of the Nativity is here and now to us, when we look at a Nativity icon. What we call “our world” and what we call “the spiritual world” are opened to each other.” (Praying with Icons -Ancient Spiritual Disciplines, Linette Martin, 60 of 812) 

Icons are time travel devices, and portals to the spiritual world?! For this reason I am greatly disturbed. Witches and Warlocks who have reformed and become Christian speak of portals and tunnels they used through illegal means of demons. Ikons present a problem, no one can time travel, only God lives outside time (2 Peter 3:8), but these paintings the Eastern Orthodox Church claims will transport you back to the 1 A.D. or 33 A.D. 

More alarming is the Eastern Church claims these icons are doors, “According to the ancient teaching of the early church and today’s Eastern Orthodox Church, an icon is a door. If you cannot believe that it is a door, never mind.” (Praying with Icons -Ancient Spiritual Disciplines, Linette Martin, 65 of 812). Doors to what? In Japanese mysticism there are vases and paintings with the doors to hell. In Christian Exorcism they claim there are doors to the demonic. While I tend to dislike hyperbole of exorcists, and think their overemphasis on demons draws attention to darkness rather than Christ, in this case I think they are right. Icons have a power, when you look at a Black Madonna or Christ Pantocrator with its golden hue, it leaves you spellbound compared to the art of Renaissance masters. In my view this is because there is enchantments on icons, because those making them purposely do charm them. 

Ikons first appear in the time of Constantine, 330 A.D. the man who almost destroyed the Church with his changes (see post Constantine The Great Antichrist). This supposed sacred images were not handed down to us bu the apostles, nor Christ. Never did our Lord command flat wood yo be painted. Rather He told us to know Him, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent,” (John 17:3) and to recognize Christ lives in us, “.To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27). We have no need of transmitters, neo-Arks of the Covenant. No, God lives in us, and we in God, “All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.” (1 John 4:15). We have no need of wood, gold, or paintings to know Him or be close to Him. 

The Eastern Orthodox Church claims icons are to aid worship, and that they are not idolatry. Yet they clearly are lying, because they believe these golden paintings are portals in time to visit scenes like the Crucifixion and to visit with dead saints! Creepy! So how can they claim its not idolatry, when these paintings are capable of transporting people in time and opening doors to the supernatural. All of this smacks of pagan mysticism that no doubt Constantine brought into the church which embraced icons in His lifetime in 330 A.D. After-all, Constantine mode all his pagan priests Church priests. 

More bizarreness: 

“FIVE Final Thoughts WE HAVE SEEN HOW SOME ICONS are statements of heavenly realities, such as Christ Pantocrator, or praying saints, while others depict historical events, especially key moments in the life of Christ that Christians believe are of permanent saving value to humanity. If we understand the “weight” an effective icon must bear as the focus of prayer and revealer of the divine, we will also understand the expressionistic conventions often used by their creators: the lack of shadows, the conscious distortions of form, the inversion or denial of perspective; similarly, the frontal, hieratic presentation of individual saints (or Christ alone) with the exaggerated staring eyes and pale features. The aim is to communicate the impinging of the divine world upon the human one. The aim is to depict persons already in the process of deification or transfiguration, and to show history as the sphere of divine intervention—“the intersection of the timeless moment.” LIVING DOORS In a mysterious way, the icon is believed to make present what it represents; it can communicate the presence and something of the spiritual nature of the holy person depicted (Christ, the Virgin, or some other saint). As such it is a means of grace, something approaching a sacrament. This is why the icon is an object of veneration: lights and incense are burned before it, people bow before it and kiss it. Of course, the icon is not sacramental in the same sense as the Eucharist, which is not just an image of the Christ but is his true Body and Blood, something to be worshiped. Nonetheless, on a different level, Christ is also present in his icon. Its matter (the wood, paint, etc.) is a channel of spiritual grace, as is the water of baptism or the oil of chrismation.

2 St. Theodore the Studite writes, “We should believe that divine grace is present in the icon of Christ, and that it communicates sanctification to those who draw near with faith.” (Praying with Icons -Ancient Spiritual Disciplines, Linette Martin).

 A means of grace? Deification? Worshipping the blood and body of Christ? Christ is present in the icon? This is so bizarre! For one grace is unmerited favor from Christ who died for our sins and we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, “even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—[6] and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:5-9). We have no need for trinkets to commute grace to us, we have the full grace of God in Christ, for Christ died once for all time, “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” (Hebrews  9:24-28). Deification?  Only the Holy Trinity is divine, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,” (Colossians 2:9), we do not become gods, we have God living in us and we in God, but we are still the creation, God The Trinity is the Creator. As for worshipping the blood and body of Christ, that sounds medieval! We worship Christ, not his organs, wounds, and etc. 

Again these icons are idolatry, in that they are neo-arks claiming Christ is in the materials, “Christ is also present in his icon. Its matter (the wood, paint, etc.)” (). When Scripture tells us God does not dwell in things made by human hands, that includes icons, “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf,” (Hebrews 9:24), “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands,” (Acts 7:48), and “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.” (Acts 17:24). The Eastern Orthodox by claiming Christ is in the icon are making it a temple and house.  Additionally, did not ransom us with perishable things, “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,  but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” (1 Peter 1:18-19). Rather we Christians are temples, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” (1 Corinthians 3:16) and “But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory, ” (Hebrews 3:6), there is no need for wood, paint and etc; for we are flesh canvas he lives inside and in whom’s image He made us.  

In conclusion, 

Beware of Icons. They contradict Scripture and draw your attention away from the truth that God lives in you, not wood! We have no need  for any transmitter. We can connect with God simply through prayer, talking to Him! Icons are idolatry, for they try to make people believe the divine and holy persons are in the gilded gold image, when they do not! Amen.