# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 03 09_S78
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

"Not that I wish to defend images, or condemn those who break them — especially those who break images of God and images set up for worship. For memorial images and witness-images, such as crucifixes and images of saints are, it is also confirmed above from Moses that they are indeed to be tolerated, even under the Law, and not merely tolerated, but, because they keep alive remembrance and testimony, are even praiseworthy and honorable — like the memorial stone, Joshua 24:27 and 1 Samuel 7:12." Another important testimony on this subject is found in the Church Postil. In the sermon for the day "On the Finding of the Cross of Christ," Luther writes: "Wherefore, wherever such misuse and error occurs in the worship of images and crosses, the crosses or images should be torn down and removed, and even the churches there torn down as well. Although I do not entirely reject images, and especially the figure of the crucified Christ. For we have a figure of this in the Old Testament, in the bronze serpent set up by Moses in the wilderness, as you have heard in the Gospel, so that all who had been bitten by the fiery serpents, when they looked upon this bronze serpent, should be made whole by this sight. This we too should do, that we might be made whole in our souls: we should likewise look upon the crucified Christ in such an image, and believe in him."

From this the kindly reader may see that the Lutheran church too sets little store by images, and by no means regards such outward things as worth stirring up a quarrel over; that it maintains only the freedom to use them, and therefore certainly does not disdain them either, when they can serve either as a godly reminder or as a fitting outward adornment of public worship.

Since, however, the Reformed have often tried to make it a sin for Lutherans that they have tolerated images, altars, crucifixes, and the like in their churches, and have even branded this as popish, indeed idolatrous — as, for example, the Heidelberg Catechism does (see Lutheraner No. 5 of this volume) — the use or non-use of images has now taken on a significance which it does not at all have in itself. For since an attempt is being made to turn images into a matter of conscience for Lutheran Christians, the dispute between them and the Reformed is no longer really about the paltry, indifferent images themselves, but about the high article of Christian freedom, about the right understanding of the divine law, about the distinction between the Old and New Covenants, and about whether a Christian may allow something to be made a sin for him which God has not forbidden. Against its will, therefore, the Lutheran church has had to be drawn into a dispute in which, in truth, the most important articles of the faith are at stake, though it appears outwardly to concern only such things as our church should, without any objection, instantly let go of, were it not that doing so would betray a leaning toward Rome.

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How important this dispute has become is attested by Luther in the aforementioned treatise against the heavenly prophets, in the following words: "This has been said according to the strictness of the Law of Moses concerning images, not with the intention of defending images, as has already been said sufficiently, but so that the murderous spirits should not be permitted to create sin and conscience where there is none, and to murder souls needlessly. For although image-making is in itself a trifling, outward thing, yet if one nevertheless wishes to burden consciences with sin through it, as though through God's law, then it becomes the very greatest matter. For it corrupts faith, dishonors Christ's blood, condemns the Gospel, and brings to nothing everything that Christ has won for us; so that this Carlstadtian abomination is no less an attempt to destroy Christ's kingdom and a good conscience than the papacy was with its forbidding of foods and of marriage, and whatever else was otherwise free and without sin. For eating and drinking, too, are a trifling, outward thing; yet it murders the soul when one entangles consciences in it by means of laws."

Whoever rightly considers this will not be surprised that faithful servants of the Lutheran church still today agree with their congregations to adorn their churches with images, with a crucifix, an altar, and the like. They do this, first, so that in this way too God's Word may be preached, and the place where the congregation of believers gathers may be so adorned that its very outward appearance invites to devotion; but they also do this, and indeed chiefly for this reason, so that the Lutheran church may again and again bear public testimony to the freedom of Christians in all things not forbidden by God.

There arises, however, now the question: does the use of images, crucifixes, altars, etc. really belong among the elements of Christian freedom?

The Reformed deny this, and in doing so they have always appealed to Exodus 20:4-5, where, in the midst of the enumeration of the holy Ten Commandments, it says: "You shall not make for yourself an image, nor any likeness, whether of that which is above in heaven, or of that which is below on earth, or of that which is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them." In order rightly to emphasize these words, the Reformed have even declared them to be a separate commandment, namely the second commandment (which is why the Reformed count four commandments on the first table and six on the second table; for they combine the ninth and tenth commandments, concerning lust or desire, into a single commandment).

The Reformed say: is it not here quite plainly forbidden to make images? We answer: Yes! but what kind of image-making is forbidden is likewise indicated in the addition: "You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them." That these words are to be joined to the word "make," and are meant to restrict it, we see from verse 23 of the same chapter, in which the Lord says: "Therefore you shall make nothing beside me; you shall not make gods of silver or gods of gold." These words show clearly and plainly, first, that verses 4 and 5 are not a separate second commandment, but rather an elaboration of the first commandment, and second, that God forbids in verses 4 and 5 solely the making of images, etc. for the worship of idols. All this follows so naturally, so unforced, that it seems incomprehensible how the Reformed could ever have raised any doubt against it.

The Reformed, however, object as follows: those words, "You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them," stand entirely on their own; it does not say: "You shall make yourself no image, so that you worship it," etc. But this objection, too, dissolves into nothing when we compare Leviticus 26:1. There the Lord says: "You shall make yourselves no idols, nor any image, and you shall not set up for yourselves any pillar, nor place any memorial stone in your land, to bow down before it; for I am the Lord your God." Here we have God's own — and therefore an incontestably certain — interpretation of that addition to the first commandment (in Exodus 20:4-5). This divine interpretation tells us that the making and having of images is forbidden only when it happens "that one bows down before it." To this it must further be added that Leviticus 26:1 also forbids the setting up of pillars and the placing of memorial stones, from which it clearly follows that the mere making of all these things cannot be what is forbidden, but rather the making of them for worship — for who will deny that it is permitted to set up pillars and to place memorial stones? This is even more evident in the following passage, Deuteronomy 4:15-19. In this passage God places alongside the forbidden making of images also "the lifting up of the eyes toward heaven, toward the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the host of heaven." Would it not now be absurd to maintain that it is therefore a sin to look at the heavens and their constellations? Certainly; everyone recognizes that only such a looking can be forbidden here as is accompanied by a veneration of these creatures, as indeed it also says at the close of this passage: "and fall away, and worship them, and serve them." But if in this passage only such idolatrous gazing at the heavens and their constellations is forbidden, then the prohibition strikes likewise only at the idolatrous making of images on earth.

It is thus clear that in the holy Ten Commandments the mere making and using of images is not forbidden; that it is permitted is clear from other passages of Scripture and from the very nature of the matter.

More on this in the next number, God willing.

(To be continued.)

Paid.

Vol. 1: Mr. Fetting.

Vol. 2, ditto: the same.

2nd half of Vol. 2: Pastor Biewend.

Ditto, Vol. 3: Messrs. Pastor Biewend, J. G. Schneider, Wildermuth, and Magd. Schütt.

2nd half of Vol. 3: Messrs. Pastor Detzer (2 copies), Nik. Koch, M. Merz, H. Pankow, Pastor Saupert (8 copies), Math. Schmidt, J. A. Wolter, J. and C. Wingert, G. Willner, and Mar. Köstner.

Vol. 3: Messrs. P. H. Anschütz, G. Albach, G. Damm, J. Doberer, J. and H. Helferich, Ger. Höckendorf, Pet. Kettenring, Pastor Saupert, J. Senft, G. Stüber, H. Triebert, H. Weber.

1st half of Vol. 4: Messrs. Pastor Detzer (2 copies), Nik. Koch, M. Merz, H. Pankow, J. and C. Wingert.