Icons and the Incarnation
Orthodox icons are not idols; they confess that the invisible Word became visible flesh, and veneration passes to the person represented.
Rival Claim
The Protestant claim
Icons violate the commandment against images and lead Christians into idolatry, so faithful worship should reject them.
01
The Word became visible
The Old Testament forbids making idols and worshiping created things as gods. Orthodoxy agrees. But the same Old Testament also includes commanded sacred images, and the New Testament proclaims that the invisible God has become visible in the incarnate Christ.
Nicaea II defended icons precisely as a confession of the Incarnation. Worship belongs to God alone; veneration offered before an icon is honor directed to the depicted person, not worship of paint, wood, or stone.
- John 1:14
- Colossians 1:15
- Nicaea II (787)
- St. John of Damascus, On the Divine Images