Have you ever walked into an Orthodox church before? Have you ever seen how the church is filled with icons all around? Now are these icons examples of graven images that the Lord commands us to stay away from in his book of Exodus? Certainly not. Let's investigate together and see what the church really believes about icons and iconography. Welcome to Answers from an Apostolic Faith. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen. My beloved, if you have ever walked into an authentic Orthodox church, surely you have noticed the beauty within it, with all of its domes, its pillars, veils, and especially its gold leaf-tiketanography. For over 15 centuries now, Orthodox icons have played a very important role in the spirituality of Orthodox liturgical expression. Now there is much to say about icons, and so for now we will only attempt to cover a brief introduction of the meaning and the purpose of icons. In later videos we can speak to many other questions that surround Gothic Orthodox iconography. To begin this short series on icons, let's first address the skeptics. Let's ask the question, when using icons in the church, are we worshipping graven images? Let's dive right into it so that we can begin our investigation. To begin, in an attempt to have a better understanding of how the Orthodox church approaches iconography, let's first address the word icon. What does it even mean? To understand its source, let's go all the way back to the account of creation. In Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, we read, and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. This word image in the original Hebrew is the word Selem. When this word was later translated into the Greek Septuagin translation, the word used was ikona. It is from this root word that today we have the English word icon, simply meaning an image. And so if we dare say the concept of creating icons or images began with God the Pantocrato as the first divine iconographer who created humanity in his own image. Even our Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate word of God, and his humanity was also called the perfect image of the Father. We received this from St Paul who speaks of our incarnate Lord in Colossians chapter 1 and says he is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation. And so just as God creates humanity as the visible expression of his image within all of creation, so to the church continued in this tradition of expressing the experience and revelation of God through imagery, also known as iconography. This is done through icons of our Lord Jesus Christ who came and manifested himself visibly in human form through his incarnation, icons of the Holy Virgin Mother Saint Mary, icons of the angels, saints, martyrs, and other major events that are seen as significant moments in both scriptural and ecclesial history. Now I can already see how some people will immediately raise an eyebrow and say, but what about the Ten Commandments? You see if you have ever read scripture before, surely you have come across the book of Exodus. In this book we find the very popular passage where God gives Moses his commandments for the people of Israel. Among these we find a very interesting commandment that many like to reference when they argue that we ought not use icons within our expression of Orthodox worship. The passage in question is Exodus chapter 20 verse 4, you shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. And so some would argue because today we find icons in the church and in our homes that all these qualify as the very images which Exodus 20 warns against. However the Orthodox response to this would be that clearly this verse has been taken completely out of context. Let's see the entire passage put together including if you wish both the verses that come before and after the one that we just read. Let's take a look at it together. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or what is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. This is Exodus 20 verses 1 through 5. When placed in its proper context we discover that the Lord is preoccupied not so much with imagery in and of itself but rather the worship of anything other than himself the one true God. He is speaking to a people who have just come out of Egypt where they saw men and women bow down to pagan idols, to statues, to mural paintings and where these same people both saw and learned to offer sacrifices to these false gods of Egypt. The Lord therefore is not speaking out against the use of imagery icons as we have explained but rather he is speaking out against the worship of anything that is false and demonic. He is clearly warning them that they ought not worship anything created but rather worship him who is creator. Now we have seen that the Lord doesn't want his people worshipping other false gods. However some may ask how do we know that the Lord was not specifically speaking out against imagery per se? Well this is made very clear to us and the account of the building of the Tabernacle. The book of Exodus gives a clear account of how the Lord is the great artist who commands Moses as to how every aspect of the Tabernacle will be designed with artistic care using gold and silver, fine linen and where images of heavenly creatures such as the Cherubim are depicted. The Lord even goes to great length to even instill in the hearts of specific people the gift of being able to artistically craft out the Tabernacle that the Lord has designed. Let's read from the book of Exodus together. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, see I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri the son of her of the tribe of Judah and I have filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom in understanding in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship to design artistic works to work in gold in silver in bronze in cutting jewels for setting in carving wood and to work in all manner of workmanship and I indeed I have appointed with him a holiab the son of Ahisamak of the tribe of Dan and I have put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans that they may make all that I have commanded you. Notice how he is the one the Lord is the one who has placed us in their hearts. Again Exodus 36 then all the gifted artisans among them who worked on the Tabernacle made ten curtains who woven of fine linen and of blue purple and scarlet thread with artistic designs of Cherubim they made them notice how they put images of Cherubim and again he Bezalel made two Cherubim of beaten gold he made them of one piece at the end at the two ends of the mercy seat one Cherub at one end on the side and the other Cherub at the other end on that side he made the Cherubim at the two ends of one piece with the mercy seat the Cherubim spread out their wings above and covered the mercy seat with their wings they faced one another the faces of the Cherubim were toward the mercy seat. Now if the Lord's commandment were solely focused on the banishment of all imagery then how can we explain that the Lord not only commands the use of imagery to beautify the Tabernacle but he also asked for specific people when he has called by name people equipped with gifts and talents to do the work that he has set out to be done. I believe from these passages and in reading the primary passage of the commandment against the use of graven images we have clearly demonstrated that scripture in no way condemns the use of imagery within the liturgical life of the church but rather it condemns the worship of created things instead of the Almighty God. As for questions such as why the importance of icons their purpose and value in the church we will address those subjects in another separate video. 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