THE USE OF THE IMAGINATION IN WORSHIP

One of the most terrifying places for me is on the dentist chair. What do I do? I pray! How? Well, I find myself conjuring up in my mind images of Jesus extending His arms to me. However, I then recall the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman:

·       But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24 ESV)

This makes me think that perhaps I shouldn’t be exercising my imagination by conjuring up comforting images. Perhaps instead I have to trust in my Savior through His truths, the Words He has given us to trust. Truth is not a matter of man’s imagination but the inviolable property of God.

However, mystics often claim that if we imagine that we are in contact with God, then we will be. They believe that we can get what we want from God through the exercise of our imagination. In Celebration of Disciple, mystic Richard Foster insists that:

·       As with meditation, the imagination is a powerful tool in the work of prayer. We may be reticent to pray with the imagination, feeling that it is slightly beneath us. Children have no such reticence. (172)

·       Since we know that Jesus is always with us, let’s imagine that he is sitting over in the chair across from us. He is waiting patiently for us to centre our attention on him. When we see him, we start thinking more about His love than how sick Julie is. He smiles, gets up, and comes over to us. Then, let’s put both our hands on Julie and when we do, Jesus will put His hands on top of ours. We’ll watch the light from Jesus flow into your little sister and make her well. (173)

Do we have scriptural permission to imagine and channel Jesus in this manner? According to the renowned theologian, J.I. Packer, we do not:

·       How should we form our thoughts about God? Not only can we not imagine Him adequately, since he is at every point greater than we can grasp; we dare not trust anything our imagination suggests about him, for the built-in habit of fallen minds is to scale God down. (Growing in Christ; 243)

Although the imagination can be used profitably in other areas, Scripture never gives us the freedom to use imagination in worship, as Jeremiah warned:

·       This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, 'The Lord says: You will have peace.' And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts [“walketh after the imagination of his own heart;” KJV] they say, 'No harm will come to you.'” (Jeremiah 23:16-17; Ezekiel 13:2, 17; Luke 1:51; 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (KJV))

Packer points out that the prohibition against the use of imagination is actually inscribed in the Ten Commandments:

·       Hence, the second commandment, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything.” This forbids… imagining the true God as like yourself or something lower. God’s real attack is on mental images… If imagination leads out thoughts about God, we too shall go astray. No statement starting, “This is how I like to think of God” should ever be trusted. An imagined God will always be more or less imaginary and unreal. (244)

How strange the theology that insists that we shouldn’t worship material images but then encourages us to worship the images of our imagination! Consequently, we are not free to worship our God in any manner that feels right to us. Instead, worship must be grounded in scriptural truth, as Jesus insisted (John 4:23-24).

We must worship God in truth, according to who he is. This is not optional; it’s a requirement. We have no permission to imagine the God we would like to worship. Likewise, I am not free to love my wife using the mental images of my first flame. Instead, I must love her for who she is in truth! Nothing else will satisfy her or any other relationship.

Packer redirects the reader back to the Second Commandment for another look:

·       “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or 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. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)

Ours is not an indulgent God but a jealous and chastening one who demands our complete allegiance. (A love that does not jealously protect the beloved is not a love):

·       And how should we keep this one [commandment]? By reining in our disordered imaginations and reverently accepting that God is as he says he is. How unready and slow we are to do that! Yet we must learn to do it; for it is only as rose-colored fantasy is abandoned, and realism takes its place, that true worship – worship, that is, in truth – can begin. (Packer, 245)

To not rein in our imaginations is a form of idolatry, a worship of another God. This is forbidden by the first two Commandments. Moses explained:

·       “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female…” (Deuteronomy 4:15-16)

God purposely didn’t manifest Himself physically to Israel at Mt. Sinai (Horeb) lest Israel would try to visually depict what they had seen and worship their depiction. God hadn’t forbidden the creation of all images but just those that Israel might worship. Instead, He had commanded Israel to make images of cherubim for His Temple (Exodus 25:18-20).

Besides, if Israel were to make any object meant to represent God, it would inevitably have become one elevated for worship. There was even a danger that objects like the sun could be turned into objects of worship, as Moses had warned just a few verses later:

·       “And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.” (Deuteronomy 4:19)

The “sun and moon and stars” weren’t the problems but how Israel might regard them. This also demonstrated that mere created images weren’t the problem but the use that Israel might make of them. We can even see problems arising from our portraits of Jesus. Our Black, White, or Asian Jesus leads to division and deflects from what is really important – the Words of our Lord and the true worship of Him.

I am convinced that conjuring up mental images of Jesus is idolatrous. Consequently, when I’m on the hated dentist’s chair, I remind myself of His scriptural assurances:

·       “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you…” (Isaiah 43:4-5)