February 3, 2025 Show with Jerry Johnson: “An Open Conversation”

Opening Banter and Program Introduction

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this third day of February, 2025.

I am absolutely thrilled to have a frequently returning guest on the program today, an old friend of mine that should be no stranger to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience. That is Jerry Johnson, who is a world-renowned Reformed Christian apologist, a documentarian, and he is most well-known for writing and co-producing the documentary Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism.

And today, Jerry just wanted to have an open conversation with me where we addressed multiple topics, and that actually gives the listener the opportunity to send in a question on any issue they would like to ask.

So our email address, if you'd like to do that, is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back once again on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jerry Johnson.

Thank you, brother. Good to be here. I would ask you, how was your Christmas? But you were in the hospital, weren't you?

Yeah, thanks for bringing up that depressing memory.

I've been there, brother. I was in there for 45 days.

Wow.

And I hated every minute of it.

I believe it. Well, I have to constantly remind myself that there are people on this planet who have a lot more difficult time in life than I do. And that was really nothing. It's not like I was having major surgery or anything.

But I was in the hospital for seven days. And I did spend Christmas Day also in the hospital. But I did have also some wonderful Christian friends visit me. And I'm glad that I'm out of there, especially because the food was so horrendous.

But I can tell you that the nurses were all absolutely delightful and kind and patient and patient with the patient. Excuse me. I was in there just for those of you who don't know. I had, and I guess I still have to some level, congestive heart failure.

But my condition is getting better every day through the medication I'm taking, I'm assuming. And I don't even really feel like I have anything as serious as that right now as far as symptoms go. But I will keep you updated.

In fact, continue to pray for me, please. As I do have a blood clot in my heart and in my lung. And the medication I'm taking is supposed to dissolve those. It may take up to five months, they told me.

It could take less, could take more. But once I find out the diagnosis on that, when they are finally dissolved, I will let you know.

Hey brother, I don't know if you can believe this, but coming up this Friday, it'll be six years since I had the stroke.

Wow, that's hard to believe.

Yeah, time goes by fast when you're not having fun.

Yeah, right.

Idolatry, the Second Commandment, and Images of Jesus

Well, you wanted to have an open conversation today, which is basically the same thing that we did a couple of times at least in the past with a different title. We called it Uncle Jerry's Hodgepodge Lodge.

But this is basically the same thing, an open conversation. And why don't you start off the conversation with one of the issues that you had in your mind when we arranged this interview?

All right, brother, I wrote something that I think people really need to think well upon. And you see this in a lot of your dispensational Arminian Baptist churches, but you see it all across Christendom.

And I wrote this, I'm going to quote it for you. If one reads the Old Testament, one quickly realizes that idolatry always tripped up Old Testament Israel. Now, I don't think anybody can dispute that.

Whenever Old Testament Israel got involved in idolatry, Israel went down the wrong path. And they started doing things like sacrificing their children to different idols. Even if they—hold on, I'm sorry.

While you're looking at whatever you're looking at, they even did so when they were eyewitnesses to God dramatically manifesting Himself on this earth in all kinds of miraculous ways. And they still wound up abandoning Him and doing their own thing.

Right. Brother, just an offshoot here. People can think about this. But when you think about the time that Moses went up to Mount Sinai, and Jacob stood at the foot of the mountain—Joshua, I'm sorry. Joshua stood at the foot of the mountain, and they came down, and the children of Israel had made this idol, and they were having a worship service.

It sounded like a crazy worship service, you know? And Joshua immediately said, it sounds like war. I always think about that with some of these charismatic worship services. It sounded like war. That's what he thought.

So anyway, just for people to think about that. But this is one thing that kind of bothers me. Because I watch—when I work out in the morning, I do the treadmill. You see it behind me. There it is. And even when I'm in the afternoon, when I'm working out with weights, I usually listen to a sermon or something.

And a lot of these videos are really good, but what they'll do is they will have images of some hippie that they identify as Jesus. And he's a white Anglo-Saxon European, and he has blonde hair and blue eyes.

And I'm sitting there, and I'm looking at that, and I'm thinking, how are we not doing the same thing in the church today? We have idols all over the place. And, you know, knowing that that tripped up Old Testament Israel, we've left the Church of Rome.

And one of the things that the Reformers, especially Calvin, that he railed against—if you read his Institutes, he talks about the idolatry. And, you know, here we are. We have pictures of some hippie up in church.

I remember one time, Tracy and I, we were with the kids, and we went on vacation. And after the call to worship, the youth group was selling T-shirts because they were going to go to some thing. I don't remember even what it was.

This was like 20 years ago. And one of the T-shirts they had was a hippie in a gown flying through the air with a basketball in his hand. And underneath it, you know, how it would say, Air Jordan, it said, Air Jesus.

And they were selling that T-shirt, and I thought, that is gross. I can't believe that they're taking the Lord. I mean, when John saw a vision of the risen Lord, he fell down at his feet as dead. And here we are trivializing it.

Right. Even if there was no picture of Jesus on that, what did you say, it was a T-shirt?

Yeah.

Even if there was no drawing or artwork depicting Jesus on the shirt, the slogan itself is blasphemous. And there are many, there are many T-shirts and bumper stickers over the last, I don't know how many decades they've been doing this.

But you still see them like this bloods for you instead of Budweiser. And, you know, you could go on and on and on with things like that, that are on different levels of being extremely distasteful. But, yeah, I know, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah, I've been in churches before where they have, again, some hippie with long hair and maybe a beard hanging on the wall, a picture of him, a painted picture. And they call that Jesus. And I, you know, I'm sorry, it's not Jesus.

Now, I'm assuming by your, I kind of can tell the root of your disagreement is really the Second Commandment. Now, because today, I don't know how long this has been going on. But let's say within the past 10 years, people who have done movies, TV specials and other things depicting Jesus have wised up to the fact that the the paintings that we've seen in the Renaissance, which have been duplicated as far as the way Jesus looks all the way up through the 21st century, that just as you were mentioning the blonde haired, blue eyed, handsome Jesus, we remember the Bible says that there was nothing comely about him, that men might be drawn to him.

So so we know from the Bible that he wasn't handsome, especially not especially not stunningly Hollywood handsome. But but lately, they've been at least making him look Semitic, like an Israelite. And they may typically have shortened his hair.

Not that it's necessarily short hair, but it's not as long as it used to be. Does that bother you just as much?

Yes, it does. What I would say when I tell people if God wanted us to know what Christ looked like, he would have had digital cameras or at least polaroids invented in the first century. But you're you're right.

You're quoting Isaiah 53 to which reads I'm going to read from the New American Standard Bible. He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of the parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him nor appearance that we should be attracted to him.

And, you know, the thing is. These these older images or the one that's the most popular that has him looking like a lily white boy. You said it. He was probably resembled his mother and his mother was Semitic.

So I'm sorry. Semitic can be any type of Middle Eastern. And he definitely wasn't a white European. But, you know, years ago when I took psychology, I think it was the professor was talking about and he wasn't talking about Christianity.

He was talking about really any type of religion, how eventually the gods that they depicted ended up looking like them. And so if you go back, the first time you see Christ depicted with a beard or the image that is supposedly Christ was around the fourth century.

Now, would it have not been very logical that he had a beard since he was a Jewish male?

I mean, more than likely, yes. But that was the first time they depicted him with a beard.

OK.

All right. I've seen I've done a little bit of research and I would encourage other people maybe to research this more than I have. But you've got I mean, anywhere from the the second to the sixth century, depending on who you read, late second century, all the way up to the sixth.

They will debate images of Christ, supposedly of Christ. And my one thing is, if you look at the second commandment, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, that is in the earth beneath or that is on water under the earth.

And so it excludes everything. You can't make a graven image. This is just totally preposterous. And I'm sitting there reading the Old Testament and I'm thinking, how in the world can the professing Protestant Reformed Church and I'm not sure Reformed people are doing it.

Oh, yeah.

R .C. Sproul, which I'm assuming it's still there at the St. Andrew's Chapel, had a giant painting of Jesus's face right there in the narthex or the hallway or not the hallway, the the lobby of the church.

As soon as you walk into the church building, it's there and it's giant. I'm talking. Unless unless my memory is faulty, I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 foot tall or something like that.

But you say that really surprises me.

Well, he was he was he was he had more of a Lutheran view of these things in the Lutherans.

And I've read Luther's view and I love Luther. But Luther was wrong, you know.

Right. Now, no. Let me just go back to the very wording of the commandment. Now, this may make you mad at me. But I have not been. In fact, I don't recall ever having been radically opposed to images of Jesus in books and things like that, you know, illustrated books, because the commandment, in my opinion, is specifically referring to bowing down.

I got to confess that's something that I have because I've had that question before.

Because if you if you took if you took the commandment, if you took the commandment, if you took the commandment in a very strict, literal sense, you would not have a painting of anything on your wall, a bird, a fish.

Your wife in your wallet.

Right. Right. In fact, I think that's one of the reasons the Amish don't. I think that they're misinterpreting that to a hyper. Iconoclast degree. But I don't. I don't look down upon or. Or because problems with my brethren who disagree with me on that, in fact, the very church where I'm a member.

Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlyle, Pennsylvania, they have your view.

Yeah, the one thing I would say is, OK, I don't believe that means image of your wife or your children or anything like that or your house. But I do believe there is an action there that you're not to bow down because it doesn't want to say thou shall not bow down to them nor serve them.

For I, the Lord, thy God, am a jealous God. Now, here's something that the reason people ought to think about this. Well, visiting the iniquities. See, the visiting the iniquities is tied on with images that you're worshiping.

Now, the only thing I would say is if you see the most popular picture that's out there and you have that image in your mind when you're praying or something, are you not therefore committing idolatry?

So that's the only thing I would say. What if you're thinking about that? What if you're drawing that middle picture in your head? I saw this picture in such and such a book, and that's who I'm praying to.

How is that not mental idolatry? It's kind of hard not to unsee it.

Yeah, to further clarify my view, and by the way, it's not like a rigid view. I'm very teachable on this, but I do not believe that we should have images of Jesus in the same worship area where people are conducting their worship services because mainly.

Of the fact that many religions that like the Roman Catholic Church in Eastern Orthodoxy that have these images of Jesus, whether it be paintings or three dimensional statues or icons like the Eastern Orthodox have that are.

Right.

Less than three dimensional. People who are who are members of those religions do worship those images. Now, they say that they don't. They say that they only venerate them. There's no difference. There's no difference in.

I would agree.

Right.

So I'm not I'm not a fan of that. I don't like. Paintings of Jesus that make him look like a Swede or a black man either, because, you know, he wasn't from Africa. He was from Israel. And or if if I saw one where he looked Chinese or something, I wouldn't I wouldn't be a favor of that either.

I'm just saying that I'm just less radically opposed to that idea of like in a children's book even or I have myself, although it's been a while since I've done it. I have set up nativity scenes in my home with a little tiny statues of Mary Joseph and the baby Jesus.

And I've never for even a split second venerated that little tiny statue of Jesus in the manger. But anyway, that's just where I'm coming from.

Let me quote to you the larger catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith. I'm sorry, the smaller catechism. Question number 50. And I'm going to quote to you the answer, because the question is, what is required in the second commandment?

The answer is the second commandment requires the receiving, observing and keeping pure and entire all religious worship and ordinances as God has appointed. Now, this is what reformed people call the regular principle of worship.

We only worship God by what he has revealed. Not by any suggestion of the flesh or of Satan, but only what his word reveals. And remember, the sons of Aaron, they came up with this, what I call, I tell people it was a new and exciting way to worship God.

They didn't think they were doing anything wrong. But it was a fire. They put a strange fire on the altar that God had not commanded them.

Yes, I have. I have often wanted to put a sign in Roman Catholic churches where they light the candles with the saint statue above the candles. I've always wanted to sneak into Catholic churches and put a sign below the candles.

That said, in loving memory of Nadab in a bayou. I've never done it, but I've always wanted to.

You know, that is just one thing I do not understand, is how the Roman Catholic church can have all these images. But the Protestant church, at least today, is doing the same thing.

By the way, before I forget, you might really enjoy, and so may our listeners, and you may learn from a debate that I organized. I can't remember how long ago it was. It was probably 20 years ago, somewhere in that neighborhood.

I organized a debate between James White and Roman Catholic apologist Patrick Madrid. And the theme was the veneration of Mary, saints, images, and relics. And I thought James really clearly won the day.

Is that debate online?

Yes, you can find it on YouTube. Type in. James White debates Patrick Madrid on venerating images.

That would be a good thing to watch. Because I went to Catholic school, just to let your readers know. I know they're probably falling over right now. But I can remember we would have necklaces of St. Christopher.

And we would have his image on there. I don't know if that was his image, actually, or if that was an actual representation of him. But you had...

And Vatican II actually came out and said he didn't exist. Yeah.

I heard that. They did away with that now. But St. Christopher was supposed to be the patron saint of travelers or something like that. So let me read to you the Westminster Confession of Faith, a shorter catechism, question number 51.

What is forbidden in the Second Commandment? The Second Commandment forbids the worshiping of God by images or any other way not appointed in His Word. And do you possibly do like you were talking about?

See, that's the only thing I have. Could movies or documentaries or anything like that... I will let you know, there are some images in Amazing Grace. Now, I wasn't the editor of it. I was the writer.

And I opposed using images in there. But as time went on, they started doing that. But I asked them, you know, because we know Christ was a man. We know He had a body. We know He had hands and feet and a head.

We don't know anything else. We don't know His facial features. We don't know anything beyond that. So, oh, wow.

Well, we've got to go to our first commercial break. And if anybody wants to join us with a question for my guest today, Jerry Johnson, world-renowned Reformed Christian apologist and documentarian, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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We get 100 of the profits, and I am actually interviewing someone today, Jerry Johnson, who did that very thing when he needed a gift for his wife for her birthday. How long ago was that? Was that about a year ago?

I think that was two years ago, brother, and I will let your listeners know that Royal Diadem saved my butt. I always forget Tracy's birthday. Now, just for any men out there listening, you can never go wrong getting jewelry for a woman.

You never can. They love it. And what happened was I realized.

Probably.

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And her birthday was only five days away when I called. But by the time I got done picking what I liked, it was like three days. And they got it here in two days. So I had it a full day before I gave it to her, and I was the hero that time.

Yep, so they did a real good job. It was very reasonably priced, and it did kind of make me glad to know that Iron Sharpens Iron got 100 of the profits.

Yes, we did. And it was.

Quite a.

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My wife has been moving. We're coming up on our 37th wedding anniversary. So she deserves that. She's had to put up with me for 37 years.

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Go to royaldiadem .com and don't forget to mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. So we're now back with Jerry Johnson before the break during this interview today, which is an open conversation, and you could ask a question on any topic, but we were discussing the Second Commandment and what would actually be an indication that you have violated that, as many religions do, especially within Christendom, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but as Jerry was saying, there are evangelical Protestants who, some of them almost have an identical view of images and worship, with the exception that most don't venerate these images.

But anyway, if you want to pick up where you left off.

Yeah, the only thing, I just want people to think well upon it, because they've got these images of a hippie, and a lot of churches don't make those images in your mind when you're praying, because we don't know what Christ looked like.

We don't know if he had a beard, he probably did, we don't know what color his eyes are, though we can guess, but if, like I said earlier, if God would have wanted us to know what Christ looked like, he would have had digital cameras or Polaroids invented in the first century, and he did it.

So, a lot of these images that have facial features or anything like that, are they not a violation of the second commandment? And are they not what the church was remonstering against? Remonstering against?

Protesting against? And I think they were.

And just to let you folks know, even in the movie created by Mel Gibson, The Passion of the Christ, he failed at the biblical test by hiring Jim Caviezel to portray Christ because Jim Caviezel, although they threw makeup and prosthetics on his face, made him look Semitic, let's face it, I even as a heterosexual male can say Jim Caviezel's a very handsome guy.

And that violates the biblical description that we mentioned before, which is in a prophecy of Isaiah saying that there was nothing comely about him, and it's referring to the Messiah Jesus. Comely, of course, meaning handsome, physically attractive.

And on top of that, Mel Gibson is a traditionalist Roman Catholic, so he had no qualms about any kind of image obviously. But anyway, did you want to continue on that topic, or do you have anything else that you wanted to bring up?