What Is The Iconoclastic Controversy?

The iconoclastic controversy began in mid 700 A.D. It was a religious dispute between Christians on whether icons, paintings, mosaics, statues, etc. should be allowed in the church. One side felt there was a need for icons in the church while the other side felt that icons in the church turned the focus of worship away from God and into idolatry. Both sides had a point but there was much dispute in the early church as to what was the correct theology.

Icons had been a large part of the church for hundreds of years but to some the worship service seemed too close to idol worship. Interestingly, one of the reasons that icons in the church became an issue is because the Muslims began accusing Christians of being idol worshippers,
One subject that it discusses often is the issue of idol worship. God commands us to not worship idols or anything other than Him. When He gave Moses the Ten Commandments the first two were about idol worship.

Then 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 slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD you God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Exodus
Throughout the Bible God proves to the people that He is a jealous God by punishing them in many ways when they turned from Him and worshipped graven images. In medieval times, during the iconoclastic controversy, the Christians were not necessarily making graven images. They had paintings and statues which they claimed were images of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Using verses like Colossians 1:15 (He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.), many iconodules believed that icons in the church helped their worship. They believed that the paintings of Jesus gave them a true picture of who God is and that it could better help them worship Him. For some of them, seeing the picture was proof that God was indeed real. However, Isaiah 40:18 says, “To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him?”. God is infinite and powerful and no one has ever truly seen Him. Even when Moses asked to see His likeness, God would not fully show Himself to him as His greatness was too much for Moses’ finite being to comprehend( Exodus 33:17-23). The iconoclasts believed that no one should try to create an image of God. They believed that when using icons in a worship service, the worship was to the icon itself and not what the icon represented. In the end, to appease both sides, church leaders decided to promote using crosses as decorations