Three chapters can be accessed by clicking their titles below:

The History of the Passion Plays

The Theology of the Passion Plays

The Cross of Christ

Chapter 2
THE THEOLOGY
OF THE PASSION PLAYS

The spiritual dimension of the Christian life is largely dependent upon its intellectual content. What we comprehend with our minds we seek to experience in our religious life. A healthy religious life is largely dependant on a correct understanding of Bible teachings. Diligent study of the Bible has kept many Christians from being blown away by every wind of doctrine. However, today the tendency is to seek meaning and spiritual renewal not through the study of the Bible, but through subjective experiences.
Our society values emotions over cognition or action. We hear people say, “I need to experience this movie or this play to revive my faith.” “Let us get away from the study of doctrines and experience Christ.” “I am not bothered by the biblical and theological errors found in Gibson’s movie on The Passion of the Christ, because the film moves me to accept Christ anyway.”
The problem with this reasoning is the failure to recognize that being moved by Christ’s brutal sufferings is not the same as being His disciple. A religious experience based on faulty theology is like physical health built on junk food. If we feed our body unhealthy food, we live an unhealthy life, which ultimately leads to a premature death. Similarly, if we fill our mind with unbiblical teachings and manipulated emotional experiences, our religious life will be unhealthy and superstitious, ultimately causing us to lose eternal life.
In surveying the historical origin and development of the Passion Plays during the past seven centuries, we noted some of the unbiblical Catholic beliefs that have inspired the staging of such plays. The average viewers of a Passion Play or of Gibson’s movie may not realize that what they see today is not a mere reenactment of the final events of Christ’s life as described in the Gospels, but the outgrowth of centuries of superstitious Catholic beliefs, largely based on popular myths rather than on biblical teachings. The popular acceptance of such superstitious beliefs has fostered an idolatrous piety designed to placate a punitive God by imitating Christ’s suffering and by appealing to the meritorious intercession of Mary and the saints.
To bring into sharper focus the major unbiblical beliefs and practices embedded in Passion Plays such as Gibson’s movie, in this chapter we will discuss more fully the theological significance of six major teachings that have emerged in our historical survey. Our focus will be not on the historical origin and development of these teachings—already surveyed in the previous chapter—but on their theological significance. The intent is to help truth-seekers better understand the theological import of the deceptive teachings that have been blindly embraced by millions of sincere Christians through the centuries. Six deceptive, unbiblical teachings will be considered:
1. The Devotion to Christ’s Passion
2. The Passion and the Catholic Mass
3. The Satisfaction Views of the Atonement
4. The Co-Redemptive Role of Mary
5. The Portrayal and Impersonation of Christ
6. The “Christian” Theology of Anti-Semitism
THE DEVOTION TO CHRIST’S PASSION
In tracing the origin of the Passion Plays, we found that the devotion to Christ’s Passion, especially to His wounds, played a major role in staging dramatic portrayals of Christ’s suffering and death. Bernard of Clairvaux, and especially Francis of Assisi, contributed in a significant way to the promotion of a popular piety based on devotion to and imitation of Christ’s physical suffering. Francis claimed to have received the stigmata—the very wounds of Christ. The belief in suffering like Christ as a sure way to glory gave rise to the Passion Plays which focus on Christ’s physical sufferings.
The fundamental problem with the mystical devotion to Christ’s physical sufferings, especially to His wounds, is the morbid and idolatrous veneration of Christ’s human body, rather than obedience to His teachings and dependance upon His heavenly intercessory ministry. Historically, devout believers have focused on Christ’s physical wounds as having merit of their own, largely ignoring His incarnation, teaching ministry, Resurrection, Ascension, and heavenly ministry. They have looked primarily at the suffering Christ on the Cross, while ignoring the glorified Christ interceding for them in the heavenly sanctuary.
Lay people have sought salvation by imitating the physical sufferings of Christ as portrayed in the Passion Plays. This belief has led people to whip themselves and wound their bodies in order to atone for their sins and to placate the wrath of God. This practice still continues today in many Catholic countries. The notion that believers can atone for their sins, by imitating Christ’s physical suffering, ultimately makes salvation a human achievement rather than a divine gift of grace. For these poor souls, Christ’s suffering and death have served at best as an example for them to follow in order to become their own redeemers.
Jesus’ call to follow Him by taking up His cross (Mark 8:34) is not a summons to self-flagellation, but to self-denial and self-control. This entails overcoming sinful habits by His enabling grace, and being willing “to suffer persecution for the cross of Christ” (Gal 6:12). The suffering of the Christian life derives not from self-inflicted bruises or wounds, but from living in accordance with the moral principles Christ has revealed.
A Christian who lives an upright, moral lifestyle can often become the object of ridicule, rejection, and persecution in a society where biblical moral teachings are largely rejected. It was the witnessing for Christ that sometimes resulted in martyrdom in the early church. In Greek, the same word is used for being a witness (marturia) and for being a martyr (martureo). The reason is that in New Testament times, witnessing for Christ by refusing to worship the emperor and to participate in pagan amusements and lifestyle often resulted in martyrdom.
THE PASSION AND THE CATHOLIC MASS
The devotion to Christ’s Passion derives from the Catholic view of the Mass as a small-scale Passion Play. In fact, the Mass has been rightly called “The Animated Crucifx.”1 According to Catholic teachings, the celebration of the Mass is a reenactment of Christ’s suffering and death. The Mass is a re-crucifixion of our Lord daily. Each time the Mass is offered, the sacrifice of Christ is repeated. When the priest consecrates the bread and wine (Eucharist), the elements are transformed into the physical body and blood of Jesus, which are offered to God as a repetition of Christ’s sacrifice for sinners. Thus the priest has the power to repeat Christ’s sacrifice every time the Mass is celebrated.
The Catholic belief in the salvific value of the reenactment of Christ’s sacrifice at the Mass, dramatized through Passion Plays, has led people to believe that they can appropriate the redemptive value of Christ’s suffering and death by imitating and participating in the Savior’s suffering. Such a belief gained prominence in the thirteenth century when Europe was ravaged by multiple calamities, wars, and diseases like the Black Plague, which claimed over twenty million lives. These calamities were seen by many as divine punishment for human rebellion.
To atone for their sins and to ward off the wrath of God, many sincere people sought various ways to imitate Christ’s sufferings by acting out His Passion, whipping themselves, and inflicting bruises and wounds on their bodies. By imitating Christ’s sufferings, they hoped to atone for their sins and to placate God’s wrath. The outcome of this superstitious piety was not only spiritual pride, as people displayed their self-inflicted wounds, but also a denial of the biblical teachings regarding the all-sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice (Heb 9:24-26).
The Detrimental Impact of the Mass
It is impossible to estimate the detrimental impact of the Mass on popular beliefs and piety. The notion that Christ must be sacrificed again and again at the altar, in order to meet the demands of divine justice turns God into an exacting, sadistic Being who can only be satisfied by the never-ending suffering of His Son and of His followers. This gross misrepresentation of God has done incalculable damage to the Christian faith by fostering a religion of fear rather than of love.
It was the fear of the wrath of God, believed to be manifested in the multiple calamities threatening human lives, that led sincere Christians, like the villagers of Oberammergau, to stage Passion Plays in order to placate an angry God, who threatened to destroy their village with a plague. But nowhere does the Bible teach that God’s anger needs to be placated by staging the suffering of His Son or by parading the self-inflicted wounds of His followers.
The Bible teaches that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19). What God has accomplished through the perfect life and death of His Son is sufficient for our salvation. There is no need for priests or actors to reenact Christ’s sacrifice at the altar or in Passion Plays. Since Christ has “become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people” (Heb 2:17), there is no need to placate God’s wrath by staging Passion Plays or displaying self-inflicted wounds.
THE SATISFACTION VIEWS OF THE ATONEMENT
Extreme Suffering to Satisfy Divine Justice. The central element of both classical Passion Plays and of Gibson’s movie is the relentless brutal whipping and flaying of Jesus’ body until He is reduced to a bloody heap of shredded flesh. The gory scenes of graphic violence in Gibson’s movie are not his artistic invention, but his fundamental theological belief that in order to satisfy divine justice and pay the debt of humankind’s sins, Christ had to suffer in His body and mind the equivalent of the punishment for all the sins of humanity. We noted earlier that this belief has been promoted by mystics like Anne Emmerich, whose writings have inspired the script of The Passion. The graphic images of the brutal torture of Christ will cling to the mind of millions of viewers, intruding upon their prayer life, for better or worse, for many years to come.
The notion that God had to be satisfied or appeased for countless human sins by subjecting His own Son (and His followers) to unspeakable torment is revolting to thinking Christians. In his 1965 Gifford Lectures, published under the title, The Divine Flame, Alister Hardy asks whether Jesus Himself would be a Christian if He were alive today. “I very much doubt,” he replies. “I feel certain that he would not have preached to us of a God who would be appeased by the cruel sacrifice of a tortured body.”2
“This sadistic picture of God,” notes Catholic Professor Philip Cunningham, “is hardly compatible with the God proclaimed by Jesus as the one who seeks for the lost sheep, who welcomes back the prodigal son before he can even express remorse, or who causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust alike. One wonders why it is necessary to communicate God’s love by scenes of unremitting torture. None of the Gospel writers felt obliged to go into such gory details and yet they have communicated God’s love for two millennia. Is it a sign of some cultural pathology that some people are looking forward to the feeling of being actually present at the scourging and crucifixion?”3
This rhetorical question highlights a major “cultural pathology” of our society. Watching the torture and beheading of captured Americans has become such a popular form of entertainment, that thousands of websites are making money by selling video or DVD recordings of such gruesome events. Hollywood knows very well that blood sells. Thus, practically every film that it produces, it is well spiced with blood and violence. Such scenes, however, communicate hate rather than love. This helps us to understand why God has chosen to reveal His love to us by focusing on Christ’s sacrificial death, rather than on His bloody torture.
Satisfying the Devil. During the course of Christian history, different theologians have attempted to explain what demands need to be satisfied by Christ’s sufferings and death in order for God to forgive penitent sinners. The early Greek theologians represented Christ’s suffering and death as primarily a “satisfaction” to the devil, in the sense of being the ransom price demanded by him to release sinners from his captivity.4
The fundamental problem with the “ransom to the devil” theory is that it attributes to the devil rights which God is obliged to satisfy. The notion of Christ’s suffering and death as a necessary transaction to satisfy the devil’s claims over humankind can be rightly dubbed as “intolerable, monstrous, and profane.”5 The devil has no rights over humanity which God is obliged to satisfy. It is hard to believe that this outrageous theory was very popular for many centuries.
Satisfying the Law. The early Latin theologians tried to explain Christ’s suffering and death as a satisfaction of the claims of God’s law. God loves sinners and is eager to save them, but He cannot do it by violating the law which condemns wrongdoers. The violation of the law entails terrible consequences. Thus, Christ’s sufferings and death were necessary to satisfy the demands of God’s law.
There is scriptural support for the law-language, for Paul goes as far as to affirm that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). Nevertheless, we need to be aware of the danger of portraying God as prisoner of His own laws, and thus forced to inflict horrible sufferings and death upon Christ in order to satisfy the demands of His law. Disobedience to God’s moral laws brings condemnation not because God is obligated to enforce His own laws, but because He is the law’s creator.. In God, the law is not an external code, but an internal expression of His own moral being. Whatever is due to the law is due to God Himself, because the law is alive in Him.
Satisfying God’s Honor and Justice. A new approach to the satisfaction view of the atonement, which relates more directly to the theology of the Passion Plays, was developed in the eleventh century by Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury (1033-1109). In his epoch-making book Cur Deus Homo? (that is, Why God Became Man), he explains Christ’s suffering and death as a satisfaction of God’s offended honor. Anselm portrays God according to the feudal mentality of his time, in which feudal lords demanded honor and severely punished their inferior subjects for violating the code of conduct expected of them. Anselm reasoned that since sinners cannot repay what they owe to God for dishonoring Him, it was necessary for Christ, the God-man, to make reparation to the offended honor of God.
Anselm must be credited for recognizing the extreme gravity of sin, the holiness of God who cannot condone any violation of His honor, and the unique capacity of Christ, as the God-man, to meet the demands of divine justice. Unfortunately, his feudal mentality took him beyond the boundaries of biblical revelation by speculating that Christ had to suffer the exact equivalent of the punishment due for all of humankind’s sins.
Similarly, the Reformers’ emphasis on justification led them to stress the need for Christ to satisfy the demands of divine justice through the severity of His suffering and death. In his Institutes, Calvin wrote that it was necessary for Christ “to undergo the severity of God’s vengeance, to appease his wrath and satisfy his just judgment.”6
The mystics embraced and expanded this satisfaction view of the atonement by emphasizing the extreme sufferings Christ had to bear in order to meet the demands of divine justice for all of humankind’s sins. This view is graphically portrayed in Passion Plays such as Gibson’s movie, in which Christ is relentlessly and brutally tortured to death in order to meet the demands of divine justice.
God Satisfying Himself. The notion that Christ had to suffer exceedingly more than any human being in order to satisfy the demands of God’s law for all human sin presents God as a sadistic, exacting, and punitive Judge bound by a law outside Himself—a law that controls His actions. To satisfy the demands of His law for the sins of humanity, God was forced to compel Christ to suffer brutal torture unto death.
The problem with such a view of the atonement—popularized by mystical literature and portrayed in Passion Plays—is the failure to recognize that the necessity of satisfaction arises not from the punitive nature of God, or from an external law to which God is subjected, but from the law within God Himself, the law of His immutable character. The law which God must satisfy is the law of His own Being.
It is true that the Bible speaks of the Lord laying upon the Suffering Servant all our iniquities (Is 53:6), of sending His Son to atone for our sins (1 John 4:9-11; Acts 2:23), and of making “him . . . to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). But none of these texts implies that Christ was an unwilling victim of God’s harsh justice. God was active in and through Christ’s suffering and death.
John Stott rightly remarks that “We must not speak of God punishing Jesus or of Jesus persuading God, for to do so is to set them over against each other as if they acted independently of each other or were even in conflict with each other. We must never make Christ the object of God’s punishment or God the object of Christ’s persuasion, for both God and Christ were subjects not objects, taking the initiative together to save sinners. . . . The Father did not lay on the Son an ordeal he was reluctant to bear, nor did the Son extract from the Father a salvation He was reluctant to bestow.”7
The unity between God and Christ in the work of salvation is expressed in some of Paul’s great statements about reconciliation. For example, in referring to the work of new creation, Paul says, “all this is from God,” who “in Christ was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:18-19; Col 1:19-20; 2:9). Both the Father and the Son were active together in the work of reconciliation. This unity makes it possible for Paul to speak of “the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28, NKJV). Though God Himself did not die on the Cross, His blood is mentioned because God was in Christ throughout the ordeal of the Cross.
The Cross was not a legal transaction in which a meek Christ suffers the harsh punishment imposed by a punitive Father for the sins of humanity. It was not the exact equivalent of the punishment of all of humankind’s sins; nor was it a securing of our salvation by a loving Christ from a mean and reluctant God. Instead, the Cross reveals how the righteous and loving Father was willing through His Son to become flesh and suffer the punishment of our sins in order to redeem us without compromising His own character. “The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying Himself by substituting Himself for us.”8
Passion Plays Distort the Atonement. The biblical vision of God and Christ actively working together in the work of reconciliation is missing in the Passion Plays. What is portrayed instead is Jesus as a helpless victim being brutally tortured to death in order to satisfy the demands of a harsh and punitive God. In Gibson’s movie, the sadistic nature of God is reflected not only in the relentless brutality of the torture inflicted upon Christ’s body throughout the movie to satisfy the demands of His justice, but also in the cruel punishment of the thief on the Cross. After Jesus prayed, “Forgive them, Father, for they don’t know what they do” (Luke 23:34), a crow swoops down and devours the eyes of the impenitent thief.
There is a clear contrast between Jesus asking for forgiveness for the thief and God sending a crow to devour the thief’s eyes. Such a contrast creates a false dichotomy between a forgiving, compassionate Christ and a vengeful, merciless God. This dichotomy is unbiblical, because Christ is not an independent third person, but the eternal Son of God who is one with the Father in creation, redemption, and final restoration.
The problem with the drama of the Cross as portrayed in Passion Plays such as Gibson’s movie is the role played by too many independent actors. There is God, the punitive Judge; Christ, the innocent victim; Mary, the compassionate mother, who supports her Son, participating with Him in the ordeal of the Cross; the guilty party, the Jewish leaders, and the mob clamoring for Christ’s death. Such a construct reflects a defective Christology, because Christ is not an independent third person, but the eternal Son of God, united with the Father in creation, redemption, and final restoration.
A Punitive God Calls for a Compassionate Mary
The notion of God as a harsh, demanding, punitive Judge, whose justice can only be satisfied through the cruel suffering and death of His Son, paved the way for the intercessory role of Mary and the saints. Their role is to soften God’s heart, making Him more willing to forgive and save His erring children. This explains why Mary plays a prominent role in the Passion Plays and in popular Catholic piety. As the mother of God’s Son, she is in a unique position to intercede with God on behalf of sinners.
The notion of God as a harsh, punitive judge, who can be influenced by mediation of third parties like Mary and the saints, is foreign to the Bible, where we read: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). In the biblical drama of the Cross, there are not four actors, but only two—ourselves, the sinners, on the one hand, and God in Christ on the other. This truth is expressed in those New Testament passages which speak of Christ’s death as the death of God’s Son: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16); God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Rom 8:32); “We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10). Texts such as these indicate that in giving His Son, God gave Himself. There is no separation between the two.
Through the person of His Son, God Himself bore the punishment which He Himself inflicted. As R. W. Dale puts it: “The mysterious unity of the Father and the Son rendered it possible for God at once to endure and to inflict penal suffering.”9 This marvelous truth is lost in Passion Plays, where the focus is on the brutal sufferings borne by Christ to satisfy the demands of God’s justice. By distancing the role of the Father from that of the Son in the drama of redemption, Passion Plays promote the need for the intercessory role of Mary and the saints to procure salvation from a mean and reluctant Father. This popular Catholic belief is foreign to Scripture and destroys the unity of the Father and the Son acting together in redeeming humankind. This unity is missing in The Passion, where Gibson is so obsessed with the scourging and crushing of Christ to satisfy the demands of divine justice that he fails to explore the spiritual meanings of the final hours. He falls into the danger of altering the message of God’s redeeming love into one of hate.
THE CO-REDEMPTIVE ROLE OF MARY

In Gibson’s movie, The Passion of Christ is largely seen through The Passion of Mary. From Gethsemane to Golgotha, the sufferings of Christ are revealed through the anguish of Mary. She sustains her Son and shares in His suffering throughout the ordeal. How can we explain the prominent co-redemptive role of Mary throughout Gibson’s movie? In the Passion narratives of the Gospels, Mary is mentioned only once, when Jesus entrusts her to the care of John, saying: “Woman, behold your son,” and to John, “Behold your mother” (John 19:26-27).
The explanation is to be found not in Gibson’s fertile imagination, but in the medieval Catholic notion of God as a harsh, punitive Being who demands full satisfaction for humankind’s sins. This misconception of God promoted not only the devotion to Christ’s suffering, but also the veneration of Mary as a partner in the suffering of her Son for our salvation. Catholics believe that Mary is in a unique position to intercede for sinners, because she is the human mother of the Son of God who suffered with Him for our salvation. Being a compassionate, loving mother, Mary can soften the heart of God, moving Him to forgive penitent sinners. This belief has inspired the popular devotion to the “Sacred Heart of Mary.”
Many devout Catholics display in their homes the image of Mary with her radiant heart enlarged and constantly illuminated by a candle-like bulb. This practice represents the Catholic belief in the co-redemptive role of Mary that motivated Gibson to highlight her role throughout the film, sustaining her Son from Gethsemane to Golgotha. During the procession to the Cross, Mary is present at each of the falls of Jesus, and at one point she goes directly to Him and encourages Him, saying: “I am here.”
As a reaction to the Catholic exaltation of Mary, Protestants have tended to downplay the role of Mary, reducing her to an ordinary woman who fulfilled her motherly role in bringing Jesus into the world and training Him for His mission. Protestants have failed to give due credit to Mary. They tend to ignore that she was an extraordinary woman of profound faith and transparent sincerity who “found favor with God” (Luke 1:30). She must have done a superb job in bringing up her Son in a dysfunctional family with several children of her older husband.
Catholics Honor Mary’s Role in Our Salvation
Catholics venerate Mary, not only because she is the human mother of Jesus, but also they also believe that she plays a vital role in our salvation. This belief is expressed in the prayers offered to Mary, especially during the Masses celebrated at Lent. The Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary explains that “The Mass in celebration of Christ’s saving passion [at Lent] also honors the part played by the Blessed Virgin in achieving our salvation. When Mary became the mother of Christ ‘by the power of the Holy Spirit,’ she became by a further gift of divine love ‘a partner in His passion,’ a mother suffering with Him. The prayers of the Mass recall the plan of salvation, by which God joined the suffering of the mother with the suffering of her Son, and decreed that ‘the new Eve should stand by the cross of the new Adam.’”10
Catholics believe that Mary participates in our Redemption by undoing the disobedience of Eve. “As Eve indirectly contributed to the Fall of Man, so Mary indirectly contributes to our Redemption. As Eve gave Adam the instrument of the Fall (the forbidden fruit) so Mary gave Jesus the instrument of the Redemption (His Body). . . . Because a woman was involved (indirectly) in the Fall, God wanted the sins of the first man and woman to be reversed, not by a Man alone, but by a woman as well. . . . Mary participates in our Redemption in three ways: she obeyed God and so brought the Redeemer into the world, she united her sufferings to His on the Cross, and she participates in the distribution of the graces of salvation.”11 Being a traditional Catholic, Mel Gibson is true to the Catholic belief that Mary is a co-redeemer and proudly calls her “a tremendous co-redemptrix and mediatrix.”12 With great subtlety Gibson portrays Mary as a participant in Christ’s suffering and death for our salvation.
Two Unbiblical Assumptions
The Catholic belief in the present participation of Mary in our redemption as mediator and intercessor is based on two unbiblical assumptions. The first, already mentioned, is that she suffered with her Son throughout the ordeal of the Cross. Consequently, as a partner in Christ’s suffering, Mary is supposed to have the right to share in Christ’s intercession and glorification in heaven.
The second unbiblical Catholic assumption is that Mary ascended to heaven, body and soul, so that she might be close to her Son and intercede before the Father on behalf of the church. The new Catechism of the Catholic Church explicitly teaches that “The Most Blessed Virgin Mary, when the course of her earthly life was completed, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven, where she already shares in the glory of her Son’s Resurrection, anticipating the resurrection of all members of His Body.”13 The Catechism continues: “We believe that the Holy Mother of God, the new Eve, Mother of the Church, continues in heaven to exercise her maternal role on behalf of the members of Christ.”14
The Prominent Role of Mary in The Passion
The fundamental Catholic belief that Mary participates in our Redemption, because she shared in the earthly suffering of her Son at the Cross, is fully reflected in her portrayal in Passion Plays. Gibson’s movie provides a good example of Mary’s prominent role as a partner with Christ in the redemption.
In The Passion Mary lends vital support to her Son throughout His trial, scourging, and crucifixion. In accordance with Catholic belief, had she been absent, Christ would not have been able to offer Himself as the sacrifice for humankind. This heresy is taught especially by mystic writers like Ann Catherine Emmerich who presents Mary as co-redemptrix, that is, co-redeemer. She writes: “The Blessed Virgin was ever united to her Divine Son by interior spiritual communications; she was, therefore, fully aware of all that happened to him—she suffered with him, and joined in his continual prayer for his murderers.”15
Mary’s role as co-redeemer is clearly evident throughout the movie. An ordinary mother would have screamed at seeing her son brutalized. But Mary, though heartbroken, understands and consents to the ordeal her Son must undergo. “So be it,” she says at one point; and again, “It has begun.” At the foot of the Cross, she says to her Son: “Let me die with you.”
In the Gospels’ narrative, Mary appears only once in the Gospel of John, when Jesus on the Cross, pointing to John, says to His mother: “Woman, behold your son!” (John 19:26). By contrast, in Gibson’s movie, Mary is present every step of the way, acting as His coach from Gethsemane to Golgotha. The message is that Jesus made it to the Hill because Mother Mary infused some mystical power through the meeting of their eyes whenever Christ had no strength to go on. In keeping with traditional Catholic theology, we witness Christ’s suffering and death in Gibson’s movie through Mary’s eyes.
Mary is dressed like a medieval nun, rather than a first-century Jewish woman. She is present in the Garden to comfort her Son when she meets Peter on the streets after his denial of Christ. Peter in distress looks Mary in the face and falls on his knees, calling Mary “Mother.” John also calls Mary “Mother.” The assumption is that Mary was already accepted by the disciples as their spiritual Mother. Such an appellation, foreign to the Bible, reflects the traditional Catholic veneration of Mary as “Mother of God,” not just Christ’s human mother.
Peter confesses his sin to Mary and asks for her forgiveness. Mary is ready to absolve Peter for his sin, but he jumps up and says, “No, I am not worthy.” The source for this scene is The Dolorous Passion where Peter, after his denial, rushes out to Mary, exclaiming in a dejected tone: “O, Mother, speak not to me—thy Son is suffering more than words can express: speak not to me! They have condemned Him to death, and I have denied him three times.”16 The Catholic view of the intercessory role of Mary is loud and clear.
Mary and Claudia
The prominent role of Mary is evident also during the scourging, when Pilate’s wife, Claudia, gives Mary fine cloths that she later used to mop up Jesus’ blood. Again the source is not the Bible but The Dolorous Passion, which says: “I saw Claudia Procles, the wife of Pilate, send some large pieces of linen to the Mother of God. I know not whether she thought that Jesus would be set free, and that his Mother would then require linen to dress his wounds, or whether this compassionate lady was aware of the use which would be made of her present. . . . I soon after saw Mary and Magdalen approach the pillar where Jesus had been scourged; . . . they knelt down on the ground near the pillar, and wiped up the sacred blood with the linen which Claudia Procles had sent.”17 This scene is vividly portrayed in Gibson’s movie, but it is totally absent in the Gospels. Incidentally, during the Middle Ages, the cloths stained with Jesus’ blood became holy relics venerated by devout Catholics.
Mary appeals to Claudia, urging her to pressure the Roman soldiers to protect her Son against the angry Jewish crowd. Claudia aligns herself with Mary by influencing her husband on behalf of Christ. But Pilate’s efforts are too little and too late. Again, the interaction between Mary and Claudia is foreign to the Bible, deriving instead from The Dolorous Passion.
Mary’s prominent role can be seen also in Christ’s journey along the Via Dolorosa on the way to Golgotha, known in Catholic tradition as the “14 Stations of the Cross.” When the Roman soldiers inquire of her identity, they are told, “She is the mother of the Galilean . . . do not impede her.” During this journey, Christ stops and falls several times because He has no strength left to go on. At those points, Mary is always near Christ and acts as His comforter and coach.
Mary and Jesus at the Cross
When Jesus hangs on the Cross with His lacerated body covered with blood, Mary embraces His bloody feet and her face is splattered with blood. What a powerful Catholic message in showing Mary as a co-partner in our Redemption! The message is clear: both Jesus and Mary have paid the price of our Redemption.
After Jesus expires on the Cross, Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and John are shown taking Jesus’ body down from the Cross. Even more telling is the picture of Mary cradling Christ’s bloody body and holding His head in her arms, in the same position as Michelangelo’s Pietà. This unbiblical picture has a powerful message. It shows in a most appealing way the Catholic belief that Mary participated in Christ’s sacrifice by offering her Son for our salvation.
The involvement of Mary in taking down Christ’s body and preparing it for burial is clearly contradicted by the Gospels where Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took down Christ’s body from the Cross and “bound it in linen cloths with spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews” (John 19:40). There is no allusion to Mary or to the other devout women handling the body of Jesus at the Cross.
The exalted role of Mary in Passion Plays is a pure fabrication of Catholic mystics, who have been eager to glorify the intercessory role of Mary at the expense of the centrality of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Today the exaltation of Mary as a partner with Christ in our Redemption is effectively promoted also by the Marian messages coming from apparition sites which have received the Catholic Church’s approval. For example, one Marian message from Our Lady of Akita to Sister Agnes Sasagawa says: “I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved.”18
A similar message from Mary to St. Bridget of Sweden says: “I boldly assert that His suffering became my suffering, because His heart was mine. And just as Adam and Eve sold the world for an apple, so in a certain sense my Son and I redeemed the world with one heart.”19
Intercession Is an Exclusive Prerogative of Christ
Historically, Protestants have strongly rejected the Catholic belief in Mary as a partner with Christ in our Redemption. They have condemned such belief as a fundamental Catholic heresy that obscures the centrality and uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice and mediation. By attributing to Mary and the saints an intercessory ministry in heaven on behalf of penitent sinners on earth, the Catholic Church has developed an idolatrous religion
that offers salvation through a variety of persons. The result is that many devout Catholics offer more prayers to Mary and the saints than to the Father or the Son. A major reason is their misconception of God as a stern and punitive Being difficult to approach directly by sinners. By contrast, Mary, as the “Mother of God” and co-redeemer, stands in a favorable position to intercede before God in heaven on behalf of penitent sinners on earth.
The Bible is abundantly clear that only Christ ascended to heaven to minister in the heavenly sanctuary as our intercessor and mediator. “When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb 10:12). Contrary to the Old Testament levitical ministry in which “priests were many in number” (Heb 7:23), Christ is the only priest and intercessor in heaven. “Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25). The Bible consistently presents Christ as the sole High Priest, Mediator, and Intercessor, ministering in the heavenly sanctuary on our behalf (Eph 4:5; Heb 4:14, 16; 7:23-25; 9:24; 10:11-12; 1 John 2:1).
There are no allusions in the Bible to Mary or the saints interceding in heaven on behalf of sinners on earth. Intercession is an exclusive prerogative of Christ, our Savior. To elevate Mary to a co-redemptive role with Christ is to attribute divine qualities and attributes to a mortal human being. The ultimate result is the widespread idolatrous worship of Mary—a worship condemned by the first and second commandments, which enjoin us to worship God exclusively: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3).
Growing Acceptance of Mary as Co-Redeemer
An increasing number of Protestants are embracing the Catholic belief in the co-redemptive role of Mary. Several factors are contributing to this development. For example, feminist theologians are promoting Mary as the female counterpart of God, thus attributing to her divine attributes and prerogatives.
Another factor is the reemergence of the Goddess within the New Age Movement and eastern religions. In her book The Goddess Re-Awakening, Beatrice Bruteau notes that “the presence of the Goddess herself has never departed from her holy place in our consciousness, and now, as we enter what many feel to be a ‘new age,’ we sense that the Goddess is somehow making her way back to us. But in just what guise is so far unclear.”20
A more immediate contributing factor to the acceptance of Mary as co-redeemer is the subtle way in which Mary participates in the suffering of her Son throughout The Passion. In many ways Gibson’s movie portrays the Passion of Mary as much as the Passion of Christ. In an interview with Christianity Today, Gibson himself expressed his amazement that evangelical Christians are so receptive to what he calls Mary’s “tremendous co-redemptrix and mediatrix” role.21 He said: “I have been actually amazed at the way I would say the evangelical audience has—hands down—responded to this film more than any other Christian group. What makes it so amazing is that the film is so Marian.”22 The influence of The Passion in leading many Evangelicals to accept Mary as a co-redeemer may prove to be one of the greatest Catholic evangelistic accomplishments of our times.
Unbiblical Role of Mary
The Catholic exaltation of Mary as a partner with her Son in our redemption is clearly contradicted by Scripture. In the Gospels’ accounts of the Passion, Mary appears only once at the Cross when Christ entrusts her to the care of John, saying, “Woman, behold your son!” (John 19:26). Such an impersonal address hardly supports the mystical interaction between Jesus and Mary present in Passion Plays. Such an interaction obscures the relationship between the Father and the Son, making salvation more an accomplishment of mother Mary and her Son than that of the Father and the Son.
In the Gospels the important interaction is between the Father and the Son, not between Mary and her Son: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt 26:39). And again: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). These pronouncements reveal the distinctive relationship that exists between Christ and the Father. Christ came, not to work together with His mother for our salvation, but to do the will of His Father: “Lo, I have come to do thy will” (Heb 10:9). The Cross reveals, not Mary offering her Son for our salvation, but the Father willing through His Son to become flesh and suffer the punishment of our sins in order to redeem us without compromising His own character.
Evangelicals Are Embracing the Catholic View of Mary
The exaltation of Mary as co-redeemer of humankind, mediating Christ’s grace, is effectively promoted by Passion Plays and Marian messages. These are posing a serious threat to Evangelical Christianity. Many well-meaning Evangelicals are enthusiastically embracing the Catholic view of Mary’s role in our salvation, without realizing the magnitude of the threat that such teaching poses to the centrality and uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice and mediation.
The problem we are facing today is that many people are largely biblically unliterate and image-oriented, with the entertainment media functionally operating as their biblical authority. In other words, many Christians are influenced far more by what they see in the movies than by what they read in the Bible. The reason is that people spend far more time watching movies than reading their Bibles. A religious movie like The Passion will soon become the Gospel for many people.
A woman sent me an email saying that she was grateful that Gibson’s movie brought out the “facts” of the Passion missed by the Gospels. She felt that the Gospels largely ignore the contribution that Mary made to our salvation. She was glad that “The Passion has set the record straight.” Is this sound reasoning? Do we test the accuracy of The Passion by the Gospels, or do we rewrite the Gospels according to a fictional religious movie? It is important to remember that God has chosen to reveal His will for our lives, not through drama and plays, but through the Written Word.
The few references to Mary in the Gospels indicate that God chose her to bring His Son into the world because she was an extraordinary godly woman. She must have loved her Son deeply and devoted herself unreservedly to His upbringing. She must have faced most difficult challenges in training her Son in a home made up of an older husband with stepbrothers and sisters. Her dedication to her Son is evident in the fact that she followed Him all the way to the Cross, feeling in her heart the brutal suffering of her Son such as only a mother can feel.
Mary was a vessel used by God, and she deserves our respect. But to exalt Mary as a partner with Christ in our salvation, interceding in heaven on our behalf, is making a mortal human being into an immortal divine being. It means elevating the human mother of Jesus into the divine “Mother of God,” as the Catholics worship her. The result is the worship of Mary which the Bible clearly condemns as idolatry. “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3).
THE PORTRAYAL AND
IMPERSONATION OF CHRIST
Thousands of pastors and theologians were invited to an exclusive screening of Gibson’s movie The Passion prior to its release. Their reactions were mostly very positive. James Dobson calls The Passion “a film that must be seen.”23 Greg Laurie of Harvest Crusades said: “I believe The Passion of the Christ may well be one of the most powerful evangelistic tools of the last 100 years.”24 Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Community Church, stated: “The film is brilliant, biblical, a masterpiece.”25 Billy Graham himself is on record for saying: “Every time I preach or speak about the Cross, the things I saw on the screen will be on my heart and mind.”26
The Passion and the Second Commandment
What struck me in reading the comments of leading pastors is the fact that none of them mentions how the impersonation of Christ by a movie actor relates to the Second Commandment which states: “You shall not make for yourself a graven 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 upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Ex 20:4-6).
The question of the biblical legitimacy of dramatizing in a movie the final hours of Christ’s agony and death is never addressed in the reviews that I have read. The comments of movie critics and church leaders focus primarily on the artistic qualities, as well as the biblical and historical accuracy of the film. The problem is that a movie about Christ’s agony and death may be artistically brilliant but biblically flawed, because, as we shall see, any attempt to impersonate the Divine Son of God, reducing Him to a mere mortal human being, violates the intent of the Second Commandment, as understood in Scripture and history.
Historically, Protestants have interpreted the Second Commandment as a prohibition against making images or representations of the three Persons of the Trinity for the purpose of worship. For example, in response to the question, “Are images then not at all to be made?” the Heidelberg Catechism responds: “God cannot and should not be pictured in any way. As for creatures, although they may indeed be portrayed, God forbids making or having any likeness of them in order to worship them or to use them to serve him.”27
The Reformers took a firm stand against visual representations of members of the Godhead and removed all paintings and statues from churches. Crucifixes with the contorted bloody body of the crucified Christ were replaced in Protestant churches with empty crosses. The focus of worship shifted from the Images-oriented worship to Word-oriented worship, that is, from veneration of images and relics to the proclamation of the Word.
In recent times, changes have taken place in the use of images for worship. A growing number of Evangelical churches are adopting the Catholic tradition of placing images of Christ and crucifixes with His contorted body in their churches. The reasoning is that the Second Commandment prohibits only the making of images to be used in the church for worship. However, pictures or even religious movies like The Passion, shown in churches to educate the laity, are supposedly permitted by the Second Commandment, because they are not used as aids to worship.
The Meaning of the Second Commandment
The distinction between the liturgical and educational uses of pictures of God in the church is artificial and can hardly be supported by the Second Commandment. There is a progression between the First and Second Commandments. The First Commandment calls us to reject all other gods and to worship Yahweh as the only true God: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:2). The Second Commandment builds upon the First by warning against wrong and incorrect ways of worship by means of visual or material objectification of God.
The meaning of the Second Commandment is clearer in its expanded version found in Deuteronomy 4:15-19, where Moses reminds the Israelites of the veiled appearance of God at Sinai: “You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the water below. And when you look to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshipping things the Lord your God has appointed to all nations under heaven” (Deut 4:15-19; emphasis supplied).
The fundamental reason given for warning the Israelites against making images of the Lord in the semblance of people, animals, or celestial lights is precisely because they saw “no form” of the Lord when He spoke to them. It is important to note that in the Old Testament God manifested His glory, not His face. On Mount Sinai God’s face was hidden by a cloud. In the sanctuary His presence was manifested as the shekinah glory between the cherubim, but there was no visual portrayal of God. Respect for the holiness of God precluded any attempt to represent the divine Beings of the Godhead. Even sacred objects such as the Ark of the Covenant, located in the Most Holy Place (symbol of God’s throne), could not be touched or looked into by ordinary people.
We read in 1 Samuel 6:19 that God slew 70 men of Beth-shemesh because they dared to look into the ark of the Lord: “And he slew some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked into the ark of the Lord; he slew seventy men of them. . . . Then the men of Beth-shemesh said: ‘Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?’” (1 Sam 6:19-20). Later on when the ark was carried on a new cart to Jerusalem, “Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there because he put forth his hand to the ark; and he died there besides the ark of God” (2 Sam 6:6-7).
No Visual Representation of the Deity in Bible Times
These tragic episodes teach us an important lesson. No human being can afford to treat lightly what is associated with God. The ark was the place where God manifested His presence (Shekinah). Thus, to treat it casually was sacrilegious. God’s people understood this important truth. No pictures of God appeared in the Temple, Synagogue, or early Christian Churches.
In the catacombs Christ is represented not by pictures, but by symbols like the fish, the anchor, the Jonah’s cycle as symbol of Christ’s Resurrection, or the Good Shepherd. The reason is that early Christians understood that pictorial and visible representations of the three Persons of the Trinity violate the prohibition of the Second Commandment against the use of images to worship God.
In our visual society, it is difficult to accept the biblical principle that objectifying God by means of pictures, statues, drama, Passion Plays, or religious movies violates the intent of the Second Commandment. Christians today may not recognize that God is not a consumer product for our society to reproduce, use, and market. Paul explained to the Athenians, who were surrounded by countless artistic representations of gods in stone and images, that “we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man” (Acts 17:29; emphasis supplied). The Apostle explains that “God who made the world and everything in it, being the Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands” (Acts 17:24-25).
God has chosen to reveal to us not His outward appearance, but His character. Yet, in spite of God’s precautions not to reveal His “form,” the history of the Israelites is replete with attempts to objectify God and worship Him through idols that could be seen and touched. The downfall and rejection of the Jews as God’s people is causally related in the Bible to the abandonment of the worship of the invisible God and the adoption of the worship of visible gods, often called balim.
Is it Biblically Correct to Portray or Impersonate Christ?
Is the biblical prohibition against making visual representations of God the Father applicable to the Son as well? The answer of some Christian leaders is “NO!” They reason that the Second Commandment cannot be applied to Christ, because, contrary to the Father who did not reveal His “form,” Christ took upon Himself a human form and lived like a man upon this earth. Consequently, nothing is thought to be wrong in portraying the human side of Christ through pictures or drama.
Bian Godawa argues that “The Passion of the Christ is a narrative depiction of Christ’s humanity, not of His divinity. “28 Consequently The Passion’s dramatization of the last 12 hours of Christ’s suffering and death does not violate the Second Commandment, because what is portrayed is the human side of Christ’s person.
There are several problems with this reasoning. First, the human side of Christ cannot be artistically portrayed in isolation from His divine nature, because Jesus was not simply a man nor simply a God, but the God-man. The divine and human natures were not split, but mysteriously blended together in Christ. As stated in the classic definition of the Chalcedonian Creed, the two natures in Christ were united “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence.”
The New Testament tells us that Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). “He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of His nature” (Heb 1:3). Jesus Himself said that “he who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The fact that in Christ the divine and human natures were mysteriously united makes it impossible for any artist or actor to capture the totality of Christ’s personality. How can any artist portray such divine traits of Christ’s nature as His creative and restorative power, His wisdom, His immortal nature, and His power to lay down His life and to take it up again (John 10:17)?
Can Images of the Deity Be Used as Aids to Worship?
Any portrayal of the human Christ must be regarded as an artistic creation based on the pure imagination of an artist, who creates his own Christ. Since no artist has seen the real Christ and no artist can grasp the mysterious union of the divine and human natures in Him, any portrayal of the Lord in canvas, stone, or drama must be seen as a distortion of the real Christ. Perhaps this explains why the movie Ben Hur exercised retraints in depicting Christ—showing only His hands, His back, and shadow, but never His face. Apparently the producer understood that Christ was no ordinary human being. The mystery of His divine and human natures could not and should not be legitimately portrayed.
These comments should not be taken as an outright condemnation of any visual representations of Christ. Some plain pictures of Christ’s healings or teachings can be used for illustrating important truths about Jesus, but they should never be seen as factual representations of the real Christ. More important still, pictures of Christ should never be used as icons for worship, designed to help believers form mental images of the God whom they wish to worship. We cannot expect God to bless the use of images of Himself in worship when He enjoins us not to make them in the first place.
In Catholic worship, the pictures or statues of Jesus or of Mary are mass-produced as icons for worship purposes. They are aids to worship in the sense that the believer kneels and prays before them in order to form a mental image of the real Christ or Mary that they are worshipping. Scripture condemns as idolatry the use of visual images to conceptualize God in prayer or preaching. Paul explains that idolatry involves exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal beings: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man” (Rom 1:22-23).
The historic Protestant confessions recognize that the idolatry condemned by the Second Commandment includes the use of images as aids in forming a mental image of God in worship. For example, the Westminster Larger Catechism states: “The sins forbidden in the Second Commandment are: . . . the making of any representation of God, of all, or of any of the three Persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever; all worshipping of it, or God in it or by it.”29
The biblical prohibition against the use of visual representations of the three Persons of the Trinity to form mental images in worship raises questions about the endorsement of The Passion by “name-brand” preachers like Billy Graham. In an interview Dr. Graham stated: “Every time I preach or speak about the Cross, the things I saw on the screen [of The Passion] will be on my heart and mind.”30 If a preacher like Billy Graham will be permanently influenced by Gibson’s “animated crucifix”—as The Passion is rightly called—will not millions of average Christians unfamiliar with the Gospels’ narrative “exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man” (Rom 1:23)?
Dr. Graham could have easily said: “Every time I preach or speak about the Cross, the things the Word of God and the Spirit have taught me will be in my heart and mind.” The fact is that now his preaching of the Cross will be permanently influenced by the crucified Christ of Gibson’s movie. This shows that people today, like the Israelites of old, are not satisfied to worship God in “spirit and in truth” (John 4:24) according to the all-sufficient Word, but long and yearn for a tangible God whom they can see and experience.
Nobody Knows What Christ Looked Like
This leads us to consider a second reason why visual representation or dramatic impersonation of Christ cannot be biblically justified: any representation of Christ is a misrepresentation, because nobody knows what the Savior looked like. In His wisdom Christ chose to leave no physical imprint of Himself. Popular church pictures and movies portray Christ as a robust, handsome, tall man with blue eyes, long flowing hair, and a light complexion. They are inspired by the pious imagination of gifted artists who are conditioned by popular conceptions rather than by biblical and historical sources.
For example, Jim Caviezel, who plays Christ in The Passion, hardly looks like a first-century Jew. A typical Jew was of medium height with a semitic nose, pointed beard, and black, cropped hair. The archeological wall painting showing the arrival of a group of Palestinians in Egypt suggests what the Jews looked like.31 It is a known fact that ordinary Jewish men did not wear long hair as did Caviezel. The only exception was when a Jew took a voluntary and temporary Nazarite vow to dedicate himself to the Lord by abstaining from grape products (Num 6:3-4), avoiding ritual defilement (Num 6:6), and leaving his hair uncut until the close of the specified period (Num 6:5, 13-21).
But Jesus was not a Nazarite. He wore short hair like the Jewish men of His time. Paul explains that the length of the hair distinguished a man from a woman. In the Jewish culture of the time, women wore long hair and men short hair. The reason given by Paul is that “for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him” (1 Cor 11:14). Thus, Caviezel with his long hair looks more like yesterday’s hippies than the New Testament Jewish Christ.
Furthermore, most likely Jesus was not as attractive as movie star Caviezel. None of the Evangelists comment on the beauty of Christ’s physical appearance, presumably because what attracted people to the Savior was His character, rather than His appearance. Isaiah says: “He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Is 53:2). If the real picture of Christ were available today for people to see, most likely many Christians would be disappointed by His unappealing appearance.
People were attracted to Christ not because He was a handsome and strong Super Man who could carry a heavy cross of about 400 pounds, after being whipped for 10 minutes with a cat-o’-nine-tails that tore out His flesh and drained His blood. Instead, what attracted people to Christ were the nobility of His character and His penetrating teachings that reached the depth of their souls. Even His opponents admitted, “No man ever spoke like this man” (John 7:46).
The biblical Christ is not the invincible Survivor of The Passion, but the Divine Son of God, who took upon Himself our human limitations and was “made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people” (Heb 2:17).
Images of Christ Go Beyond Scripture
The problem with artistic representations of Christ is that the images or drama often go beyond Scripture. Few Christians are capable of or willing to recognize this fact. For example, we noted earlier that respected Evangelical leaders claim that Gibson’s brutal reenactment of the Passion is true to the Gospels. Gibson himself stated in an interview with the New Yorker magazine: “I wanted to be true to the Gospels. That has never been done before. I didn’t want to see Jesus looking really pretty. I wanted to mess up one of his eyes, destroy it.”32
Is this what being true to the Gospels means to Gibson and to Evangelical leaders? Do any of the Gospels portray Christ with a “destroyed eye” and with his body skinned alive as shown in The Passion? It is noteworthy that the Gospel of Mark makes no mention of blood in the entire passion narrative. The Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ flogging and crucifixion are as minimal as they could be. They all tell us essentially the same thing: “Having scourged Jesus, [Pilate] delivered him to be crucified,” . . . “And when they came to a place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him” (see Matt 27:26, 33; Mark 15:20, 22; Luke 23:25, 33). A few verses later, Jesus is dead. This is the whole brief, sober, and cryptic account of Jesus’ sufferings and death.
The Gospel writers do not linger over the details of Christ’s brutal suffering to stir emotions or to promote the Catholic view of suffering as a way of salvation. The reason is that the Evangelists were not mentally unbalanced Catholic mystics obsessed with intensifying Christ’s suffering to satisfy what they believed to be the exacting demands of a punitive God. Instead, the Gospel writers were balanced men who learned at the feet of Jesus how to follow their Master, not by inflicting physical suffering on their bodies (self-flagellation), but by living in accordance with His teachings.
There is a world of difference between the blood and gore of Gibson’s movie and the brief Gospels’ story of the betrayal, arrest, condemnation, and crucifixion which is told without recourse to blood and gore. Surely it was bloody, but the Evangelists chose not to dwell upon that. Instead they focus on Christ’s perfect life, atoning death, and glorious Resurrection. Gibson took 124 minutes to flagellate Jesus, throw Him off a bridge, bleed Him, slash Him, and nail Him on the Cross, but less than 2 minutes to show a fleeting resurrection. This imbalance reflects a Catholic sense of proportions which is tied to the ritual of the Mass as a perpetual reenactment of Christ’s sacrifice. Such a view is foreign to the Bible.
The point of these observations is that often popular representations or dramatic impersonations of Christ turn out to be gross misrepresentations of the real meaning of Christ’s life, suffering, and death. Christians who depend upon such misrepresentations to conceptualize and worship the Lord end up developing a superstitious faith based on the fear of a punitive God. A healthy faith is based on mental images inspired by the Word and apprehended through the eyes of faith. Such images help us to conceptualize God, not as a harsh, punitive Being who brutalizes His Son to meet the rigorous demands of His justice, but as a merciful God who satisfied the demands of His justice by substituting Himself for us.

Images and Plays Upstage Preaching

The use of images, drama, plays, and religious movies during the worship service upstages the preaching, which is God’s chosen means for communicating the faith and nurturing the spiritual life of His people. The Apostle Paul explains: “faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ” (Rom 10:17). This means that saving faith comes through the reading, preaching, and hearing of the Word of God, and not through statues, plays, or religious movies. It is not surprising that Karl Barth observes that “speaking about God is commanded hundreds of times in the Bible but setting up images is forbidden and barred expressis verbis [by explicit words].”33
In theory God could use a movie to engender faith, but the reality is that He has chosen preaching instead to communicate the Gospel. As Paul puts it: “It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Cor 1:21). Preaching seemed foolish in Paul’s time, when people responded more readily to dramatic plays staged in amphitheaters visible throughout the Roman world. Preaching may seem even more foolish today in our mass-media society that values theatrics far more than preaching.
Church growth experts tell us that preaching is old-fashioned and no longer appeals to Generation Y (born in the 80’s) or Generation X (born between 1964 and1982). To reach these new generations, experts say, preaching must be replaced with more effective means such as drama, movies, plays, and upbeat music.
Word-worship Versus Image-Worship
The problem with this reasoning is the failure to recognize that God has chosen to use methods that may appear to be old-fashioned and foolish to save people. Just as the message of Christ crucified appears to be a foolish way to save people, so the means of communicating the Gospel through preaching appears to be foolish as well.
From a human perspective, preaching may seem old-fashioned and ineffective compared to the extraordinary appeal of drama. But we must not forget that salvation is the work of God in the human heart, accomplished through the proclamation of the Word, rather than the staging of dramatic visual representations.
Church history teaches us that when the preaching of the Word was gradually replaced by a visual worship consisting of the staging of the Mass, Passion Plays, veneration of images, relics, processions, and pilgrimages to holy shrines, the apostasy of the church set in, ushering in what is known as the Dark Ages. The movement today in the Evangelical world from Word-worship to Image-worship could well represent a repetition of the past downfall of the church and of the ancient Israelites.
Most people think that seeing is believing. If they could only see Christ, then they might believe in Him. But the New Testament teaches otherwise. It talks about faith as coming from hearing, not seeing. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). The temptation to worship a visible and objectified Christ leads to idolatry. This can be seen in dominant Catholic countries, where the only Christ that devout Catholics know and worship is the One they touch, kiss, see, and often wear as jewelry. Statues, crucifixes, and pictures of the bleeding Savior abound in devout Catholic homes. So, instead of worshipping the invisible Lord in Spirit and Truth, they worship idols that they can see, touch, and feel.
God’s Precautions to Prevent the Objectification of Christ
We can hardly blame God for the human attempts to objectify the three members of the Godhead through movies, statues, paintings, images, crucifixes, and religious jewelry. Christ took utmost precaution to prevent human beings from materializing and objectifying His spiritual nature. When this second Person of the Godhead became a human being for about thirty-three years, He refrained from leaving on this earth a single material mark that can be authenticated as His own.
Christ did not build or own a house; He did not write books or own a library; He did not leave the exact date of His birth or of His death; He did not leave descendants. He left an empty tomb, but even this place is still disputed. He left no “thing” of Himself, but only the assurance of His spiritual presence: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt 28:20).
Why did Christ pass through this world in this mysterious fashion, leaving no physical footprints, visual images, or material traces of Himself? Why did the Godhead miss the golden opportunity provided by the incarnation to leave permanent material evidence and reminders of the Savior’s appearance, life, suffering, and death on this planet? Furthermore, why do the Gospel writers minimize the suffering of Christ’s final hours? Why is the “blood” factor, which is so prominent in Gibson’s movie, largely missing in the narrative of the Passion? Is this not clear evidence of God’s concern to protect humankind from the constant temptation to reduce a spiritual relationship into a “thing-worship”?
In surveying the history of the Passion Plays in chapter 1, we noted how the visual staging of Christ’s cruel sufferings and death inspired many people to imitate the physical suffering of Christ by wounding their bodies and carrying crosses. By focusing on the physical suffering of the dying Christ, they failed to see with the eyes of faith the triumphant Lord in heaven at the right hand of God.
The Sabbath Discourages Visual-Oriented Worship
It was because of this concern that God chose the Sabbath—a day rather than an object—as the symbol of a divine-human covenant relationship (Ezek 20:12; Ex 31:13). Being time, a mystery that defies human attempts to shape it into a physical idol, the Sabbath provides constant protection against a physical, visual-oriented worship, and is a fitting reminder of the spiritual nature of the covenant relationship between God and His people.
If Gibson were to accept the message of the Sabbath regarding the spiritual nature of God and of our relationship with Him, he would soon realize that his reenactment of Christ’s Passion, though well-intentioned, tempts sincere Christians to worship a visible movie-Christ, rather than the mystery-Christ of divine revelation.
The only Christ that many people will come to know is the Caviezel-Christ they have seen in the movie being tortured to death so as to satisfy the rigorous demands of a punitive God. Such a gory and bloody mental image of Christ distorts the Gospel story in which the focus is not on the lacerated, bloody body of Jesus but on His exemplary life, compassionate ministry, profound teachings, perfect sacrifice for sin, and glorious resurrection. Such mental images, inspired by the Gospels, provide the legitimate basis for worshipping our Savior in “Spirit and Truth.”
No Drama, Passion Plays, or Pictures in the Early Church
The early Christians respected the Second Commandment by shunning any visual representation of the Deity in their places of worship. During the first four centuries, Christians did not use pictures of Jesus or Passion Plays for their worship or evangelistic outreach, despite the fact that they lived in a highly visual Greco-Roman culture. Pagan temples with statues of gods littered the countryside. Mystery religions like Mithraism, Cybele, and Isis had their own Passion Plays. A popular play was known as the taurobolium (bloodbath). It replicated the death and resurrection of the god Attis by killing a bull and covering a new believer with his blood.
The primitive church did not adopt pagan religious visual practices for communicating the Gospel. In accordance with the Second Commandment, the early church did not allow pictorial representations of the three Persons of the Trinity to be used. Their worship was Word-centered, not Image-centered.
The situation gradually changed as Gentile Christians brought into the church their pagan beliefs and practices. Soon pictures, statues, and plays became commonplace. During the Middle Ages, Passion Plays were staged first in churches, then in church yards, and finally in special outdoor amphitheaters. They have become important tourist attractions in several countries. In the year 2000, the Oberammergau Passion Play in Upper Bavaria, Germany, drew over half a million pilgrims from many parts of the world. In North America also there are popular Passion Plays in such places as Eureka Springs, Arkansas; Black Hills, South Dakota; and Lake Wales, Florida. At the local level, numerous churches and Christians school are staging Passion Plays.
The Temptation to Worship a Visible Christ
At the time of the Reformation, Protestants overwhelmingly rejected the use of images, statues, relics, and Passion Plays in the church as a violation of the Second Commandment. Rather than using icons, they relied on the preaching of the Word to save souls. As a result the Gospel made significant advances.
This does not mean that we should follow the example of the Reformers by eliminating all pictures of Christ. Plain pictures of Christ’s life, teachings, and miracles can be used as illustrations without becoming objects of adoration. The problem arises when pictures are produced and used as icons for worship. In most cases, they portray and foster unbiblical teachings. For example, pictures of the Cross or crucifixes with Christ’s contorted body hanging on the Cross and covered with blood are still widely used today in Catholic countries to promote the devotion to Christ’s Passion. Devout Catholics wear, kiss, hold, touch, and pray toward such images to express their devotion to the suffering Savior. In these instances, pictures encourage an idolatrous form of worship.
The sad reality is that many Evangelicals have become so conditioned by the entertainment industry that they are more and more drifting toward the Catholic system of worship with images, drama, Passion Plays, and religious movies. The highly Catholic portrayal of Christ’s suffering and crucifixion in The Passion is contributing significantly to the Evangelical acceptance of a visible Lord that dominates in Catholic worship. By accepting the use of images that were once rejected as signs of papal authority, Evangelicals are running the risk today of returning to the Medieval false worship which the Reformers fought hard to reform.
THE “CHRISTIAN” THEOLOGY OF ANTI-SEMITISM
The drama of the trial, suffering, and crucifixion of Jesus is central to the Christian message of salvation through Christ’s atoning sacrifice. The interpretation of the role of the Jews in this drama has been the foundation of the “Christian” theology of contempt toward the Jews.
Throughout the centuries and still today many believe that the roots of Christian anti-Semitism are to be found in the Gospels themselves. The popular assumption is that the Gospels are overwhelmingly hostile toward the Jews, blaming them collectively for the death of Christ. For example, Ken Spiro writes: “The negative role that the Jews play in the Passion served to create a solid foundation on which later Christian anti-Semitism would be built.”34
Spiro continues: “Probably, the most damning of all accusations appears in John 8:44: ‘You are the children of your father, the Devil, and you want to follow your father’s desires. From the beginning he was a murderer.’”35 The companion text often quoted by those who argue for the collective guilt of the Jews as “Christ-killers” is Matthew 27:25: “And all the people answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’” Texts such as these have been used historically to accuse the Jewish people of deicide, that is, of being “Christ-killers.” Because of this crime, the Jews are allegedly under a permanent divine curse, which has doomed them to suffer rejection, persecution, and suppression during the Christian era until the end of time.
The Passion Plays have served to dramatize the crime of deicide by portraying the dominant role of the wicked Jews in the condemnation and crucifixion of Christ. The mass hysteria generated by the annual plays enraged the people against the “Christ-killing Jews.” People accused them of well poisoning, causing the Black Plague, and ritual murder. These accusations, as noted in Chapter 1, led to the dehumanization, demonization, brutalization, expulsion, and murder of countless Jews throughout Europe. The anti-Semitic climate fostered by the Passion Plays predisposed many Christians to accept Hitler’s “final solution” to the Jewish problem as a divine solution.
Are the Roots of Anti-Semitism Found in the Gospels?
The historical use of the Passion narratives to blame the Jews collectively for the death of Christ raises important questions: Are the roots of anti-Semitism to be found in the Gospels themselves or in later religious-historical developments? Are the Passion Plays true to the Gospels in portraying the Jewish people as being collectively guilty of murdering Christ? Do the Gospels place the blame for Christ’s death on all the Jews, including future generations yet to be born, or on some Jewish leaders and their followers?
These questions deserve serious consideration, because what is at stake is the legitimacy of the “Christian” theology of contempt toward the Jews, effectively dramatized in Passion Plays. This theology, as noted in Chapter 1, has led to the systematic suppression, expulsion, and liquidation of millions of Jews during the course of Christian history. Furthermore, this theology has contributed in recent times to the development of dispensationalism—a theological system widely accepted by Evangelical churches today.
A fundamental tenet of dispensationalism is that God terminated His dealings with the Jews at the Cross (or Pentecost) because they rejected and killed Christ and inaugurated the Christian dispensation to last until the Rapture. This theological construct gives preferential treatment to Christians over the Jews. In fact, soon God is supposed to secretly rapture Christians away from this earth in order to pour out the seven last plagues on the Jews and the unconverted people left behind. This scenario is being popularized today by the movie Left Behind and the series of books by the same title, which are selling by the millions, faster than McDonald’s hamburgers.
Were All the Jews Hostile to Christ?
Since the roots of anti-Semitism and dispensationalism are generally traced back to the role of the Jewish people in Christ’s death, it is imperative to understand what the Gospels really teach us on this subject. A superficial reading of a few isolated texts cited earlier, without attention to their immediate and larger contexts, could lead one to conclude that the Gospels place the guilt for Christ’s death collectively on the Jewish people, marking them as a cursed people for all times. But a closer look at all the relevant texts reveals that to stereotype all the Jews as Christ’s killers is to ignore the fact that Jesus, His disciples, and the many people who believed in Him were all Jews.
To clarify this point, let us look at the use of the phrase “the Jews” in the Gospel of John. The reason for choosing John’s Gospel is the prevailing assumption that this Gospel is more anti-Semitic than the Synoptics, because it uses the inclusive phrase “the Jews” over 60 times, in place of the terms “Scribes” and “Pharisees” used in Mattthew, Mark, and Luke.
Does the frequent reference to “the Jews” in John’s Gospel make this Gospel particularly anti-Semitic? The answer is “NO!” because the phrase is used with three different connotations. First, the phrase “the Jews” is used to designate the Jewish people in general without any negative value attached to it. For example, when Jesus wept by the grave of Lazarus, we are told that “The Jews said, ‘see how he loved him’” (John 11:36). In this instance, “the Jews” are the people surrounding Jesus who were moved by His show of affection for Lazarus. There is no indication that this group of Jews hated Jesus.
Second, the phrase “the Jews” is used in John to denote the people who believed in Christ. For example, Nicodemus is described as “a ruler of the Jews” who believed in Christ (John 3:1). At the resurrection of Lazarus we are told that “Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him” (John 11:45). Shortly we shall see that the growing popularity of Jesus among the Jewish people was seen by some religious leaders as a threat to their authority.
Third, the phrase “the Jews” is frequently used to denote “the leaders of the Jews” who were scheming to kill Christ. Here are some examples. “The Jews took up stones again to stone him” (John 10:31). “The Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). Again, “The Jews cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend’” (John 19:12).
Taken out of their context, these statements could be interpreted as descriptive of the determination of the whole Jewish nation to kill Jesus. However, such an interpretation ignores two things. First, the immediate context indicates that “the Jews” in question were those present at the incidents described, not the Jewish people as a whole.
Christ’s Popularity Was a Threat to Jewish Leaders
Second, in the larger context of John’s Gospel, “the Jews,” as noted earlier, also include the people who believed in Christ and followed Him. In fact, their numbers must have been significant, because we are told that “the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus” (John 12:10-11). This text highlights the contrast between the chief priests and “many of the Jews.” On the one hand there are the chief priests scheming to kill not only Jesus but also Lazarus, because their authority was threatened by the increasing number of Christ’s followers. But, on the other hand, there are “many of the Jews” going away from the priests because they believed in Jesus. Such a split in the Jewish community hardly indicates that all Jews were hostile toward Christ.
The Gospels suggest that Christ’s growing popularity among the common Jewish people threatened the authority of the religious leaders. This is clear in the deliberation of the council held after the resurrection of Lazarus. The “chief priests and the Pharisees” said: “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on thus, every one will believe in him” (John 11:47-48).
For the religious leaders, the issue was the survival of their own authority. If all the people came to believe in Jesus, their authority would be rejected. For them, it was a question of survival. Either they protected their authority over the people by eliminating Christ, or Christ would soon become so popular with the people that their authority would be ultimately rejected. In their thinking the only solution was to find ways to kill Christ before all the Jews accepted Him and rejected them.
The Jews Were Divided in their Attitude Toward Christ
This scenario suggests that the Jews were divided in their attitude toward Christ. Some believed in Him and some rejected Him. The latter group supported the religious leaders in their efforts to kill Him. John mentions this division in the context of the reaction of the people to Christ’s speech about the Good Shepherd. “There was a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, ‘He has a demon, and he is mad; why listen to him?’ Others said, ‘These are not the sayings of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’” (John 10:19-21; emphasis supplied).
The division in the attitude of the Jews toward Christ discredits the claim that all the Jews were collectively antagonistic to Christ and supported their leaders in their plans to kill Him. The fact is that Jesus enjoyed considerable support, especially among the common people. John tells us that “many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, lest they should be put out of the synagogue” (John 12:42; emphasis supplied). It is difficult to estimate the percentage of the Jews who were for Christ and of those who were against Him, because poll-taling was unknown in those days. But there appeared to have been a significant number of Jews who followed and supported Jesus all the way to the Cross.
Luke tells us that many of Christ’s supporters followed Him all the way to Golgotha: “And there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of the women who bewailed and lamented him” (Luke 23:27; emphasis supplied). This multitude of Jews witnessed with great anguish Christ’s crucifixion: “And all the multitude who assembled to see the sight, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breast” (Luke 23:48).
Luke’s description of a great multitude of Jews following Jesus all the way to the Cross, expressing their grief by bewailing and beating their breasts for the crime committed in torturing and crucifying Jesus, hardly supports the contention that all the Jews were hostile to Christ and called for His death. In his informative chapter on “The Jewish Leaders,” Alan F. Segal, Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at Columbia University, notes that a careful study of “the relevant texts in the Gospels shows that a relatively small and elite group of people, a group among the Temple priests and elders, was out to get Jesus.”36
Paul Rejects the Notion that the Jews Are a Cursed People
The division among the Jews in their attitude toward Christ, which we find in the Gospels, is present also in the rest of the New Testament. For example, Paul rejects the notion that the whole Jewish people are cursed by God for their role in Christ’s death. He writes: “I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew” (Rom 11:1-2).
To support his point, the Apostle explains that as in the time of Elijah when there were “seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal, so too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (Rom 11:4-5). The presence of a “remnant” of believing Jews indicates to Paul that God has not rejected the Jews as a cursed people, replacing them with Gentile believers. To clarify this point, he uses the effective imagery of the olive tree. The broken branches of the olive tree represent the unbelieving Jews who have been replaced by the wild branches of the Gentiles. The latter “were grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree” (Rom 11:17).
For Paul, the olive tree, representing the Jewish people, is not uprooted because of their role in Christ’s death, but rather is pruned and restructured through the engrafting of Gentile branches. Gentile Christians live from the root and trunk of the Jewish people (Rom 11:17-18). By means of this expressive imagery, Paul describes the unity and continuity that exists in God’s redemptive plan for the Jews and Gentiles.
The olive tree imagery leaves no room for the replacement theology of dispensationalism. The Jews are not a cursed people replaced by Christians, but are part of God’s plan for the salvation of Jews and Gentiles. Paul explains this mystery, saying, “I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:25-26). In Paul’s vision, God does not have two plans or dispensations—one for the Gentile Christians raptured to heaven and one for the Jews condemned to suffer the seven last plagues for killing Christ. This dispensational scenario, popular among Evangelicals, is foreign to the Bible. Paul envisions the ingathering of the Gentiles who join believing Jews, so that both of them will be saved.
Summing up, the New Testament offers us a balanced picture of the Jews. On the one hand, it places the responsibility for Christ’s death on a relatively small group of Jewish religious leaders and their followers, who pushed for the condemnation and execution of Jesus. But, on the other hand, the New Testament acknowledges that a significant number of Jews who believed in Christ followed Him to the Cross, lamented His death, and responded by the thousands on the day of Pentecost and afterwards to the messianic proclamation (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 21:20).
The Origin of Anti-Semitism
The balanced portrayal of the Jews in the Passion narratives of the Gospels, was gradually replaced by the one-sided picture of the Jews as a wicked people, collectively guilty of killing Christ. The development of this “Christian” theology of contempt for the Jews was a gradual process. Two major factors contributed to this development: the conflict between the church and the synagogue and the Roman suppression of Jewish revolts, which resulted in the outlwaing the Jewish religion and the Sabbath.
The conversion of Gentiles to the Christian faith engendered considerable hostility on the part of the Jews, who felt threatened by the Christian growth. Paul compares the Jewish hostility toward Christians to that endured by Christ during His Passion. Speaking of the Jews, he says that they “killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all men by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins” (1 Thess 2:15-16).
In this early period, Christian Jews like Paul spoke of “the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus,” without meaning to charge all the Jews collectively of deicide. The phrase was restricted to one particular group of Jews, namely, those Jewish leaders and their supporters who pushed for the condemnation and crucifixion of Christ. We noted earlier that Paul speaks of a partial hardening of Israel (Rom 11:25), which he compares to the breaking off of some branches from the olive tree of Israel.
But, by the beginning of the second century, the growing conflict between the church and synagogue influenced the inclusive use of the phrase “the Jews” as descriptive of all the Jews. The fact that Jewish Christians were expelled from synagogues led them to abandon the use of the term “Jews” to describe themselves. Thus, ethnic Jewish Christians distanced themselves from the Jews by gradually identifying themselves solely as Christians.
The Development of a “Christian” Theology of Anti-Semitism
The development of anti-Semitism was precipitated by the anti-Jewish and anti-Sabbath legislation promulgated by Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 135. I investigated the Hadrianic anti-Jewish legislation in my doctoral dissertation From Sabbath to Sunday. I learned that after suppressing the second major Palestinian Jewish revolt in A.D. 135—called the Barkokeba revolt after its leader—Hadrian not only destroyed the city of Jerusalem and prohibited the Jews from entering the city, but he also outlawed categorically the practice of the Jewish religion in general and of Sabbath keeping in particular. These measures were designed to suppress the Jewish religion, which was seen as the cause of all the uprisings.
At this critical time when the Jewish religion in general and the Sabbath in particular were outlawed by Roman legislation, some Christian leaders began to develop a theology of contempt toward the Jews. This consisted in defaming the Jews as a people and in emptying Jewish beliefs and practices of any historical significance.
For example, Justin Martyr (about 100-165), a leader of the Church of Rome, defames the Jews as murderers of the prophets and Christ: “Your hand is still lifted to do evil, because, although you have slain Christ, you do not repent; on the contrary, you hate and whenever you have the power kill us.”37
Religious institutions such as the circumcision and the Sabbath were declared by Justin to be signs of Jewish depravity, imposed by God solely on the Jews to distinguish them from other nations. The purpose of these signs was to mark the Jews for the punishment they so well deserve for their wickedness. “It was by reason of your sins and the sins of your fathers that, among other precepts, God imposed upon you the observance of the Sabbath as a mark.”38
The “Christian” Vituperation of the Jews
The verbal attack against the Jews continued unabated during the first millennium of the Christian era. For example, in 386 John Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople, delivered a series of eight brutally harsh sermons against the Jews. Among other things he says: “The Jews are the most worthless of men—they are lecherous, greedy, rapacious—they are perfidious murderers of Christians, they worship the devil, their religion is a sickness . . . The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation, no indulgence, no pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance. The Jews must live in servitude forever. It is incumbent on all Christians to hate the Jews.”39
In a similar vein, Gregory of Nyssa (A.D. 330-395), Bishop of Nyssa and a most influential theologian of the fourth century, vituperates the Jews, saying: “Slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, adversaries of God, haters of God, men who show contempt for the law, foes of grace, enemies of the father’s faith, advocates of the devil, brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men whose minds are in darkness, leaven of the Pharisees, assembly of demons, sinners, wicked men, stoners and haters of righteousness.”40
Catholic Professor Gerard S. Sloyan concludes his survey of the treatment of the Jews in the Christian literature of the first sixth centuries, saying: “It came to be assumed very early in the patristic age that every member of subsequent generations of Jews concurred in this wicked deed [of killing Christ]. There was, of course, no evidence for this assumption, but it was thought that their failure to become Christians proved it. . . . The Jews began a centuries-long history of being stigmatized as the killers of Christ on the Cross, when in fact they would have repudiated to a person the small number of Jews in power who had a part in the deed.”41
Anti-Semitism in the Second Millennium
The notion of the Jews as “Christ-killers,” which developed during the first millennium, gained greater prominence in the second millennium. During the first millennium the Christian hostility toward the Jews was at the simmering stage, consisting mostly of verbal attacks. The situation changed dramatically with the dawning of the second millennium. Physical acts of violence against the Jews became commonplace.
To understand this new development, we need to look at two contributing factors. First, the continued existence of the Jews became an irritant situation to many Christians. For a thousand years Christians had been taught that the Jews had failed in their mission. By refusing to accept Christ as their Messiah, and worse, by conspiring to have Him killed, they were rejected by God and replaced with the “new chosen people.”
By this line of reasoning there was no longer any purpose for the Jews in the world. They should have disappeared like so many mightier nations. Yet more than 1,000 years after the death of Christ, the Jews were still widely dispersed, and at times strong and prosperous. To give some sort of an answer to this problem, some Christian theologians developed the notion that the Jews have been doomed by God to wander the earth to bear witness until the end of time of the divine curse that rests upon them for killing Christ. This theology inspired fanatical Christians to prove God right by murdering countless Jews throughout Europe.
The Devotion to Christ’s Sufferings
A second major contributing factor to the new wave of anti-Semitism during the early part of the second millennium is the new religious revival in the Christian world which historians call the “New Piety.” The focus of the New Piety, as noted in Chapter 1, was the devotion to Christ’s suffering and a desire to suffer with Him in His Passion as a way of salvation. The devotion to the Passion inspired the staging of Passion Plays which portrayed the role of the Jews in the trial, scourging, torture, and crucifixion of Jesus. By imitating the sufferings of Christ’s Passion, believers sought to placate God, whom they believed to be responsible for the catastrophes and tragedies that were ravaging Europe at that time.
The portrayal of the Jews in the Passion Plays as collectively guilty for Christ’s death inflamed the people who left their annual Plays raging against the “Christ-killing Jews,” accusing them of well poisoning, causing the Black Plague, and ritual murder. These accusations led to the dehumanization, demonization, brutalization, expulsion, and murder of countless Jews throughout Europe.
The Problem of the Passion Plays
The problem with Passion Plays is the one-sided and collective portrayal of the Jews as a sadistic and bloodthirsty people determined to see Christ killed at any cost. A good example is Mel Gibson’s movie on The Passion. The Jews appear throughout the movie as mean and sadistic, with angry faces and bad teeth. There are no scenes in the movie of the multitudes of Christ’s supporters following Him to Golgotha and expressing their grief by beating their breast.Why did Gibson leave these scenes out? Apparently because Gibson was determined to follow the pre-Vatican II tradition that blamed the Jews collectively for the death of Christ.
Gibson focuses exclusively on the wicked, sinister-looking Jewish leaders who always stand in the front row of the crowd. These terrible Jews show no compassion for the lacerated body of Jesus made worse at every passing moment by the relentless blows. The only time the Jews express grief is when they see their Temple collapsing as a result of the earthquake that accompanied Christ’s death. This scene is one of the many unbiblical and unhistorical episodes, seemingly designed to show God’s rejection of the Jews.
In a penetrating analysis of the portrayal of the Jews in The Passion, Professor Alan Segal rightly observes: “No one can miss that The Passion uses the Jewish leaders badly to express the evil undercurrent of the film. . . . They are the only power to arrest Jesus in the garden, whereas the Gospels also include the Romans (John 18:3). They throw the shackled Jesus off a bridge on his way to the high priest. They mistreat Jesus throughout the film. When Mary Magdalene entreats the Romans to help Jesus, they answer by saying, ‘They are trying to hide their crime from you.’ Agents of the high priest bribe a crowd to demand Jesus’ death. The Jews are present at the scourging as well as at the crucifixion. Furthermore, Satan is constantly depicted as present among them. Even Jewish children turn into devils to torture Judas before he hangs himself. An aide of Pilate tells him that the Pharisees hate Jesus. Pilate criticizes the Jewish abuse of Jesus by asking the question: ‘Do you always punish your prisoners before they are judged?’ Pilate tells his wife that he fears that the Jewish high priest will lead a revolt against Rome if he does not yield to Jewish demands to have Jesus killed.”42
Segal continues by pointing out that “none of the aforementioned depictions of the Jews in Mel Gibson’s film—from the arrest of Jesus to the leaders’ mistreatment of Jesus, to the bribe to whip up the crowd, to the presence of Satan among them, to the presence of the elders at the crucifixion—none of them are present in the New Testament. In spite of Gibson’s frequent claims that his film is true to the Bible, in these crucial places it is not. Every one of these Jewish actions depicted in the film is not in the Gospels.”43
Did Gibson Intend to Be True to the Gospels?
Had Gibson wanted to be true to the Gospels, he could have portrayed the clandestine arrest of Jesus at night, because the chief priests were afraid of a popular uprising by the multitude of people who supported Jesus. We read in Mark 14:2 that “the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth . . . lest there be a tumult of the people.” Gibson could have respected John 11:48 by portraying Caiaphas expressing fear that the Romans might destroy the Temple rather than depicting Pilate as fearing that Caiaphas would incite a revolt.
Gibson could have followed the account of Mark 15:15 and Matthew 27:26 where Jesus is scourged after Pilate’s condemnation as part of the Roman crucifixion procedure. Instead, Gibson chose to have Pilate order the scourging of Jesus before the condemnation in order to show that nothing could change the determination of the wicked Jews to demand Christ’s death. The intent of this rearrangement of the time of the scourging is designed to show that the Jews were so bloodthirsty that nothing could change their minds.
Had Gibson wanted to be true to the Gospels, he would not have portrayed Pilate saying to Caiaphas: “Do you always punish your prisoners before they are judged?” The intent of these unbiblical words is to portray the Jews as a lawless people who take the law into their own hands. What they did to Christ is part of their well-known wicked nature. Again, he would not have had Pilate say the following words not found in any Gospel: “Isn’t this scourging enough?” “It is you who want him crucified, not I.” These unbiblical words are designed to heighten the responsibility of the Jewish people for Christ’s death.
More important still, had Gibson wanted to be true to the Gospels’ picture of the Jews, he would have depicted “a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him” (Luke 23:27) on the way to Golgotha. He would also have shown in the movie “all the multitude who assembled to see the sight [of the crucifixion], and when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breast” (Luke 23:48).
Why Did Gibson Ignore the Multitude of Jews Who Followed Christ to the Cross?
Why did Gibson choose to ignore the scenes of the multitude of the Jews grieving over Jesus’ death? Why did he choose to have Christ’s body taken down from the Cross by John and Mary, instead of following the biblical account which speaks of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus taking care of Christ’s body (John 19:38-39)? Why did Gibson choose to disregard those episodes of the Passion that depict the positive response of many Jews to Christ? The answer to these questions is simple. Gibson was determined to follow the pre-Vatican II Catholic tradition that stereotypes all the Jews as a wicked people under God’s curse for killing Christ.
To create his own cinematic version of The Passion, Gibson relied primarily on Anne Catherine Emmerich’s The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The following chapter examines Gibson’s dependency upon The Dolorous Passion. We shall see that her hateful depiction of the Jews as Christ-killers is totally inappropriate for a confessing twenty-first-century Christian community that has largely recognized that Christ’s death cannot be blamed on all the Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews of later generations.
Gibson’s hateful depiction of the Jews, as Segal aptly puts it, “is not just a blemish on an otherwise wonderful film: it takes a film which was capable of being a milestone of spirituality in its depiction of Jesus’ sufferings and turns it into a moral tragedy. The screenwriter and the producer were conscious of the [untrue] depiction and must bear responsibility for this issue. To go beyond the Gospels in the depiction of the opposition of the Jews is to say that one is supplying part of the anti-Jewish polemic from one’s own imagination. . . . The charge of anti-Semitism against this film ought to be taken very seriously.”44
A Summation. Our study of the origin and development of the “Christian” theology of contempt for the Jews can be summed up in four major points. First, contrary to prevailing assumptions, the roots of anti-Semitism cannot be legitimately found in the New Testament. The Gospels’ writers and Paul place the responsibility for Christ’s death on a relatively small group of Jewish religious leaders and their followers, who pushed for the condemnation and execution of Jesus. They acknowledge that a significant number of Jews believed in Christ, followed Him to the Cross, lamented His death, and responded by the thousands on the day of Pentecost and afterwards to the messianic proclamation (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 21:20).
Second, the origin of “Christian” anti-Semitism can be traced to the post-apostolic period as a result of two major factors: the first is the conflict between the church and the synagogue, and the second is the Roman suppression of Jewish revolts, which resulted in the outlaw of the Jewish religion in general and of the Sabbath in particular.
When the Roman government attempted to suppress the Jewish religion, Christian leaders launched a twofold attack against the Jews: they defamed the Jews as a people, and they emptied Jewish beliefs and practices of any historical significance. The vituperation of the Jews continued unabated during the first millennium of the Christian era, though it consisted mostly of verbal attacks.
Third, with the dawning of the second millennium, a new wave of anti-Semitism erupted, spurred by a new religious piety which was characterized by the devotion to Christ’s suffering as a way of salvation. The devotion to Christ’s Passion inspired the staging of Passion Plays which portrayed the Jews as collectively guilty for Christ’s death. The Plays inflamed the people against the “Christ-killing Jews.” The result was the brutalization, expulsion, and murder of countless Jews throughout Europe.
Fourth, Gibson’s movie on The Passion follows the traditional script of the Passion Plays, where the Jews are portrayed as a sadistic and bloodthirsty people, collectively guilty of Christ’s death. We have found that Gibson intentionally chose to disregard the positive response of many Jews to Christ. The reason is his commitment to the pre-Vatican II Catholic tradition that stereotyped all the Jews as a wicked people, under God’s curse for killing Christ.
Gibson’s one-sided and hateful depiction of the Jews, as Prof. Segal perceptively observes, “takes a film which was capable of being a milestone of spirituality in its depiction of Jesus’ sufferings and turns it into a moral tragedy.”44 Gibson’s hateful depiction of the Jews as Christ-killers is totally inappropriate for a confessing twenty-first-century Christian community that has long recognized that Christ was killed by sinners in general, not exclusively by the Jewish people.
CONCLUSION
Our survey of the theology of the Passion Plays has shown that six major unbiblical beliefs have been embedded in the portrayal of Christ’s Passion during the past seven centuries. These beliefs represent fundamental Catholic teachings, which historically Protestants have largely rejected. This conclusion briefly summarizes these beliefs.
First, Passion Plays reveal the Catholic devotion to Christ’s physical sufferings, especially His wounds, promoted by Bernard of Clairveaux, and especially Francis of Assisi. This devotion contributed in a significant way to the staging of Passion Plays which focus on Christ’s physical sufferings. These plays inspired devout believers to seek salvation by imitating the physical sufferings of Christ by whipping themselves and wounding their bodies in order to atone for their sins and placate the wrath of God. The notion that believers can atone for their sins, by imitating Christ’s physical suffering, ultimately makes salvation a human achievement, rather than a gift of divine grace.
Second, Passion Plays have popularized the Catholic view of the Mass, which is a small-scale Passion Play. According to Catholic teachings, the celebration of the Mass is a reenactment of Christ’s suffering and death. Each time the Mass is offered, the sacrifice of Christ is repeated on behalf of penitent believers. By staging the suffering and crucifixion of Christ, Passion Plays offered to the people an animated Mass.
The notion that Christ must be sacrificed again and again at the altar and in Passion Plays, in order to meet the demands of divine justice, negates the all-sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. The Bible clearly teaches that there is no need to repeat Christ’s sacrifice, because “Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many” (Heb 9:28).
Third, Passion Plays have promoted the belief that in order to satisfy the rigorous demands of a punitive, exacting God, Christ had to suffer in His body and mind the equivalent of the punishment for all the sins of humanity. The relentless brutal whipping and flaying of Jesus’ body in Gibson’s movie reflects this fundamental satisfaction view of Christ’s atonement.
This view ignores the fact that the Cross was not a legal transaction in which a meek Christ suffered the harsh punishment imposed by a punitive Father for the sins of humankind, but a revelation of how the righteous and loving Father was willing through His Son to become flesh and suffer the punishment of our sins in order to redeem us without compromising His own character.
Fourth, Passion Plays emphasize the prominent role of Mary as a partner in Christ’s suffering for our salvation. From Gethsemane to Golgotha, the sufferings of Christ are revealed through the anguish of Mary. She sustains her Son and shares in His suffering throughout the ordeal.
This fundamental Catholic belief obscures the centrality and uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice and mediation. By attributing to Mary a co-redemptive role on behalf of penitent sinners, the Catholic Church has developed an idolatrous religion that offers salvation through a variety of persons. The result is that many devout Catholics offer more prayers to Mary and the saints than to the Father or the Son.
Fifth, Passion Plays impersonate the divine Son of God, reducing Him to a mere human being, whom people worship as the real Christ. This practice is condemned by the Second Commandment which warns against a wrong form of worship by means of a visual or material objectification of God. This warning is ignored, especially in dominant Catholic countries, where the only Christ devout Catholics know and worship is the One they touch, kiss, see, and often wear as jewelry. Statues, crucifixes, and pictures of the bleeding Savior abound in devout Catholic homes. Instead of worshipping the invisible Lord in Spirit and Truth, they worship idols that they can see and touch.
Many Evangelicals have become so conditioned by the entertainment industry that they are shifting from a Word-centered to an Image-centered style of worship with images, drama, Passion Plays, and religious movies. By accepting the use of images that were once rejected as signs of papal authority, Evangelicals are running the risk today of returning to the Medieval false worship which the Reformers fought hard to reform.
Sixth, Passion Plays have historically portrayed the Jews as collectively guilty for Christ’s death. The Plays inflamed the people against the “Christ-killing Jews.” The result was the brutalization, expulsion, and murder of countless Jews throughout Europe.
Gibson’s movie on The Passion follows the traditional script of the Passion Plays, where the Jews are portrayed as a sadistic and bloodthirsty people collectively guilty of Christ’s death. The hateful depiction of the Jews as Christ-killers is totally inappropriate for a confessing twenty-first-century Christian community that has long recognized that Christ was killed by sinners in general, not exclusively by the Jewish people.
In summation, the theology of the Passion Play represents the outgrowth of centuries of Catholic superstitious beliefs, largely based on popular myths rather than on biblical teachings. The popular acceptance of such superstitious beliefs has fostered an idolatrous piety designed to placate a punitive God by imitating Christ’s suffering and by appealing to the meritorious intercession of Mary and the saints.
The subtle ways in which Catholic superstitious beliefs are embedded in Passion Plays, like Gibson’s movie, are leading many unsuspecting Evangelicals to accept as biblical truths what in reality are Catholic heresies. Our safeguard is to test what we see portrayed in religious movies by what we read in the revealed Word of God. Our faith and worship should be Word-centered, not Image-centered.
ENDNOTES
1. “The Animated Crucifix,” http://www.letgodbetrue.com/TodaysWorld/passion.htm.
2. Alister Hardy, The Divine Flame (Oxford, 1966), p. 218.
3. Philip A. Cunningham, “Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ: A Challenge to Catholic Teaching,” http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/reviews/gibson_ cunningham.htm.
4. For a historical survey of the different theories of the atonement, see H. E. W. Turner, The Patristic Doctrine of Redemption (London, 1952); Robert Mackintosh, Historic Theories of the Atonement (London, 1920).
5. R. W. Dale, Atonement (New York, 1894), p. 277.
6. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Allen, translator (Philadelphia, 1930), pp. ii, xvi.10.
7. John R. W. Storr, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Illinois, 1986), p. 151.
8. Ibid., p. 160.
9. R. W. Dale, note 4, p. 393.
10. Excerpts from the Introductory Commentary to the Mass, Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Volume 1 (Sacramentary, Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1992), p. 65.
11.“Is Mary the ‘Coredemptrix’?” http://home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/marian14.html.
12. “Mel, Mary, and Mothers,” Christianity Today (March 2004), p. 25.
13. Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York, 1997), p. 276, paragraph 974.
14. Ibid., p. 276, paragraph 975.
15. Anne Catherine Emmerich, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich (Rockford, Illinois, 1983), p. 172.
16. The Dolorous Passion, p. 174.
17. The Dolorous Passion, p. 211.
18. Teiji Yasuda, O.S.V., English version by John M. Haffert, Akita: The Tears and Message of Mary (Asbury, NJ, 1989), p. 78.
19. Thomas Petrisko, Call of the Ages (Santa Barbara, CA, 1995), p. 247.
20. Beatrice Bruteau, compiled by Shirley Nicholson, The Goddess Re-Awakening (Wheaton, IL, 1994), p. 68.
21. “Mel, Mary, and Mothers,” Christianity Today (March 2004), p. 25.
22. Ibid.
23. Quotations taken from Ron Gleason, “The 2nd Commandment and ‘The Passion of the Christ,’” http://www.christianity.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID23682%7CCHID125043%7CCIID 1716514,00.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibd.
26. Ibid.
27. The Heidelberg Catechism (Question 97).
28. Bian Godawa,“The Passion of the Christ,” http://www.christianity.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID23682%7CCHID125043% 7CCIID1712182,00.
29. Westminster Larger Catechism, Answer 109.
30. “What Others Are Saying,” www.passionchrist.org.
31. SDA Dictionary, end sheet, explanation on p. xxiv.
32. New Yorker (September, 2003), p. 21.
33. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance (Edinburgh,1970), I/1:134.
34. Ken Spiro, “The Passion: A Historical Perspective,” http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/The_Passion_A_Historical_Perspective.asp.
35. Ibid.
36. Alan F. Segal, “The Jewish Leaders,” in the symposium Jesus and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. The film, the Gospels and the Claims of History, Edited by Kathleen E. Corley and Robert L. Webb (New York, 2004), p. 98.
37. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho chapter 133; for a discussion of the texts, see Samuele Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday (Rome, 1977), pp. 227-229.
38. Justin, Dialogue 21,1, Falls, Justin’s Writings, pp. 172-178.
39. Allan Gould, Editor, What Did They Think of the Jews? (New York, 1997), p. 24.
40. Ibid., p.25.
41. Gerard S. Sloyan, The Crucifixion of Jesus. History, Myth, Faith (Minneapolis, 1995), pp. 96-7.
42. Allan F. Segan (note 36), p. 91.
43. Ibid., p. 92.
44. Ibid. Emphasis supplied.

Home | About Author | Books | Order Online | Print Order Form | Scholars comments