Long before men could articulate their ideas in written form they captured the divine experience, the mysterious. Cave paintings, rituals, voice sounds, instrumental sounds and gestures were among the many attempts to convey the abstract. In Paul Johnson’s Art, A New History he writes, “The first point to grasp is the immense fecundity of humans producing objects of art. I argue (Johnson) here that art predated not only writing but probably structured speech too, that it was closely associated with the ordering instinct which makes society possible, and that it has therefore always been essential to human happiness. The artist was the first professional.”

One wonders how God could have so trusted the spirit and ordering instinct of man to engage in His truth and spirit and convey it to his neighbor. One wonders, why didn’t God invent writing and structured speech in the beginning so there would never be error about His eternal presences? Perhaps error was not His big concern with man. Somewhere in the human spirit emerges a longing to express the divine in images. What role did Christendom play in celebrating and or crushing the iconographic urge? To represent God in form through the arts seems to be inevitable. In my reflections on Hebrews 1:3, I’m thrilled to see a God who could trust the revelation of His being though the ages to the hands and hearts of those who longed to see Him. His radiance shines forth and is seen. 

Long before men could articulate their ideas in written form they captured the divine experience, the mysterious. Cave paintings, rituals, voice sounds, instrumental sounds and gestures were among the many attempts to convey the abstract. In Paul Johnson’s Art A New History he writes “The first point to grasp is the immense fecundity of humans producing objects of art. I argue (Johnson) here that art predated not only writing but probably structured speech too, that it was closely associated with the ordering instinct which makes society possible, and that it has therefore always been essential to human happiness. The artist was the first professional.” Pp1

One wonders how God could have so trusted the spirit and ordering instinct of man to engage in His truth and spirit and convey it to his neighbor. One wonders, why didn’t God invent writing and structured speech in the beginning so there would never be error about His eternal presences? Perhaps error was not His big concern with man. Somewhere in the human spirit emerges a longing to express the divine in images. What role did Christendom play in celebrating and or crushing the iconographic urge? To represent God in form through the arts seems to be inevitable. In my reflections on Hebrews 1:3 I’m thrilled to see a God who could trust the revelation of His being though the ages to the hands and hearts of those who longed to see Him. His radiance shines forth and is seen.