Image as Equal to Word
The Orthodox understanding of icon confers a basic authoritative equality of image and word. “The word is an image, therefore the image is the word. Images are on the same level as the word.”25 Zibawi suggests that “…the icon is the expression of the good news, on a par with the written Gospels.”26 The technical aspects of the icon were under the control of the iconographer but not the content. This reemphasizes the idea that content is the Gospel. Structure and style, which are at the discretion of men, are technical.
“In the eyes of the Church, therefore, the icon is not art illustrating Holy Scripture; it is a language that corresponds to it and is equivalent to it, corresponding not to the letter of Scripture or the book itself as an object, but the evangelical kerygma, that is, to the content of the Scripture itself…”27
23 (Ouspensky/ Lossky, 1983, p. 29)
24 for example, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Cyril of Alexandria (Ouspensky, 1992, p. 81ff)
25 (Ouspensky/ Lossky, 1983, p. 30)
26 (Zibawi, 1993, p. 11)
27 (Ouspensky, 1992, p. 139)
This creates the possibility of the role of icons as preacher. In fact, Limouris suggests that icons play a role as important as the preaching of the word.28 They allow humans to partake in the divine reality of God. They function as windows to the eternal. This is consistent with the Orthodox understanding that the bible is a verbal icon of Christ and should be venerated in the same way.29
28 (Limouris, 1990, p. ix)
29 Timothy Ware. The Orthodox Church. (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1964), p. 209.
The Kenosis of God
The basic idea of the kenosis of God is that God participated in the created world through Christ so that human beings have the potential to participate in the divine. A scriptural example of this is found in II Peter 1:4. Essentially, “God became man so that man might become God.”; “The Word became flesh so that the flesh could become word”30 The Orthodox discuss this in relationship to Philippians 2 as the emptying of God. Man is to become like God and participate the nature of God. This is “…a dynamic task to accomplish.”31 Essentially, man, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, “…becomes God by grace”.32 While this sounds suspect to an evangelical in that it appears that the doctrine implies that men may become gods, this is not precisely the case. Rather, men may participate in the nature of God. While biblical evidence for this is not overwhelming, it is present. In essence, it reflects the desire of man to be like Christ. This is a possible thing. It is significant in light of the veneration of icons. It is not really the picture that is venerated, but the “God likeness” of the person represented in the picture.
30 Ouspensky, 1992, p. 152.
31 Ibid, p. 156.
32 Ibid, p. 158.
While this appears to be the veneration, or even worship of an image, it is actually understood as the veneration of God (in man) through the image.
In the context of the kenosis of God, the Orthodox understand all of creation in a very sacramental way. All of matter was sanctified through the incarnation of Christ. The crucial argument is that when God became matter in Christ, “…an eternal change took place in the relationship between God and material creation.”33 “Our brothers of the East consider the concrete things that are all around us much less in themselves and for themselves, according to the value of their own components, than as a reflection or image of a transcendent reality which they exist to express.”34
