“The Chosen”: A Tale of Two Christs?

With another Easter just around the bend, there seems no better time than the present to have a much-needed—though, heretofore much-neglected—conversation about The Chosen.

For the few of you who may be unaware, The Chosen is a wildly popular, multi-season television show chronicling the life of Jesus and His disciples produced by Angel Studios. While the emphasis of my article will be on this particular series, many of my thoughts here, Lord willing, are readily applicable to the wider conversation regarding depictions of Christ, whether these representations be visual, material, or even mental.

One need only take a cursory glance at the title of this article to venture a guess as to where my convictions land on the topic. Indeed, over the course of this post my aim is to outline why I do not, and will not, watch The Chosen. I will unpack my position across five points, addressing each item in turn, with the weight of my conviction resting on the prohibitions outlined in the second commandment.

When I say “my position,” be aware that I’m not speaking from an island. While this is indeed the conviction I hold to, church history itself attests to a long-held, robust theology rejecting the use of images to represent God, whether for worship or otherwise—a view reaffirmed and explicated during the Reformation.

I do not write these words lightly. Rather, I am attempting to communicate very real and pressing concerns about The Chosen with as much humility, sobriety of mind, and Biblical fidelity as I am able. What you are about to read has been born out of much prayer, several years of careful, ongoing reflection, and a close consideration of what men far godlier than myself have said on this topic throughout church history. I am keenly aware that some of my readers, many close friends and family among them, will disagree with me on this issue—perhaps even rather vehemently. So be it. However, amidst our disagreements, let us remain gracious and charitable, seeking to honor others above ourselves (Romans 12:10) and in so doing, honor Christ above all.

1.) Stolen Glory:

The Prohibitions of the Second Commandment

The weight of my conviction against any representations of Christ, in The Chosen or otherwise, rests in the second of the ten commandments. Many of my other issues with The Chosen, serious as they may be, are more or less downstream from this chief concern: namely, ascribing an image of any kind to the Lord God.

However, before we concern ourselves with the second commandment, we must first familiarize ourselves with the first commandment. Indeed, in order to properly understand and obey the second, we must understand that which comes before it—context is king.

When God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, He begins by reminding Moses, and by extension the people of Israel, of who He is and what He has done. Thundering out from the darkness and smoke and fire of the mountain, the voice of the Lord proclaims: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). It was the LORD who delivered His people, not the feckless, impotent lowercase-g gods of Egypt. In fact, by delivering the people of Israel from the hands of Pharoah through many plagues and signs—plagues that directly rebuked the demonic assortment of sun, water, and fertility gods of Egypt—Yahweh put these other gods to open shame and judgement.

After this sobering reminder, God issues the first of His ten commandments, the command upon which all the others find their footing: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). Some Bible translations use the language of “besides me” instead of “before me,” though in either case the effect is the same: No other gods are to be brought into the holy, all-consuming presence of the one true God.

Commentaries on Exodus 20:3, such as Benson’s or Barnes’, will often translate “before me” as literally “before my face.” The language being employed here is spatial, having to do with nearness or proximity to someone—in this case, no other gods or idols are to be worshipped ahead of, behind, above, below, before, beside, or in the infinitely distant expanse even approaching Yahweh. Because the one true God is omnipresent, there is nothing in all of creation that is not immediately “before Him,” that is, in His direct and holy presence.

Now that we’ve established what the first commandment instructs, and thoroughly eliminated even the notion of worshipping any other gods besides Yahweh, we can move on to what the Lord commands concerning the worship of Himself. That being said, what does the second commandment actually say? In Exodus 20:4-5, we read:

“You shall not make for yourself a carved 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.”

To say that this commandment merely condemns the idolatrous worship of foreign gods would miss the point almost entirely, particularly in light of the very first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). If the second commandment only prohibits the worship of “other gods,” then it would substantially be no different from the first commandment. Therefore, we can confidently say that the first commandment has to do with the who of our worship (the one true God), while the second commandment has to do with the how of our worship (sans images).

We are to worship the living God, Yahweh, and we are to worship Him in the way He has commanded and permitted. Looking at the second commandment, then, it becomes clear that God forbids the use of images in worship—such a violation constitutes idolatry. To quote Charles Hodge, “idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the worship of the true God by images.”1

This interpretation is not novel. The prohibition against images of God goes back far further than the Reformation, than Saint Augustine, predating the early church fathers and even the Apostles themselves, going all the way to the foot of Mount Sinai itself. In Deuteronomy 4:15-16, Moses warns the people, saying, “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure.” John Calvin, writing directly about the second commandment in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, says, “By these words [Moses] curbs any licentious attempt we might make to represent [God] by a visible shape.”2

The natural man is utterly boundless in his ability to make a god out of whatever lies before him. Truly, as Calvin once put it, the heart of man is a perpetual idol factory—even when it comes to worship of the one true God. God knows, with an infinite, intimate awareness, that we as His image-bearers are also ardent, rebellious image-makers—both with respect to other gods and, unfortunately, with the true God as well. Because each and every idol of the heart is directly “before Him,” actively diminishing His glory and decaying the souls of those who worship such falsehood, it is then no wonder why God is so jealous to guard His holy name in these first two commandments.

To worship “the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God” (1 Timothy 1:17) with images of any kind, no matter how glorious or seemingly elevated, is to rob Him of His matchless glory. Even ancient pagans understood this to be the case. Saint Augustine, quoting the Roman scholar Varro, remarks rightly that, “Those who first introduced images of the gods both took away fear and brought in error.”3 If this can be said of pagan gods, who are no gods at all, then how much more so does it apply to our worship of the one true God?

Worshipping God with the use of objects and images is at the beating heart of what the second commandment strictly and clearly prohibits. It is sin. By ascribing an image to any Persons of the Trinity, regardless how lofty these images may seem to us, we are in effect saying to God, “Yes, Lord, I know you are invisible, immortal, and infinite, far beyond all creaturely understanding, but I think ____ will represent you well enough—it just helps me understand you better, you see.”

If God is invisible, then we dare not diminish His glory with those things we make, carve, or imagine, though in our own minds these depictions might very well stretch our imaginative capabilities. God, being infinite and invisible, is not to be subjected to portrayal with “images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things,” (Romans 1:23). Rather, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).

The highest creature that man can possibly conceive of is himself—man. In our thinking of God, the holy angels, and even Satan, there is a distinct creatureliness, or humanness, to our imaginings. This is less offensive when it comes to beings other than God because they are, like all created things, at the end of the day still creatures—no matter how glorious. By contrast, God, as Creator, is the furthest possible Being from a mere creature. In large part, this is what it means for God to be holy (Isaiah 6). However, we sin against the Lord when we routinely make this error of attributing to Him human qualities, even if our intentions are ‘noble.’

The images we make of God, be they molten or mental, inevitably follow this pattern of making God in the image of man. This error ought to terrify us. Man was made in the image of God, not the other way around; we dare not make the grave mistake of assuming that Almighty God is made in our image. Hence why God in the second commandment prohibits the use of images in our worship, whether they be “images resembling mortal man” (Romans 1:23) or any such things found “in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exodus 20:4-5). This list is, among other things, thoroughly exhaustive. God, having made His abode in “heaven above,” rules out and strictly prohibits the practice of fashioning any image from that realm where He rules as King—Himself included.

Consider what the Westminster Larger Catechism has to say:

“Question: What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?

Answer: The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and anywise approving, any religious worship not instated by God himself; tolerating a false religion; the making 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.”

Images of God rob Him of the glory due Him, and rob us of the true knowledge of God that He means for us to learn from His word. This is precisely why images depicting God have always been prohibited—Biblically, throughout church history, and in the Reformed tradition. J.I. Packer writes “that the glory of God and the spiritual well-being of humans are both directly bound up with [the second commandment].”4 Taking up this line, John Calvin writes how, when we lower Almighty God to the level of any image or representation, “His glory is defiled, and His truth corrupted by the lie, whenever He is set before our eyes in a visible form... His majesty is adulterated, and He is figured to be other than He is.”5 When we violate the second commandment, we are provoking the jealousy of a holy God who is beyond all comparison—holy, holy, holy, infinitely above even the most elevated creature—and robbing ourselves of the true knowledge of God that can only be found in His word. “The mind that takes up with images,” writes Packer, “is a mind that has not yet learned to love and attend to God’s Word.”6

2.) A Tale of Two Christs?

The Jesus of Scripture & the Jesus of “The Chosen”

When it comes to images and depictions of God the Son, however, the second commandment is almost always completely disregarded. In most cases, those in favor of representing Jesus—whether it be in books, on film, in statures, or otherwise—argue that because God the Son took on human flesh in the Incarnation, we then have permission from God to depict Him as a human—as a man. I think this argument has several crucial flaws.

First, let’s get the obvious out of the way: Jesus, truly God, took on a truly human body in the Incarnation. The historical person of Jesus Christ, God the Son, stepped out of eternity and took on flesh (John 1:14). Indeed, at this very moment, the Lord Jesus Christ reigns and rules over all of reality as the God-Man, being truly God and truly man. Jesus had and has a human body. The Incarnation of the Son was not a one-time event, as though Jesus’ life as a man concluded once His earthly ministry and atoning death were accomplished—no, for He reigns now and forever more in His glorious, resurrected body as the Lamb who was slain for the sins of the world, bearing upon His human body for all eternity those wounds by which we were healed. Jesus’ humanity is what allowed Him to be the all-sufficient sacrifice for the sin of humanity back then, and it is His humanity which now enables Him to be our intercessor and high priest in Heaven.

However—therein lies the crux of the issue: it is the historical person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth who was born of a virgin birth, who lived a sinless life, who died an atoning death for the sins of His people, and who rose again to taste death no more, now making intercession for the saints at the right hand of the Father.

It is the singular, utterly unique Incarnation of God the Son that we as Christians both look back to and ache forward towards. The Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus with whom we will be in Heaven are one and the same—a Jesus vastly, infinitely greater than any depictions of Him. And because we do not know what Jesus looks like, anytime we commit ‘a Jesus’ to some kind of image, we are dealing with another Jesus. And anytime we are dealing with another Jesus, we are dealing with no Jesus at all.

When Jesus’ disciples walked with Him here below, they walked, talked, and ate with the real Jesus. And when they were writing the Gospels, I am quite confident that the disciples would have regularly called to mind their many memories of Jesus—the color of His hair, the shape of His chin, the way His beard grew in, the hue of His eyes, the way He breathed, the sound of His voice. In writing 1 John, the apostle practically admits as much:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:1-3).

Because John and the other disciples knew Jesus while He was on Earth, their ability to picture Him mentally was unique to their appointment as Jesus’ apostles—a uniqueness that was their own, a privilege no other generation since can claim. And yet, consider that they did not make any attempt to describe Jesus physically to us in the Gospels. If what He looked like was so important for our faith and worship on this side of eternity, this seems like a massive oversight. Rather, the writers of the New Testament rightly put forward that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17), and that “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Indeed, Jesus says: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). We as believers see the Word of God, Jesus, through the eyes of faith as we read the word of God, the Bible. One day we will see Him face to face—just not yet.

When we picture Jesus, whether mentally or in a television show like The Chosen, we are not remembering Him as the disciples would have, but imagining Him. And to imagine God, to imagine and put to form any Person of the Trinity, is to violate the second commandment. Like water off a duck’s back, we see no issue with putting an image to the person of Christ, God the Son, simply because He took on flesh—this error is less obvious, say, than committing the Father or the Holy Spirit to some sort of physical form. My contention—and indeed the majority view held historically, both during the Reformation and throughout church history, not to mention the Bible’s view—is that the same rule ought apply to all Divine Persons of the Trinity. To create an image of any Member of the Godhead is to commit idolatry.

Simply because the tradition of icons and images of Christ goes back into the far reaches of church history is no argument in favor of its Biblical authenticity or approval before God. Just because a practice is old doesn’t make it true. Something is true not by virtue of it merely being old, but by virtue of it being Biblical and in line with God’s revealed word. A tradition can be very old and at the same time very wrong. If anything, it might only signal that the rot goes down far deeper than otherwise suspected. Look no further than the New Testament churches at Corinth or Galatia who, though they were established by the Apostle Paul himself, yet still fell into grave error in his lifetime and were in need of his stern, though loving, correction.

In everything, may we in humility allow the voice of Scripture to shape our convictions, rather than permitting our feelings or preferences to interpret God’s word for us. It is far better to submit and obey—with trembling—than play fast and loose with the word of God to the end that His eternal truth might fit neatly into our own thinking or traditions.

3.) When the Screen Becomes Scripture:

Is the Bible Truly Sufficient?

With something like The Chosen, or indeed with any depictions of Christ, folks are often swift to claim that, while these are in fact images of God, they are not produced with the intent of aiding in worship. In this way, or so the claim goes, the second commandment is not violated. Rather, depictions of Christ in The Chosen or otherwise are a means by which the truths of the Gospel are proliferated—the images are not for worship, but for outreach and evangelism. This same line was toed way back in the early 2000s when Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ debuted.

“Surely no one would be foolish enough to mistake an actor playing Jesus in a show for the real Jesus,” they say. “Perhaps,” I might respond, “but perhaps not.” Maybe the real error is not mistaking an actor for Jesus, but ignoring the commandment of God in the first place out of a misplaced sense of Gospel pragmatism. We are never justified in breaking one of God’s commands with the hope that, just maybe, we might be better equipped to obey Him in another one of His commands at some point further down the road. Woe to those who nullify the word of God in the name of pragmatism!

Furthermore, I would not attribute foolishness to the one who confuses an image of Jesus for the real Jesus—confusion, yes, but not necessarily foolishness. If an image is not meant to represent the reality, then might I ask what purpose such an image possesses? We are, among other things, visual creatures. As humans, we form images in our minds based off of those things we’ve seen in the real world: I can think of a tree or a sunset in my mind because I’ve seen both of these with my own two eyes.

However, no one alive today has seen the living Christ, and so we have no business imagining Him. To do so would only diminish His true and unimaginable glory. The disciples could picture Jesus in their minds, provided they were indeed remembering Him correctly, because they were remembering Him as God perfectly chose to reveal Him—as the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It was not an image they had in their minds, but the real Jesus; this was unique to their personal relationship with the incarnate Son, and could not be applied to the Godhead generally. And yet, though they saw the Lord daily for years, even gazing upon His glorified form, the emphasis of the Apostles remains clear in their teaching to us: “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). The Apostles realized that it was not their memory of Jesus that saved or sanctified them, but the living Jesus who did so; the same Jesus who rules as King of kings and Lord of lords over all, the same Jesus who the Holy Spirit reveals through the Scriptures to this very day, just as He did in the days of the Apostles.

If someone is exposed to an image of ‘Jesus’ repeatedly, time and time again, on something like The Chosen or via a painting they have in their bedroom, might we not also expect when that same person prays by their bedside that it is Jesus the actor they see in their mind’s eye? God has revealed Himself through His Son; not through images of His Son.

If you think I am being hyperbolic, consider that Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus in The Chosen, has had no shortage of fans approach him and ask that he pray for them because of the close association these viewers hold between him and the Lord. Even more troubling, other fans of the show admit that they see Roumie’s face when they pray to the Lord or read their Bibles, confessing little issue with it.

This is only to be expected when images of any kind are introduced into our worship of the Triune God. God knows best who He is, and as such, He also knows best how we are to worship Him—for our own good and for His glory. In his seminal work, Knowing God, J.I. Packer expands upon the dangers of disregarding the Biblically-ordained means God has clearly outlined for worship in favor of our own preferences. In Chapter four, “The Only True God,” Packer writes: “Psychologically, it is certain that if you habitually focus your thoughts on an image or picture of the One to whom you are going to pray, you will come to think of him, and pray to him, as the image represents him. Thus you will in this sense ‘bow down’ and ‘worship’ your image.”

I think that a similar phenomenon occurs when we begin to confuse the screen for Scripture. We not only replace the real Jesus with a counterfeit, but we get turned around in our understanding of what the Bible actually says as well. I have heard of Bible studies that go through the night quiet as a mausoleum only to erupt with enthusiasm the moment The Chosen gets brought up. No such excitement was on display for the word of God, but no shortage of conversation then began to center around a television show of all things. Indeed, even in some of my conversations with other believers I’ve quoted Scripture on a particular topic only for them to reply with, “Okay, yes, but this is what Jesus says about that in The Chosen...”

To put holy Scripture to the screen isn’t the same as developing an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, where the producers and writers have creative license to do as they please (though, I’d argue that Tolkien’s work deserves proper respect as well). A great danger in thinking about the word of God as though it were any old book is that, in time, we will surely forget where Scripture ends and the screen, or the adaptation, begins, and vice versa.

Just this past Christmas I read through The Lord of the Rings trilogy and, because of my great familiarity with the Peter Jackson films, found myself anticipating scenes and events that never came to pass. Indeed, these scenes were entirely absent in Tolkien’s original work, despite being very much present in The Lord of the Rings story as I knew it and remembered it from the films I grew up on. And in some cases I came to realize that lines from the book which were originally delivered by Gandalf or Aragorn were in fact swapped or given to entirely different characters in the films—this is all part of the adaptation process, you see.

My fear is that a similar confusion can, will, and indeed has come to pass with many viewers of The Chosen, particularly among those who never knew their Bibles very well to begin with. Indeed, for some viewers, the Bible, Christ, and Gospel presented to them in the show is all they’ve ever known. Accretion by accretion, though the changes seemed slight and innocent enough at first, even ‘Christian’ viewers may soon find they actually have no concept of what the Bible truly says, or who their Savior really is, if they are not first rooted firmly in the revealed word of God. 

Salvation belongs to the Lord, not to studio executives and producers who are cosplaying the Bible. Does The Chosen result in more folks reading their Bibles and coming to Christ? Perhaps—and if so, praise God for His kindness. However, I am convinced this is in spite of the show and not directly because of it. Never underestimate God’s uncanny ability to deal straight blows with crooked sticks.

4.) No Other Jesus, No Other Gospel:

Additions, Subtractions, & Contradictions

The word of God is perfect, supplying believers with all things “that pertain to life and godliness” (1 Peter 1:3). In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Paul goes on to say that all “Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” And in these last days, says the author of Hebrews, God “has spoken to us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:2). The Bible is inerrant and it is infallible; it is both without error and beyond error.

The word of God is not, however, a comprehensive encyclopedia on all things under the sun—nor was it ever supposed to be. The written word of God reveals the Word of God—the Lord Jesus Christ, who has supplied all things necessary for our salvation in Himself. When the writers of the New Testament were penning their Gospel accounts and epistles, ever under the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit, their intentions were to reveal those things that were necessary, not necessarily exhaustive. There are many mysteries, especially pertaining to the life of Christ, that the Bible simply stays silent on. We might not understand this, but we must accept it.

And so, in order to produce a multi-season show about the life of Jesus and His disciples, as is the case with The Chosen, some creative liberties must be taken—to say the very least. When you are attempting to stretch a Gospel account of a few thousand words into dozens of hours of television, across multiple seasons, how could this not be the case? The Gospels tell us much about Jesus, but not everything we would like to know. At the end of John’s Gospel, the author says all the books in the world would not have room enough to contain everything that Jesus did during His earthly ministry.

The Chosen, by virtue of its very existence, seeks to fill in some of these gaps with what can only politely be called speculation. In my opinion, the show can only ever rise to the level of historical fiction, or else outright fan-fiction, and in many cases boldfaced lies. By expanding upon the Biblical source material, one will inevitably only end up with a Frankensteinian-narrative composed of disparate parts, ultimately straying from what we actually read in the Gospels. Does this not cause you to tremble? Again, we aren’t talking about an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings here—this is the holy word of the Living God. It is a fearful thing to portray Christ as someone who He is not, and another thing altogether to put words into His mouth that He never spoke. This is a direct violation of the first, second, and third commandments (Exodus 20:3-7).

When it comes to the preservation of the Gospel and the overall fidelity of God’s word, the Lord does not mince words when it comes to His opponents. Speaking about those who profane the Gospel with falsehood, Paul says in Galatians 1:8, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” The Bible itself ends with this haunting warning:

“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (Revelation 22:18-19).

In The Chosen, we see additions, substitutions, and outright contradictions of Scripture in abundance. Having not seen the show, some of my examples may be vague, but these items are nonetheless drawn from scenes that transpire throughout the series. Firstly, though generally, consider that any word not directly attributed to Jesus or His disciples by the authors of the Bible, yet spoken in the show, is an exercise in speculative fiction and indeed falsehood. More specifically, consider also that there is a point in the series when Jesus asks for help from one of His disciples in writing the Sermon on the Mount—the most famous sermon ever preached in history was, by the show’s own admission, not authored by Jesus Himself. On another occasion, Jesus pleads with Judas to be faithful to Him; suggesting that the Lord did not know, flying in the face of what Scripture says, that one of His disciples would indeed betray Him.

Did Jesus not know how to preach? Could He, the Word incarnate, not competently divide the word on His own? Did Jesus not know that Judas, one whom He had not chosen, would betray Him as prophesied in accordance with Scripture? The Bible indicates, in no uncertain terms, the complete opposite to be the case about Jesus and His ministry. To quote the Lord Himself, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Doubtless there are many other instances in The Chosen we could investigate, though time would fail me to outline them all—but, in my mind, any one of these examples on their own are reason enough to refrain from the show.

5.) A Little Leaven...

Unhealthy & Unholy Alliances

Such interpretative liberties can only be expected, indeed inevitable, when a show like The Chosen is produced under an unhealthy, unholy alliance of Evangelicals, Catholics, and dare I say it, Mormons as well.

By committing anything from Scripture to screen, you are invariably committing some act of interpretation. That is, even if you are only relegating yourself to filming a single scene from the Gospel of Mark, using only the words provided in said Gospel, you are nonetheless undertaking the task of interpreting that specific scene through a particular lens: the way the actor delivers the line, their tone of voice, the emotion present in their eyes, the response or lack of response from the person they are speaking to, the positioning of bodies, body language, mannerisms, so on and so forth. These interpretative concerns begin to multiply tenfold when extra-Biblical accounts are then thrown into the mix—entirely fictional accounts upon which The Chosen is premised.

God gave us a book, not a movie; a book which He means for us to understand and obey as we read with illuminated eyes and heart, growing in the knowledge of Christ as His Holy Spirit leads. To commit these historical scenes to the screen is to lock oneself into a specific interpretation; an interpretation which, in this case, is heavily influenced by groups and denominations that undermine or outright reject the true and saving Gospel of our Lord.

There is no such thing as an unbiased interpretation. This is particularly true when groups contrary to the true Gospel are involved, such as Catholics and Mormons, the latter of which deny the deity of Christ, the Trinity, and essentially everything else central and precious to the Christian faith—I ask, what fellowship does light have with darkness? What business does a demonic religion like Mormonism have with Christ and the Gospel other than to repent and turn to Him for forgiveness? The Mormon scandal aside, viewers of the show would be hard-pressed to deny the explicitly Roman Catholic influence that producers and actors have had on The Chosen’s production.

Some of the changes made to The Chosen are, admittedly, small and minor changes. They are, however, changes all the same that are now passed along by the producers of the show as being in accordance with the word of God. Furthermore, there are now significant financial incentives on the side of the producers to continue pumping out new seasons of The Chosen—thus opening the door for even more additions, substitutions, contradictions, and brand-expansions. Unfortunately, I’ve even heard Christians say something to this very end: “I sure hope they keep making new seasons of The Chosen so that more people can come to Christ.” My friends, The Chosen has not, cannot, and will not save anyone. Salvation belongs to the Lord and is communicated through the preaching of His word—“faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

Just last year I saw a book at a major retailer titled, The Chosen: I Have Called You By Name, which is a novelization of the show’s first season. Maybe I’m missing something... but wouldn’t it be fair to expect that the novelization of a television show claiming to be true to the Bible simply be, you know, the Bible itself? This is not a bug of the show, but a feature throughout. Rather than directing viewers of the The Chosen back to the Bible, there seems instead to be a subtle—though in this case very explicit—campaign to preach a brand and not Christ. How else can such a product be interpretated?

The fact remains that all changes to holy Scripture, whether minor accretions or major alterations, are an abomination to the Lord and represent the peddling of a different Gospel and a different Christ—not that there is a different Christ or different Gospel, only false variations of each.

To soften Christ, to strip Him of His divine glory and holiness, is to present a false Savior and a false Gospel to the world. What does Scripture have to say on that matter?—“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). This warning becomes particularly sobering when you consider that Mormonism itself began with ‘an angel of light’ proclaiming a ‘new gospel’ to the cult’s founder, Joseph Smith.

None Other

Some Concluding Thoughts

The temptation to watch a well-produced show like The Chosen is real. If I had to guess, many viewers turn to shows like The Chosen out of a deep, genuine yearning to see Jesus; an ache I understand very well. I get it: I want to see Him too, more than anything—just not like that. I want to see Him as He is: infinitely more beautiful and glorious than my greatest expectation, far greater than any image or television show can possibly guess.

Like David, the heartfelt prayer of every Christian should be: “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in His temple” (Psalm 27:4). To see God face to face and enjoy communion with Him as He truly is amounts to the sum and substance of all that we as believers ache and long for. This is what’s called ‘the Beatific Vision’—“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

This is the very hope John points us to: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). J.R.R. Tolkien, speaking through the lips of Gandalf on that joy soon to come, put it this way: “Many folk like to know beforehand what is to be set on the table; but those who have laboured to prepare the feast like to keep their secret; for wonder makes the words of praise louder.”

Indeed, “wonder makes the words of praise louder.” I am thoroughly convinced that we grieve the heart of God when we commit His matchless name to an image of any kind. How our impatience must sadden Him. Soon, we shall see Him face to face and feast on His beauty forever, and it will be better beyond all our cruel imaginings—in the meantime, He calls us to patience and faithfulness as we await this great hope. Let us not, as C.S. Lewis writes, be content with mudpies in a slum when infinite joy is promised us in the real Christ—indeed, we are far too easily pleased. We dare not shortchange ourselves of this hope with anything or anyone else save the true Christ Himself, for there is none other like Him.

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Photo by Renato, Unsplash

Author’s Note: I am indebted to J.I. Packer’s book, Knowing God, and the wisdom contained therein, particularly in chapter four, “The Only True God.” Furthermore, John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion was supremely helpful, with the entirety of Chapter 11 of Book 1 focusing on the issue of idolatry and image-making.

Additional References:

1. Charles Hodge, the quote is taken from Knowing God, cited originally by J.I. Packer in chapter four, “The Only True God” (pg. 44).

2. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Book 1, Chapter 11, Section 1, pg. 93).

3. John Calvin in Institutes of the Christian Religion citing Saint Augustine, himself quoting the Roman scholar Varro (Book 1, Chapter 11, Section 6, pg. 98).

4. J.I. Packer in Knowing God, chapter four, “The Only True God” (pg. 45).

5. J.I. Packer quoting John Calvin in Knowing God, chapter four, “The Only True God” (pg. 45).

6. J.I. Packer in Knowing God, chapter four, “The Only True God” (pg. 49).

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