I recently saw a social media post from a friend of a friend that was blasting the show ‘The Chosen’ because, as he said, “We aren’t supposed to watch dramatizations of the gospel. We’re supposed to teach the gospel.”
Something about this struck me as wrong, but it took me awhile to put it together clearly.
First, I need to acknowledge the point.
There was a reason God told the children of Israel never to make graven images. When we create Thing1 to represent Thing2, we put ourselves in danger of treating Thing1 as we would treat Thing2.
With God, this is dangerous. Worshiping graven images is idolatry. Full stop.
Similarly, if we were to take a dramatization of the gospel as we would the gospel, we put ourselves in a similar danger. (I see people idolatrizing scripture way too often. Even that is wrong. Scripture is not God. It is not the Living Word–that’s Christ.)
That said, he was still wrong.
Over and over, God has given us signs and festivals and rituals and parables to point to and remember important things. We are not to take ‘The Lord’s Supper’ as if we were actually sitting physically with Christ. Instead, we take it in remembrance of Him.
The same is true of every other sign or festival or parable we’ve been given. The symbol of a thing is not the thing itself, but it still has value and utility.
Likewise, a dramatization of the gospel, done respectfully, is a symbol that points back to the gospel itself. The creator takes upon himself a measure of responsibility–don’t steer your audience down the wrong path–but a dramatization, in and of itself, is just another example of man imitating God for other peoples’ benefit.
In the final analysis, we’re free to do what we choose, and having our entertainment pointing back to Christ is only an evil thing in the mind of a man trapped under a law of his own making.