“It gives me great pleasure to tell you that the devil
is on the cutting-room floor. This is now a movie about Jesus, the son of God, and the devil gets no more screen time”. So declared the producers of the film Son of God, scheduled to be released
this week.
I have not previewed the film, and that limits my
ability to comment on the movie. I’ve
read many reviews and blogs concerning the Son
of God, and I did see segments of its predecessor, The Bible miniseries. The
fact that the movie’s producers made the decision to cut Satan highlights the
creative freedom movie producers can exercise with the Scriptures. Fifty-eight years ago Cecil B DeMille did it
with Moses in The Ten Commandments.
Ten years ago Mel Gibson exercised the same freedom in The Passion of the Christ. Now
Roma Downey and Mark Burnett have followed suit in The Son of God.
Can an accurate production of the New Testament account
of Christ be presented without mentioning Satan? Probably not. Can an evangelistic message be presented
without mentioning Satan. Yes. We do it all the time with many of our gospel
presentations and tracts. But can the
full gospel story be told without mentioning the enemy Jesus came to destroy
(Heb 2:14) ? The answer is an emphatic
NO!
And herein lies the problem any film production of the
story of Jesus. Tim Challies nailed it when he wrote, “we can’t expect a movie to do what God
promises only the Word will do.” He
goes on the say, “A film cannot adequately capture the reality of what transpired between
the Father and the Son while the Son hung upon the cross. If this is true, a film
that displays the crucifixion but misses the cross might actually prove a
hindrance rather than a help to the Christian faith. Even the best movie will
still be hampered by a grave weakness.”
Is there a difference between the
crucifixion and the cross? Yes there
is. Challies quotes David Wells’ new
book God in the Whirlwind. (Which we
have on the Westwood bookstand)
Wells writes:
“There is a distinction between the
crucifixion and the cross. The former was a particularly barbaric way of
carrying out an execution, and it was the method of execution that Jesus
endured. The latter, as the New Testament speaks of it, has to do with the
mysterious exchange that took place in Christ’s death, an exchange of our sin
for his righteousness. It was there that our judgment fell on the One who is
also our Judge. Indeed, he who had made all of creation was dishonored in the
very creation he had made. And yet, through this dark moment, this fierce
judgment, through this dishonor, there now shines the light of God’s triumph
over sin, death, and the Devil. And in this moment, this moment of Jesus’s
judgment-death, God was revealed in his holy-love as nowhere else.
This,
however, was not seen from the outside. Besides Christ’s cry of dereliction—“My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46)—there was little to
indicate what was really happening. For that we need to think back to the Old
Testament with its prophetic foretelling of the cross and to Jesus’s own
expressed understanding of it, and we need to look on to the apostles for their
more complete exposition of it. Without this, the meaning of Christ’s death is
lost on us. We would see the execution but, without God’s explicating
revelation, it would remain mute. It would be a death like any other death
except for its disgrace. God must interpret his own actions, and so he has.
Without this, we too are mute.
That is
why dramatic presentations of Christ’s death, such as on TV and in movies, so
often miss the point. They give us the crucifixion, not the cross. They show the horrifying circumstances of his
death. These circumstances may be shown
accurately. But this can take us only so far. It leaves us with only a biographical Christ,
who may be interesting, but not with the eternal Christ whom we need for our
salvation.” (David F. Wells, God In
The Whirlwind, p 130)
I am thankful for the creativity, technology and tools we
have at our disposal. But all these are
just that, tools. The saving power of
the gospel is not seen on the silver screen.
It is heard through the faithful preaching and teaching of God’s
Word. It is heard (and seen) through the
obedient, Spirit-empowered witness of the members of Jesus’ Body – the
church.
Don’t expect more from the movie Son of God than it can
deliver. If you go be sure remember that
the full story of Jesus is found only in Scripture, not on the screen. Remember that the lost friends and family who
see the film still need to hear the Gospel through your witness and the
preaching of the Word.
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
And how are they to preach unless they are sent?
As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those
who preach the good news!” (Romans
10:13-15)
No comments:
Post a Comment