Tomorrow, the latest movie that attempts to grab the the entire life of Jesus, "Son of God," will be release in movie theaters. Many church leaders have seen the movie and have already given them their approval. While the effects of the movie maybe good as it was in the Bible Miniseries and that Hans Zimmer has produced a great movie score (if you know Hans Zimmer's work, you know there is hardly any disappoint in what he does with movie music), but I have a few concerns that every Christian should think about.
First, Rick Warren says this is the first movie on the full life of Jesus in nearly 50 years, which maybe true since Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" only featured his crucifixion. Judging from movie trailers, they will show his birth followed by His public ministry and, most obviously, his death, burial, and resurrection. However, it has been reported that the scene when Jesus is tempted by the devil was removed from the final cut. Roma Downey, one of the producers of the movie, said, "I want the name of Jesus to be on the lips of everyone who sees this movie, so I cast Satan out." If you take Jesus' temptation out then you are not giving everyone an accurate view of Jesus. The Bible says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). The Bible does not omit the temptation of Jesus because it communicates to us that He sympathizes with us as we are being tempted and "is able to help those who are being tempted" (Hebrews 2:18).
Second, going back to the devil being cast of the movie, the fact that Satan is out of the movie concerns me. That same report from Christianity Today talks about how people do not believe the existence of the devil which includes 60% of American Christians who think the devil is a symbol of evil. The Bible says he is real and taking him of the story of Jesus is like telling God, "I will tell the story the way I want to."
Third, regarding the crucifixion, Tim Challies wrote:
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.
Words and pictures are very different media, and in the history of redemption, God has used both. For example, in the Old Testament God used words to record prophecies about the coming Messiah while in the tabernacle he provided pictures of the coming Messiah and what he would accomplish—an altar for sacrifice, a lamb to be slaughtered, incense rising to God. Words can tell truth while pictures can display truth.
When it comes to the cross, God has given us four written eyewitness accounts but no visual accounts. Why is this? The Bible doesn’t tell us. What we do know, though, is that every medium has limitations. While visual media are excellent at conveying feelings, they are poorly suited to conveying ideas. Words are able to tell what happened at the cross in a way that pictures cannot.
Challies goes on to quote David Wells:
[Crucifixion] was a death that many others had also suffered. In fact, it was an event so common in the first-century Roman world that Jesus’s crucifixion almost passed unnoticed. For the soldiers who carried it out, it was an unexceptional part of their routine. As for the Jewish leaders who had opposed Christ, it was a fitting end to their problem. Soon, they were back to business as usual. And although the resurrection was to happen shortly thereafter, and although the disciples were to be emboldened in their preaching, and although the Holy Spirit was to authenticate what they said by miracles, the historians of that day also missed the significance of this event.
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. The crucifixion without the cross is an incomplete picture, a half-told story. What is omitted is the meaning of the event. We do not carry this meaning within ourselves, nor can we find it in this world. What eludes us is something we have to be given by God himself, for only he can say what was happening within the Godhead as Christ was killed and, in his death, atoned for our sin. This is indispensable to the meaning of Christian faith. Without it, Christ’s death is only a martyrdom and Christian faith is just a nice, moral religion but one that is neither unique nor uniquely true.
Finally, I have a concern for the church. I know there will be some churches might rent out movie theaters as some did with "Passion of the Christ," but I fear some churches will use "Son of God" to share the gospel, which there is nothing wrong with that, but as their only means of evangelism. I am not against using movies to help share the gospel but when you go away from the Bible and Biblical preaching, that is where the problem lies. Our churches should not use a movie to be used in place of it's role in witnessing to the lost.
The Bible says we are to go and make disciples. When the day of Pentecost came, Peter preached the gospel. Think how that day would have been if Peter did not follow what the Holy Spirit was leading him to do. Think how our churches will be if we obey the Great Commission and share our faith.
Now when a lost friend sees the movie and they have questions, this is where I give you what Jeff Medders wrote:
In Acts 8, Philip is led by the Holy Spirit to speak to a man, an Ethiopian Eunuch, riding along in his carriage. “So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: ‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.’ And the eunuch said to Philip, ‘About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.” (Acts 8:30–35)
Just like Philip, we are filled with the Spirit of Christ, and this is our chance to ask, “Do you understand what you saw?” And beginning with this movie, and moving swiftly to the Bible and the word of grace, we can open our mouths and tell the good news about Jesus.
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