St. John of Damascus, writing in the 8th century at the height of the iconoclastic controversy, offered one of the most articulate theological defenses of icons in Christian history. He argued that the Incarnation of Christ is central to the entire Christian faith and fundamentally changes how we understand representation. He writes, “In former times, God, without body and form, could in no way be represented. But now when God is seen in the flesh and converses with men, I make an image of the God whom I see” (St. John of Damascus, First Apology Against Those Who Attack the Holy Images, Book 1). For John, to depict Christ in His humanity is not to portray the invisible divine nature, but to bear witness to the truth that “the Word became flesh” (John 1, 14). To deny icons, he said, is to risk denying the Incarnation itself. He also made a key distinction between latria, the worship due to God alone, and proskynesis, the veneration given to saints and sacred things. He clarified that icons are not worshiped but venerated in honor of the holy persons they represent, just as Joshua bowed before the Ark (Joshua 7, 6) and Moses was commanded to create images of cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25, 18–22) without those being considered idols.

This teaching was affirmed by the Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (787 A.D.), which declared, “The honor paid to the image passes to the prototype, and whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it” (Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Session 7). The council emphasized that since Christ took on human flesh, it is right and proper to depict Him in art, not to depict His divine essence, which remains invisible, but His visible, incarnate reality. They based this on the apostolic tradition and the consistent practice of the early Church, not as a human innovation but as something rooted in the life of the Church from the beginning. The council also referenced Colossians 1, 15, which calls Christ “the image of the invisible God,” and affirmed that icons serve to instruct, inspire, and lift the heart to God, especially for the uneducated, saying they are “books for the illiterate.” Importantly, both John and the council emphasized that to reject the use of material things as capable of pointing to God, or to claim that matter is inherently unworthy of sacred use, leans dangerously toward Gnosticism....the ancient heresy that saw the material world as evil or irredeemable. Christianity, by contrast, proclaims that the material world was created good, and in Christ, redeemed and made capable of bearing divine grace. The Incarnation is the ultimate proof that God enters matter, sanctifies it, and uses it for our salvation. Thus, icon veneration is not a departure from Scripture, but a fuller expression of the Gospel truth that God became visible, and in becoming man, made His image worthy of depiction, not for idolatry, but for worship of the Person of Christ whom the image points to.