In my preaching prep I came across this illustration, in Holman New Testament Commentary:Romans:
A disturbing poster made the rounds in Christian bookstores a number of years ago. In the foreground of the poster were two wizened old saints who were down on their hands and knees, seemingly in a discussion, or more likely an argument, about something on the floor between them. Their appearance cast a negative spell on the scene—dark clothes, wrinkled and unhappy faces, tense bodies, argumentative expressions and gestures. This part of the poster was clear at first glance, and the viewer was immediately drawn closer to discover the object of their apparent disagreement.
Upon closer inspection, one discovered that stuck upright in the floor between them was an ordinary sewing pin. On the head of the pin the artist had drawn an innumerable host of tiny angels—and suddenly the men’s preoccupation was evident. They represented the church of the ages engaged in a fruitless and endless debate over the unanswerable question, "How many angels can fit on the head of a pin?"
This question is thought to have originated in the Middle Ages when great energy and speculation was expended on defining such matters as the size and constitution of angelic beings. Since then, the question has served to represent those occasions when the church loses its focus and becomes overly involved in "disputable matters" to the detriment of the church itself.
That in itself made an interesting poster—but not a compelling one. Almost unnoticed by the viewer until close enough to see the object of the men’s debate was an additional background image. The foreground of the poster gave way in an upper corner to a horrifying sight—an image of a cliff. Leading up to the precipice of an abyss was a long line of naked human beings with abject terror and fear written on their faces. The line was obviously inching closer and closer to the cliff, up the sides of which were licking red-hot flames of fire. At various stages of descent into the flames were human figures as they fell off the edge of the cliff into the flames.
I have been attempting to find this image somewhere online to no avail so I was wondering if anyone might know a source.
