To apply that to Jesus is to say that he never became man, that he was a spirit the whole time who only appeared as a man. The gnostics thought that way, that the body was corrupt and that God could never be corrupt so therefore Jesus was never a man. This of course would then more or less makes Jesus' sacrifice meaningless because as a spirit he never could have suffered or died for us. That's the main reason gnosticism was deemed heretical.
I believe Jesus did become a man and that we can depict the man Jesus became, as close as we can after 2,000 years anyway.
Christ never became a mere man. Jesus had two complete natures—one fully human and one fully divine. When theologians speak of the “hypostatic union of Christ” they refer to the joining of the divine and the human in the one person of Jesus. How can we possibly depict the divine nature of Christ without violating the 2nd Commandment? How can anyone accurately depict Christ while ignoring half of who He was and IS? Can there possibly be biblical support for an inaccurate depiction of Christ? I think not.
God is three persons, but one in essence; therefore to make an image of Christ is to make an image of God. Therefore any image of Jesus Christ must depict him as only man, which is contradicted by the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, the Second Person of the Trinity did not relinquish His deity: He added to it by taking on a full human nature. The Divine and human natures are united in one person, therefore any image of Christ cannot do justice to the doctrine that His two natures are united in one person, without positing that it is permissible to make an image of the pre Incarnate Second Person of the Trinity.
To be consistent, those who argue “Jesus was a man, therefore we may make an image of Him” must believe one of the following heresies in order to not make an image of God. The only options are to deny the unity of two natures in one person (Nestorianism), deny that God is one in essence (Tritheism), reject the deity of Christ altogether (Ebionism, Arianism), or assert that Christ no longer was fully God or fully man (Monophycitism).
Any image of Jesus Christ must represent both his divine and human natures. As Jesus Christ is fully God, any image of Him cannot represent His deity, and therefore does not represent the Jesus Christ revealed by God in Scripture.
Here are a few quotes demonstrating how Christians of old viewed this issue:
“The sins forbidden in the second commandment are …the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it.” – Westminster Larger Catechism
“It is not lawful to have pictures of Jesus Christ … because, if it does not stir up devotion, it is in vain, if it does stir up devotion, it is a worshipping by an image or picture, and so a palpable breach of the second commandment.” - James Durham (Puritan theologian)
“May we not have a picture of Christ, who has a true body? By no means; because, though he has a true body and a reasonable soul, John 1:14, yet his human nature subsists in his divine person, which no picture can represent, Psalm 45:2. Why ought all pictures of Christ to be abominated by Christians? Because they are downright lies, representing no more than the picture of a mere man: whereas, the true Christ is God-man” - James Fisher (Puritan)
“Pictures of Christ are in principle a violation of the second commandment. A picture of Christ, if it serves any useful purpose, must evoke some thought or feeling respecting him and, in view of what he is, this thought or feeling will be worshipful. We cannot avoid making the picture a medium of worship. But since the materials for this medium of worship are not derived from the only revelation we possess respecting Jesus, namely, Scripture, the worship is constrained by a creation of the human mind that has no revelatory warrant. This is will-worship. For the principle of the second commandment is that we are to worship God only in ways prescribed and authorized by him. It is a grievous sin to have worship constrained by a human figment, and that is what a picture of the Saviour involves.” – John Murray
“Many there are who, not comprehending, not being affected with, that divine, spiritual description of the person of Christ which is given us by the Holy Ghost in the Scripture, do feign unto themselves false representations of him by images and pictures, so as to excite carnal and corrupt affections in their minds. By the help of their outward senses, they reflect on their imaginations the shape of a human body, cast into postures and circumstances dolorous or triumphant; and so, by the working of their fancy, raise a commotion of mind in themselves, which they suppose to be love unto Christ.” – John Owen
“The beauty of the person of Christ, as represented in the Scripture, consists in things invisible unto the eyes of flesh. They are such as no hand of man can represent or shadow. It is the eye of faith alone that can see this King in his beauty. What else can contemplate on the untreated glories of his divine nature? Can the hand of man represent the union of his natures in the same person, wherein he is peculiarly amiable? What eye can discern the mutual communications of the properties of his different natures in the same person?” – John Owen
“Those who make pictures of the Savior, who is God as well as man in one inseparable person, either limit the incomprehensible Godhead to the bounds of created flesh, or confound his two natures like Eutyches, or separate them, like Nestorius, or deny his Godhead, like Arius; and those who worship such a picture are guilty of the same heresy and blasphemy.” – Philip Schaff
“The Bible presents no information whatever about the personal appearance of Jesus Christ, but it does teach that we are not to think of him as he may have appeared “in the days of his flesh,” but as he is today in heavenly glory, in his estate of exaltation (2 Cor. 5:46). Inasmuch as the Bible presents no data about the personal appearance of our Saviour, all artists’ pictures of him are wholly imaginary and constitute only the artists’ ideas of his character and appearance. … [Liberals] inevitably think of Jesus as a human person, rather than thinking of him according to the biblical teaching as a divine person with a human nature. The inevitable effect of the popular acceptance of pictures of Jesus is to overemphasize his humanity and to forget or neglect his deity (which of course no picture can portray). In dealing with an evil so widespread and almost universally accepted, we should bear a clear testimony against what we believe to be wrong.” – Geerhardus Vos
“If it is not lawful to make the image of God the Father, yet may we not make an image of Christ, who took upon him the nature of man? No! Epiphanies, seeing an image of Christ hanging in a church, brake it in pieces. It is Christ’s Godhead, united to his manhood, that makes him to be Christ; therefore to picture his manhood, when we cannot picture his Godhead, is a sin, because we make him to be but half Christ - we separate what God has joined, we leave out that which is the chief thing which makes him to be Christ.” – Thomas Watson
“The second commandment is broken when men attempt to make a graven image or a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches us that there is one God. It teaches us to worship the three persons, the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. But Paul tells us that we “ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone graven by art and man’s device” (Acts 17:29).” – G.I. Williamson