Images and Idols

Exodus 20:4-5 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.”

Continuing in this little topical study of the Ten Commandments, it is explained that the first commandment addresses matters of worship. This is also true of the second commandment. Here the law prohibits creating and worshiping visible images of God.

John 4:24 “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth.

The second commandment does not forbid all art in the worship setting. Rather, the chief concern in the second commandment is the creation of images for the express purpose of being worshiped. Isaiah 44:9-10 says, “All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a good and casts an idol, which can profit him nothing.”  

As we read the Scriptures, we find that the Lord is very jealous to be worshiped as He actually is. He does not allow people to come up with an idea of what He is like and then serve that figure. God must reveal Himself and how He is to be worshiped. When people make graven images of God and worship those images, the Lord responds with condemnation. Our Creator will not have us substitute any lesser thing for Him in our worship of Him.

Isaiah 44:14-20 “He cuts down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. It is man’s fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fore and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half the wood he burns in the fire, over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, ‘Ah! I am war; I see the fire.’ From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, ‘Save me; you are my god.’ They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, ‘half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat. And I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?’ He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?’”  

We must always be on guard lest we introduce superstition into our worship. The danger is worshiping or venerating images is that we will begin to impute power to those images. People are so apt to think a statue or a picture has divine power that the prophets of the Bible had to use extreme language to remind people otherwise. Images can be powerful conveyors of truth or error, so let us consider and be discerning about what we set before our eyes and the eyes of our families at all times.

No images and no idols. Worship God alone; the one and only.