Two cowboys were riding across the prairie on a Sunday morning to church. As they rode, they sang and whistled; they were in a good mood. But when they got to the little church on the edge of town and took their seats, they heard the preacher preach his way through all ten of the Ten Commandments. When the two cowboys rode home, they were very subdued, solemn, quiet, until one of them finally had a lightbulb moment and said, “Hey, you know, I never made any graven images.” The other said, “Hey, yeah, I’ve never made any graven images either!” And with that they began to smile and sing and whistle again.

In our study of the ten commandments, we’re on that second one. In the King James Version it begins, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” And it’s one that many comfort in. It’s one of the few they feel they don’t have any difficulty with. It’s never been a temptation to me to take a block of wood or stone or metal and form it into something and set it up in a room of my house or yard, and then bow before it or kiss its feet, or offer gifts and sacrifices to it. It’s just not something I’ve had to battle with. I suspect that’s not been much of a temptation to you either.

So maybe you’re looking forward to the lesson this morning more than others, because you feel it won’t bother with anything in your life. You’ll get out of here unscathed. Or maybe you’re thinking we should just skip over this second commandment because surely it doesn’t have relevance to us. Well, just you wait.

Let me first read to you the full version of the second commandment and the incentives to obey that God mentioned along with it. This is Exodus 20:4-6 in the ESV, because that’s the version of those tablets that Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai, you know, in case you were wondering what version those were. =) “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, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Now in 17th century England, this commandment was interpreted very literally and taken very seriously. These words about not making any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth, were taken to mean that all kinds of art were forbidden; that you should not have any such things as statues in the yard or engravings or even paintings, or decorative carvings on the furniture in your home. So many of the Puritan homes were very plain and bare because of how they interpreted this commandment.

Was God forbidding all artistry and sculpting?

I really don’t believe so. When the Lord gave the Israelites the design for His tabernacle, it included various forms of artwork, embroidery, sculpturing, and wood carving. You remember on the lid of the ark of the covenant were the pure gold cherubim with their wings outstretched over it. The curtains inside the tabernacle had pictures of cherubim woven into them. The cups of the lampstand were shaped like almond blossoms. Then in the temple that Solomon built for God, which God approved of, cherubim and palm trees and open flowers were carved into the walls and doors and overlaid with gold. Around the tops of the pillars were pomegranates. The large bronze laver, the washing pool for the priests, sat on top of twelve metal oxen. And there were other images made after the likeness of things in the natural world. And that was okay.

In Numbers 21 there’s a weird, but helpful story. The people of Israel were once again grumbling about their accommodations out in the desert and accusing God and Moses of wronging them by bringing them out of Egypt. God was tired of it and He sent poisonous snakes among the people. People all over were dropping dead from snake bites. So the people and Moses cried out to God to save them, and God said, “Alright Moses, here’s what I’ll do. You make a bronze snake and put it up on a standard, on a pole, and tell the people when they’re bit by a snake, if they will come and look upon this bronze snake, I will heal them and they will live.” Sure enough, when people were bit and they started swelling and hurting, if they’d make their way to where they could see this snake k-bob, they’d get better. Strange story, I know. It has some cool foreshadowings of the means of healing God would provide for us from the venom of satan. Such as, how God would make Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, transferring all our sin to Him and lifting Him up on a pole. And those who look at Him with faith will be healed and live. But the point for now is that it wasn’t wrong to have an image of a bronze serpent. The second commandment is not forbidding artwork and sculpting in general.

But later in Israel’s history we read about how Israel took that bronze serpent and used it in a way that violated the second commandment. You read of this in II Kings 18:3-4, which is describing the good deeds of king Hezekiah. It says, “And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. [So Hezekiah was purging the land of all the items of idolatry. Then it says,] And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it [other translations say, “they burned incense to it”] (it was called Nehushtan).”

So having an image as a teaching aid, as a tool, as a decoration (as a reminder of something), when you view and use it as just what it is, a crafted hunk of metal, fine. But when you view it as representative of a higher power and a means of connecting with that higher power and so you, say, burn incense to it, or give some sort of offering to it, or bow to it or serve it in some way, that is what the second commandment is forbidding.

Let’s take an example from our modern world. We’d probably all agree that it’s alright to have a puppet or figurine or a flannel graph or a drawing of the apostle Peter for teaching the kids in Sunday school.

But what about when a statue of St. Peter, like the one that stands in Vatican city, has the bronze toes worn off by people kissing them, and when people bow before that statue and pray to St. Peter?

Is that not the sort of thing the second commandment forbids?

Those who do that argue, “But we’re not worshiping Peter. It’s not worship. It’s veneration, because we don’t see Peter as God. We know he’s not God. We’re paying reverence and adoration to him as one who is great, as one who is exalted and worthy, and who is able to obtain various blessings for us.” Well, in Exodus 20:5, after saying you are not to make images in the likeness of anything, it says in the most literal translation of the Hebrew, “You shall not bow down to them.” Sounds to me to be saying, “You don’t bow to images.”

In Acts 10:25, when Peter was alive on earth and he responded to the call to visit a Gentile named Cornelius. Peter walked into his house and it says Cornelius fell at his feet and prostrated himself in reverence before him. And you know, Cornelius was a God-fearing man. He worshiped the God of the Jews. And he knew Peter was not God. He knew that. Yet Peter said to him, “Get up, I’m just a man like you.” You don’t treat another man like that.

The apostle John in the book of Revelation made that mistake twice, just with an angel instead of a man (Revelation 19:10; 22:8-9). This mighty angel was standing before John and John was in awe at him and the visions the angel was showing him, and on two different occasions John fell down to worship at the feet of the angel, though I’m pretty sure John understood the angel was not God. But both times the angel said, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers… Worship God, period.”

So my conviction, based on these Scriptures, is that the second commandment is forbidding us to have images to connect with higher powers, and is forbidding us to bow before, kiss, pray to, burn incense to, place food before, or bring gifts or services of any kind to a graven image.

Distinction between the first and second commandments…

Now, some today, and many historically, have seen this second commandment as just a rewording of the first one in more detail. Like they’re just two ways of saying the same thing. The first commandment is, “You shall have no other gods besides Me.” They think the second is just further explaining, “Don’t make idols or worship them.”

There’s definitely overlap between the two. But something that makes the second commandment distinct from the first is that it is not only forbidding images of other gods, but it is also forbidding any images of the one true and living God. It is forbidding any attempt at representing the Lord with some crafted thing.

In Deuteronomy 4:15ff, Moses is elaborating on the second commandment and he said to the people of Israel, “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air…” and so on and so forth. So Moses reminds them, when God visited them at Sinai, they saw no form. They only heard His voice. If God wanted them to have a visible, tangible form of Himself, He could have given it. But He chose not to. And so they must not try to represent Him with some visible image.

There are stories in Scripture where people believed they were serving no other God but Jehovah the Creator, keeping the first commandment, and yet they were breaking the second commandment.

The golden calf fiasco in Exodus 32 is one example. While Moses had been gone for a month or so up on Mt. Sinai, his brother Aaron was down with the people compromising under the pressure of the people to fashion an idol for worship, like all the other nations of the earth. And after crafting a golden calf, a symbol of power, strength and fertility in the ancient world, Aaron built an altar before it, made a proclamation saying, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD, to Yahweh, to the true and living God.” It was the right God, but the wrong way to worship Him, because He’s not to be represented with man-made images.

Another example is II Kings 10, Jehu baited all the worshipers of Baal to come to what they thought was a great worship meeting for Baal at Baal’s temple. Then Jehu had his forces ambush them and kill all the worshipers of Baal. And they broke down the sacred pillar and the house of Baal, and turned it into a toilet. II Kings 10:28 says, “Thus Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel.” The next verse says, “But Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin – that is, the golden calves that were in Bethel and Dan.” These were golden calves set up to represent Jehovah, the Almighty, the right God, which is baffling in view of their history that they would do something like that again. So Jehu was clear that there is only one true God who is to be worshipped. But he didn’t follow the second commandment, because he thought we could connect with God through those golden calves.

What’s the problem with representing God with images?

Well, isn’t it true what we sing to Him sometimes?

“You are beautiful beyond description

Too marvelous for words

Too wonderful for comprehension

Like nothing ever seen or heard

Who can grasp Your infinite wisdom?

Who can fathom the depth of Your love?

You are beautiful beyond description

Majesty, enthroned above”

How could we sculpt, carve, mold, paint, create anything that would not just diminish and demean who He really is?

The prophet Isaiah said, He measures the oceans in the hollow of His hand and with the breadth of His hand He’s marked off the heavens above. No one has ever been His teacher or given Him counsel. All the nations of mankind are like a drop from a bucket, like a speck of dust on the scales. “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compares with Him?” (Isaiah 40:12-18). He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. Lift up your eyes and see the hosts of heaven. He created them. He brings out their host by number. He calls each of them by name. He is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He declares the end from the beginning. He is the first and the last. To whom then will you liken Him. To what will you compare Him (Isaiah 40:23 – 41:4)

How are you going to make anything to represent Him that will not be just a perverted, corrupt, belittling image of Him? It will be a false witness about Him, and a deluding influence.

God has given us one visible image of Himself…

…that we can worship and connect with Him through. It was nothing we could have come up with. Colossians 1:15, “Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God.” (cf. II Corinthians 4:4,6) Hebrews 1:3, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature“. John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God; the only God; who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed Him.” “If you’ve seen me,” Jesus told Philip, “then you’ve seen the Father.” (John 14:9).

The more we look at Jesus and get to know Jesus, the more we see what God is like.

Now, let’s get more relevant with this.

Did you know you don’t have to have any physical material to construct a distorted image of God and violate the principles of the second commandment?

You can fashion a corrupt image of God in the factory of your own mind. And you can worship and serve that mental image you’ve fashioned, and it is just as much idolatry as having a golden calf.

You see this truth at the end of I John in the New Testament. The little booklet of I John was written by the apostle John in response to a crisis of false teaching that was infiltrating the churches. This false teaching is commonly identified as Gnosticism, and it was a blend of some Greek philosophical assumptions with elements of Christianity. It presented a different version of Jesus and a different God. They did not believe that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, as a human being, and that God actually suffered on the cross for us. They did not believe that anything we do with our bodies, matters at all or has anything to do with our relationship with God and salvation; so it doesn’t matter if you live an immoral lifestyle or care about others. They taught that all that’s needed for salvation and a relationship with God is to possess a special knowledge, and that’s what Jesus was all about, that He wasn’t about changing our hearts and our character, but just bringing us the special knowledge we need to saved. Which isn’t much different from many today who think that believing in Jesus is just something intellectual and that you can believe in Jesus without repenting or obeying Him in your life. They too think salvation is just a matter of having the special knowledge. So John wrote to counter the false versions of God and the Lord Jesus. And look at how he concludes the letter, the last two sentences of I John, “He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” That warning about idolatry is not just a random unrelated thought John threw in. Rather it is a summarizing exhortation, because the view of Jesus and God the false teachers were advocating, was a gross misrepresentation of God and Christ, it was an idol. “Keep yourselves from idols,” means keep yourself from perverted versions of Jesus, from corrupt versions of God.

gods that people have made:

1. There’s the Big Vending Machine in the Sky version or Genie in a lamp version. You just speak the right words, do the right rituals or activities, get the formula down, and you get what you want from him.
2. Then there’s the image of a permissive indulgent grandfather, doesn’t require anything, always willing to look the other way when human beings are in rebellion and rejecting Him and siding with evil, who would never destroy anybody. You know this is a common image of God if you’ve attended many funerals. It doesn’t matter what the deceased person believed or how they lived, somebody will still stand up and say “I know that so and so is in heaven now.”
3. There’s the other extreme version of an abusive father; angry, harsh, waiting around the next corner with a club to punish you. Or as very strict, very hard to please with unreasonable expectations. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be good enough. You’re never good enough for Him. He can never be happy with you.
4. Some see God as an absent Father, distant, unaware, indifferent toward you, too busy with more important things than you.
5. Some have a stained-glass version where He’s very mystical, mysterious, other worldly, very impersonal, unrelatable. We serve him with strange rituals we don’t understand. And that’s all there is to the relationship with Him.

All of these are idols because they’re corruptions of the true God.

Many would agree with former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, Desmond Tutu who was quoted on the front page of a newspaper in South Africa stating things like: “My God isn’t homophobic. I could never worship a God who is against homosexuals.” Mr. Tutu even declared that if homosexuals don’t go to Heaven, then he didn’t want to go there! Where did he get that image of God that He approves of a homosexual lifestyle, and doesn’t require repentance from that? I guarantee you he didn’t get it from what God has actually revealed about Himself. What God has actually revealed is that He loves homosexuals, and He came to die for them, just as He did for all sinners, but requires that we repent of our sins. What Desmond Tutu has done, is he’s constructed an image of God according to his own likeness, which we may be tempted to do. We may want to fashion God into our own image, because that is easier than being shaped into His. Rather than believing in a holy, holy, holy God, whose thoughts and ways are so much higher than ours, we would rather think of Him as more like us, approving of what we approve, thinking like we think about things, endorsing what we want to do. But it’s idolatry.

The only way we will not worship idols is if we get our image of God from God Himself. If we let God tell us what He’s like, we carefully listen and look at the one image He has given to reveal Himself to us – the Lord Jesus.

So another way we could put the first command is, “Put God first all the time.” And the second command, “Accept God for who He reveals Himself to be.”

-James Williams