The Second Commandment
This sermon was preached on 16/12/2010
When visitors come to our church, they note that we don’t have an altar or crosses on display. The reason why we do not is found in the second commandment. Geographically, when we travel to other countries we will see various idols in homes or in the streets. The reason why such things were not found in the past in Protestant countries was the second commandment.
Historically, one of the features of the Reformation was its removal from God’s worship of a range of statues and other creations that was regarded as breaking the second commandment. Often the impression is given that the Reformation was all about the rediscovery of the doctrine of justification by faith. A good case can be argued that its primary concern was the rediscovery of the way to worship God by those who were justified by faith. I recently read a book on the Reformation in which the author lamented the destruction of pieces of church furniture. The methods of removing them at times may have been inappropriate, but these items should not have been there in the first place.
This commandment is very relevant today because we live in a visual world. The church is always prone to succumb to the particular emphases of its surrounding culture or society. It is common today for an organisation to have a symbol – we have a symbol taken from the Bible (the burning bush that was not consumed, a reminder that the church survives through times of persecution and difficulty). Because we live in such an environment, we may be tempted to have a symbol depicting God.
The second commandment contains four items of information: a prohibition, a focus on a particular divine attribute (jealousy), a warning and an encouraging promise. The prohibition is in verses 4 and 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.’ The description of God follows on: ‘for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.’ The warning is the reality of God ‘visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,’ and the promise is God ‘showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments’ (v. 6).
In passing we can note that symbols can be limited in what they say, often losing their meaning very quickly, and that includes Christian symbols. Take the symbol of a cross which is a common emblem of Christianity. A cross outside a building does not in itself say what kind of congregation (liberal or evangelical) meets there. In addition, we have jewellery in the form of a cross, neon lights that shine like a cross, church buildings shaped like a cross. What do these uses tell us about the cross of Jesus? Not very much. Today’s equivalent of the cross is the electric chair or another method of execution. Someone has said that by using the symbol of the cross we have sanitised the meaning of the cross. The cross of Christ was a place of judgment, of punishment, of terror.
The prohibition
The first issue that concerns us is whether or not the prohibition forbids making an image that represents a false god or shaping one that represents the true God. Clearly both options are forbidden, and both were possibilities for the Israelites. They faced the danger of adopting the pagan religions of surrounding cultures and they faced the danger of introducing a representation of God into the worship of God. The immediate relevance of this commandment is seen in how the Israelites shaped a golden calf as an image of God even while Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the ten commandments from God. So there are two ways by which we can be guilty of idolatry. One way is to make an image of a false god, the other way is to make an image depicting the true God.
Some might say that God does not always forbid shapes representing himself. Did he not instruct Moses to arrange for a place of worship to be constructed, and did God not provide detailed instructions of pieces of furniture within the tabernacle which represented various features of him? The ark of the covenant represented the presence of God; it was his throne reminding the people that they were always in the presence of a great King. The altar of burnt offering, where animal sacrifices were made, informed the worshippers that God hated sin and of their need of him being propitiated (appeased) before they could draw near to him. Yet these items were not regarded as God. Moses did not point to the ark and say that it was God, nor did he look at the altar and worship it as a divine being.
This commandment forbids using anything in creation to depict God as a help when worshipping him. One reason for this prohibition is that our understanding of God is not left to the ingenuity of humans. God is so big that no human mind, no matter how gifted, can possibly imagine what he is like. We need divine revelation in order to know how God should be worshipped. So we are not to shape an image (physical or mental) according to our own thinking about God.
A further reason for this prohibition is that we must always remember that God is invisible. One real danger arising from a visible representation of God is that it makes us forget crucial aspects of who he is, such as his invisibility – no creature can see God in his essence. The children of Israel, gathered at the foot of the mountain, did not see any physical shape of God at its top. Their God was invisible.
Creating an image of God inevitably divided him according to his attributes and people look at him in part, perhaps focussing on those attributes with which they were comfortable and ignoring those that disturbed or troubled them. The golden calf was designed to depict his power, but it did not reveal his love or his omniscience (if it revealed his knowledge, then those frolicking in front of it would not have engaged in sinful practices). The same can happen today when people say, ‘I like to think of God as a ______’ Usually they have in mind a feature or features that make God suitable for them rather than making them suitable for God’s presence.
Some will be aware that the biblical writers often liken God to objects in the created world. For example, the Bible frequently says God is like a rock that is several feet high. Are such allusions a denial or modification of the second commandment? We can respond by asking some possible uses of such an illustration before mentioning the correct response. Is it an application of these verses to go and find such a rock and look at it in order to discover truth about God? Would our worship be more authentic if we went there regularly and discovered all kinds of details about that rock? Should I arrange for a large crane to deposit a huge rock outside the church and put a sign on the rock which says ‘God is like this rock’? We might smile at such suggestions, although I suspect that some churches may do such a thing. Of course, these ideas are all external. How about internal responses? Does this illustration mean that I should retain in my mind the image of a rock when I am worshipping God? The answer to all these questions is ‘No’. Obviously we have to think about the simile in order to discover the reason for the illustration – in the case of a rock, the reason is security. And once we find out what the reason is, we don’t need to focus on the illustration. If I keep on thinking about a rock, I will be thinking about a rock and not about God.
God’s jealousy
Jealously is a negative word today, linked to envy and resentment. Yet it also has a positive meaning, for example, a person being jealous for their good name. In this latter sense, it has the meaning of protective. Envy is the product of hatred whereas protection is the product of love. God loves his own name, he loves his own glory, and he regards it as the highest sin to demean who he is. We can imagine a king becoming angry if his rule was tarnished by persons who opposed his requirements; we can also imagine how he would regard as very inappropriate any behaviour or contribution from a subject that ridiculed or degraded his status. God, who is infinitely higher than any earthly ruler, highly regards his own honour. He will not take lightly any action that takes from his glory, even if that action is well-intentioned.
What is God protective of? He is passionate about his majesty, his holiness, and his purposes. It is not possible for an image to reflect the glory and splendour of the true God. Instead an image will reduce one’s understanding of his majesty. And when that happens, it is inevitable that his worship will be affected.
Some think that deciding what to include in public worship by the use of the regulative principle is a limiting method. This principle means that a church only includes in its worship the elements that God has indicated in his Word such as praise, prayer, preaching, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Following such a principle is not depriving ourselves, instead it is the path of safety. God is highly offended if worship demeans him. And he has told us how we can please him. After all, that is the point of worship – pleasing God.
God’s punishment
God here reveals his displeased with false worship – he will punish such idolatry to three or four generations. Notice how God describes these worshippers; they are said to hate God. Why? Because those who love him will obey his commandments. A person who does not want to obey them does not love God.
Some people object to this form of punishment and regard it as unfair that subsequent generations are punished for the sins of the previous ones. Yet the threat is saying something different. It states that it is inevitable that children will imitate the practices and attitudes of parents, and if parents despise God then their descendants will continue to do so. We only have to look at the religious history of our own country. One hundred and fifty years ago, a large percentage of our nations were Christians. Then new notions about God were tolerated, and where are we now?
There is also a hint of grace in this threatening. The judgement will only last for three or four generations, which leads to the inference that a change of outlook is potentially there eventually. Such a change can only be brought about by God when he shows mercy. So that is why even this strong warning has an element of encouragement within it, and it is one that we can hold on to regarding the church in our country because several generations have now passed since the current decline began.
God’s promise
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