
Exodus 20:3 records the First Word of the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before me.” The Lord demands his people to worship him and alone. Exodus 20:4 says, “You shall not make for yourselves 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.” The Lord who demands his people worship to him exclusively also demands his people to worship him correctly. This is the message of the Second Commandment: We must worship God in a manner that is acceptable to him.
Earth’s first brothers, Cain and Able, presented offerings of worship to God. Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground. Abel brought an offering from his flock of sheep. Genesis 4:5 says, “And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.” This is the bottom-line of true worship.
We have a lot of interesting ways of characterizing worship. We describe worship as contemporary or traditional, liturgical or free, black or white, good or bad, enjoyable or boring. God defines worship as true or false, right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. Either the Lord respects your offering or he despises it. This God-centered perspective on worship is often conspicuously absent from our concepts of worship. But this is the way the Bible talks about worship from Genesis to Revelation. It is the main idea of the Second Commandment.
There is some disagreement about how the Ten Commandments should be numbered. Roman Catholics and Lutherans traditionally read the first and second commandments as one. To keep the Ten Commandments, they either call the preamble in verse 2 a commandment or divide the tenth commandment in verse 17 into two parts. They do this because of the close connection between these first two commandments. While verses 3 and 4 clearly record two different commands; in a real sense, they are two different sides of the same coin.
- The First Commandment is about the proper object of worship. The Second Commandment is about the proper mode of worship.
- The First Commandment addresses orthodoxy. The Second Commandment addresses orthopraxis.
- The First Commandment tells us who to worship. The Second Commandment tells us how to worship.
- The First Commandment is God saying, “Only worship me.” The Second Commandment is God saying, “Worship me this way.”
The Second Word is one of the longest commandments in the Decalogue. It divides into four sections.
- God’s Image
Exodus 20:4 says, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” Having been made in the image of God, we have been hardwired with creativity. We just have to make stuff. Because we are sinners, our lust to create knows no boundaries. God created us in his own image. And we keep trying to return the favor. But God forbids us to try to make him. “Carved image” is just what it seems. It is the crafting of some object from wood, metal, or stone. We are creative. We are not creators. When we make something, it is not original. It is something we make from what God has already made. Inevitably, carved images are made in the likeness of birds in the heavens, animals on the earth, or fish in the sea. Verse 4 is as clear, emphatic, and authoritative as possible. God says we are not to make a carved image of “anything” in the heavens, earth, or sea. Isaiah 40:18 says, “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?”
The Second Commandment does not prohibit God’s people from being artistic. In succeeding chapters of Exodus, the Lord himself will instruct Moses to have artisans construct the Ark of the Covenant, with all of its artistic elements. And the Spirit of God will even gift and empower men to creativity build the Tabernacle. This is not a categorical prohibition of carved images. The Lord’s concern here is liturgical, not artistic. Verse 5 says, “You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” “Bow down” and “serve” are worship terms. “Bow down” is the physical worship. “Serve” is spiritual worship. We must not make carved images for worship.
God’s Jealousy
Why does God forbid carved images? Verse 5 says, “You shall not bow down to them and serve them, for I am a jealous God.” This is the second time in the Ten Commandments the Lord has identified himself. Exodus 20:5 says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Now the Lord declares himself to be a jealous God. In fact, Exodus 34:14 reads: “You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” God’s jealousy is not our jealousy. We typically are jealous of that which belongs to someone else. God is jealous for that which belongs to him. To say the Lord is jealous is to say the Lord is zealous for his own glory, honor, and praise. This is not the language of the petty, selfish, or vindictive. It is the language of love.
Imagine you walked into a store or café and found your mate affectionately hugging another person. You confront your mate, only for him or her to say, “What’s the matter? This is all about you! I saw this person who looks so much like you and reminds me so much of you, I could not help myself. But it was all about you!” Under no circumstances would that be an acceptable answer. Yet this is how we treat God when we treat something that we view to represent God as if it is truly God. Because God is a jealous God, God says do not make, bow down to, or serve any carved images.
God’s Wrath
To violate the jealousy of God is to activate the wrath of God. Exodus 20:5 states the extent of God’s wrath on image makers: “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” This verse is one of the proof texts used to teach “generational curses.” It is claimed that a person can suffer as a direct result of sins that family members have previously committed. But this is not what the Bible teaches.
Ezekiel 18:20 says, “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” God punishes the guilty. To see God lay the guilt of one person on another, you have to look past Mt. Sinai to Mt. Calvary. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Because of the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have no reason to fear generational curses. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.” While there is no such thing as generational curses; there are generational consequences. That is the meaning of Exodus 20:5. If the Israelites make, bow down to, or worship carved images, the wrath of God would visit them. This divine wrath would be so severe that it would punish the generations to come.
God’s Love
Exodus 20:5-6 says, “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.” The Lord warns his people of the divine punishment meted out to those who hate him. But before the sentence is over, he issues a divine promise to those who love him and keep his commandments. It is blessed assurance directly connected to the Second Commandment. Yet it applies to all of the Ten Commandments.
The Lord shows steadfast love to those who love him and keep his commandments. Steadfast love translates the elusive Hebrew term “hessed.” It is translated in various ways. It is essentially “loyal love.” It is the covenant-keeping love of God. It means that God loves you because God has promised to love you and God always keeps his promises. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his compassions never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” The Lord shows steadfast love to those who love him and keep his commandments.
Notice the extent of the loyal love of God: “to thousands.” There are two ways to read this reference. On one hand “thousands” may refer to the number of people to whom the Lord shows steadfast love. This would be a statement of the wideness of God’s mercy. However, it would also be a statement about how few people truly love the Lord: “thousands,” not millions. On the other hand, the term can be translated “thousandth.” This reading would make verse 6 a direct contrast to verse 5. The Lord visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate him. This is a timeframe of a hundred or so years. But the Lord shows steadfast love to the thousandth generation!
Either way, you read the text, the point is the same: Mercy triumphs over judgment. Psalm 30:5 says, “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
What does this Second Word teach us about how to worship God?
We must worship God on his terms. The strange thing about the First Commandment is that God has to tell his own redeemed people to have no other gods before him. The Second Commandment is a natural progression from the first. Not only does God tell his people to worship him alone; he also disabuses us from the assumption that as long as we worship the right God, it does not matter how you worship. Even redeemed people can offer unacceptable worship if it is not on God’s terms. In short, this Second Word teaches us that God cannot be controlled. That is exactly what happens with carved images.
A symbol makes visible what is invisible and makes tangible what is intangible. In so doing, the reality behind the symbol is tamed, controlled, neutered. Why do you there is so much controversy over the American flag? Literally, the flag is just a piece of decorated cloth. But, of course, it is much more than that. It is a symbol that points to a reality. How one treats the symbol is a statement of what one thinks about what it represents. Thus, the Lord prohibits any symbolic images, because God refused to be controlled.
Isaiah 44-46 calls Israel to remember the difference between the true God and idols, and to govern themselves accordingly. The passage predicts the Lord will raise up a pagan kind, Cyrus of Persia, to defeat the Babylonians, set the Israelites free to go home, and order the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. It also describes the scene when Babylon will flee from Persia in defeat. The Babylonian wagons will be heavy, like a burden on a weary animal, as they pick up and idols and load them on to their wagons to carry their gods to safety.
Isaiah 46:3-4 says, “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.” The God who carries his people refuses to be put in a position where his people have to carry him. Therefore, the Lord commands us not to make any carved images. God must be worshiped on his own terms.
This Second Word may seem irrelevant today. But we need this commandment. Many Western contemporary Christians are really just ancient Hebrew idolaters in disguise. We make symbols for God; then we make gods of our symbols. We profess to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, and the church. Actually, we worship…
- The god of my cause
- The god of my understanding
- The god of my experience
- The god of my race
- The god of my nation
- The god of my comfort
- The god of my success
We are not worshiping God on his terms. And we fail to see what our idolatry has done to the church. To see the damage you only need to look at the world. The world is not impressed with the church, because the world can tell the church is not impressed with God. In leaning over to reach the world, the church has fallen in. The church is guilty of the heinous crime of making the living God trivial, superficial, and non-threatening to the world.
Annie Dillard wrote: “Churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life jackets and signal flares; they should seatbelt us to the pews. For the sleeping God may wake up one day and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.”
We are like children whom the Lord has told to stay in the house. And we invite over the very things and people our parents sought to protect us from by telling us to stay in the house. Before the Lord shows up, we need people who love the church enough to confront us with the fact that we must worship God on his own terms.
We must worship God by divine revelation. There are two primary ways finite man seeks to know the infinite God: by imagination or by revelation. Seeking to know God by imagination does not work. In fact, the Second Commandment prohibits any attempt to shape an image of God according to who we think God is. Habakkuk 2:18 says, “What profit is an idol when its make has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies. For its maker is his own creation when he makes speechless idols!” The only way to know God is by revelation. We cannot imagine the nature, character, attributes, purpose, and glory of God. God must reveal himself to us.
In a general sense, God reveals himself in creation. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Creation advertises its Creator. Heaven and earth proclaim the reality of God. But creation cannot declare the name of God. To know God personally, we need special revelation. God has personally revealed himself to us in the Bible. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”We must worship God on the basis of his revelation of himself to us. God-pleasing worship is word-driven worship.
In Deuteronomy 4:11-12, Moses reminds Israel of their first meeting with God: “And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound, but saw no form; there was only a voice.” With these words, Moses prepares Israel for the disappearance of God. Israel’s worship would not be in video format. There would only be audio. They would have CDs’ to listen to, but no DVD’s to watch. Deuteronomy 4:15-18 reads: “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, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.” Worship is not images to see. It is words to hear. We are to practice word-based and word-drive worship:
- We sing the word.
- We read the word.
- We pray the word.
- We preach the word.
- We see the word.
The Second Commandment is a prohibition against idolatry. But the threat it confronts is the subtle seduction of idolatry, not the blatant call of idolatry. Idolatry is an adulterous woman whose bedroom is death. Yet many believers foolishly follow her home, because she veils her ugliness under a mask of sincerity. Christians inevitably fall into idolatry when they put sincerity over truth. We tend to think that if a person is sincere, he or she is okay. But the Lord does not share our enthusiasm over sincerity. The Second Commandment warns us how misguided sincerity can be.
As Moses met with the Lord on Mt. Sinai, the Israelites grew impatient. The people brought their jewelry to Aaron. He put it into the fire and shaped it into a golden calf. Then Aaron declared the bull to be the god that brought the Israelites out of Egypt. When the Lord saw it, he did not say, “Look how sincere they are! They just had to be near me, so they made a golden calf to represent me.” The Lord became so angry that only the passionate intercession of Moses saved their lives. God became angry because the golden calf was not a proper representation, accurate picture, or complete depiction of him. The golden calf symbolized God’s power. What about God’s holiness, love, or wisdom?
In John 4:23-24, Jesus explains, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
We must worship God through Jesus Christ. God commands us not to make any carved images in the likeness of anything in heaven, on earth, or in the sea. Those who make images of God mar the image of God. What is the image of God? Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
We are the image of God. This does not mean we have physical attributes that represent God. God is spirit. It means that God has given us personhood – mind, will, and emotions. We are free moral agents who can choose between good and bad, right and wrong, truth and error. Adam and Eve rebelled against God. All of mankind has fallen into sin, as a result of this original sin. Mankind was doomed to live in misery, death in sin, and suffer in hell. But God sent the Lord Jesus Christ to save us.
Hebrews 1:1-3 says: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
- We believe that God became a fetus.
- We believe the creator of life was created.
- We believe that he who is larger than the universe became an embryo.
- We believe the omnipotent one made himself breakable.
- We believe that he who had been spirit became pierceable.
- We believe that the ancient of days became the of infant of days.
- We believe that he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl.
Colossians 1:15 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him.” Jesus lived the life we should have lived. Then he died the death we should have died. As our risen Savior, he alone can bring us to God. In John 14:9, Jesus said to Philip, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father, how can you say, Show us the Father.”