 The same is true, but in a different way, for the image that my wife and I have of our first-born daughter as a baby.  Though the LORD we love "changes not" (Malachi 3:6), we do change. Though our Lord is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8), we are not. As we change and grow, and as our experience with God deepens, our relationship with God and our love for God must also change. Otherwise our love dies for having been fixed on a pale imitation of the One we love. It is once again to protect the passion and nurture this relationship with our living LORD that God has given us this "2nd Word." The second life-giving word that we hear from God is specifically this: "Do not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above, or on earth beneath, or in the waters underneath." This "2nd Word" is underlined by an emphatic appendix that may apply equally well to the First Commandment (No Other Gods!): "You shall not bow down to them or worship them." This "2nd Word" is also accompanied by a rationale, or basis, for the command, a basis that is directly related to the character of God and may also apply equally well to the First Commandment. ("Because I, YHWH, your God, am a jealous God.") After the rationale comes a threat of extended punishment for the breaking of the commandments: "...punishing children for the iniquity of their parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me." And after the threat of punishment comes an even greater promise of mercy for the keeping of the commandments: "...but showing steadfast love to the thousandth (generation) of those who love me and keep my commandments." The fact that the appendix, rationale, threat, and promise may all be as easily related to the "1st Word" (Thou shalt have no other gods before me.") as to the "2nd Word" ("Do not make images!") has led many interpreters to treat the First and Second Commandments as one word, or as interrelated aspects of one command, or to see in the Second Commandment a corollary to the First. For this study, we will treat the appendix, rationale, threat, and promise as additional statements regarding both the First Commandment and the Second Commandment. However, the commandment against having other gods and the prohibition of images differ enough that we must give them separate treatment.  (Image of Baal from Ugarit,  This second life-giving word--No images!--may seem passing strange in today's image-saturated world. It was no less strange for the Hebrews who had just left Egypt, with its many sculpted images, and who were now bound for the image-rich Promised Land. Given the extensive use of images in the worship of Israel's stronger and richer neighbors, both northeast and southwest, how strange it must have seemed to these Hebrews that God's "2nd Word" to them was that they should have "No images! ...especially in worship!" This command requires a closer look. No DIY (Do It Yourself)? The "thou shalt not" of this commandment is a prohibition aimed at a DIY mindset, even when the goal of the DIY project we have undertaken is otherwise admirable. We need look no further than the keeping of the First Commandment to discover the sort of goal that might easily serve as an excuse for image making. You will recall that the keeping of the First Commandment requires heart-felt worship: "You shall worship the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, and strength." Left to their own devices, the Hebrews quickly turned to the making and use of images to "improve" the quality of their worship. (See Exodus 32:1-8.) In so doing, they did not think of themselves as worshiping "other gods"; their intention was to worship the LORD as they had been commanded to do. "If 'having a God' means to worship and serve that God with all that we are," they supposed, "then perhaps we need to take our worship up a notch. All that we are includes our silver and our gold; it also includes our creativity. Maybe we should make ourselves some images to help us focus our attention on the LORD and enhance our otherwise lackluster worship." But it is precisely this sort of "doing for yourself" that God prohibits, especially as it relates to worship. The positive statement of this commandment is that we must worship God as God, and only as God. We must worship and serve the LORD our God as the true and living LORD. And that means worshiping God as God commands, without our image industries. This "2nd Word" flows directly out of the first: we are not to replace our God with another power--and neither are we to offer worship and service to any substitute for God, however close to our God the resemblance may seem, not even (or especially not) to an image of our own making. It is not our place to make up for ourselves what kind of worship will be pleasing to God or what sort of service will bring the LORD honor. In other words, this commandment says that the LORD will tell us what sort of worship and service is demanded of us. Having a God means worshiping and serving only in the way that God commands. This "2nd Word" clearly presupposes the First Commandment. It assumes that we have a God. It assumes that we have encountered this God before. It assumes that we have formed from this prior encounter with our God very human ideas about what God is like and not like, and that when we turn to worship and serve God again, we are more likely (because it is our nature and it is easier for us) to worship our own, very human, ideas about God and our concepts of God--to worship our images and constructs of God--than to return to the real, but dangerous, presence of the One LORD our God and be once again fully present in the kind of whole-hearted worship and service that our God demands. As Martin Buber reminded us so forcefully about human relationships, real relationships depend on dialogue, a real give-and-take between two subjects, I and Thou. When we break the Second Commandment, we turn God into an object of our own making and relate to God as an "it." Such a relationship is dead. No "Graven" Image? In addition to prohibiting the DIY attitude in worship, the "2nd Word" also prohibits any worship of God in fixed form. The Hebrew word for image (pesel) means a figure in relief or in the round. Usually such things are made of more-or-less durable materials, wood or stone. Such materials will hold a form (Hebrew, temunah). The Second Commandment takes very seriously the truth that God, by contrast, "is spirit" and that the true worship of God is "in spirit" (John 4:24). As Moses says to the Hebrews, "You did not see any 'form' when YHWH spoke to you out of the fire at Mt. Horeb." (Deuteronomy 4:12, 15) It is important in our relationship with God to remember that the Spirit, like the wind, "blows where it will" (John 3:8). Living in relationship with this God is as uncontrollable and as dangerous (or more so) as living in a wholly committed and loving relationship with wind and fire. The mark of such a relationship is its passion, which cannot be fixed into a frozen form. Relationships that are growing, deepening, and maturing bring astonishment and wonder. If we are in such a relationship, we learn something new and fascinating every day about this person whom we love. So it is also for us with God. The forms that images of God may take are infinitely varied, as varied as the human imagination and the natural landscape. Idols come in all shapes and sizes. There are several keys to identifying idols as idols. As many types as there are, they share some common characteristics (Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments  , pp. 30-39):1. They are material objects on which we rely for happiness or well being. (For example, our house, our 401k, our iPhone [tm], our car, and the like.)2. They are "the work of our own hands." They are "man-made and breakable." (Our job, our golf game, our charitable work, and the like.)3. We are able to fool ourselves into thinking that we control them. They are safe religious objects that have become holy in and of themselves, but which we can manipulate. (Our church, this old Bible, this cross, and the like.)4. They lead inevitably to self-worship, because we own them.5. They are lifeless and inanimate. If Davidman is correct, our very human attempts to create a "form" or "shape" for God extend even to the attempt to put God into words. Every metaphor or simile and every "mind picture" (even the ones we have used here, the "wind" and the "fire") are "forms of him and symbols of him." "They [the idol makers] made an image of their thoughts" (p. 31), "trying to say what they thought about the nature of God. They were inventing what we call theology" (p. 32) The Presbyterian Church (USA) has a "Directory for Worship" in its Book of Order (pdf) that says something of the same sort: When people respond to God and communicate to each other their experiences of God, they must use symbolic means, for God transcends creation and cannot be reduced to anything within it. No merely human symbols can be adequate to comprehend the fullness of God, and none is identical to the reality of God. (W-1.2002)When we mistake our language about God for the reality of God, we have broken the Second Commandment. Even the church itself, and my participation in it, can take the form and shape of an idol: What I want now is to build the church itself.And I am still an idolater. I have fallen into the last and subtlest trap; I bow down to wood and stone, in the shape of a church building. Through regular attendance, through handsome financial contributions, through raising the minister's salary and redecorating the altar and improving the organist's technique and encouraging foreign missions, I expect to be saved. To put it bluntly, I have forgotten that the church itself is not God. (Davidman, p. 37)Realizing that we humans have a natural proclivity toward the creation of idols, the "Directory for Worship" again provides a similar warning: The people of God have responded through creative expressions in architecture, furnishings, appointments, vestments, music, drama, language, and movement. When these artistic creations awaken us to God’s presence, they are appropriate for worship. When they call attention to themselves, or are present for their beauty as an end in itself, they are idolatrous. Artistic expressions should evoke, edify, enhance, and expand worshipers’ consciousness of the reality and grace of God. [Book of Order, W-1.3034 (2)]The Only Legitimate Image of God God does have a legitimate image (Genesis 1:26-27, 9:6, I Corinthians 11:7), but it is one that comes from God's own hands alone and was made for God's own purposes. As Patrick Miller has said, "if we search for something that in some way images God in an accessible way, we will find that we have to deal with one another. To put it in reverse, all our encounters with other persons are an engagement with one who is made in God's own image." (The Ten Commandments: Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church  , p. 59)
Nevertheless, this image of God that we see in another has been corrupted by sin. And the image of God does not rightly come from human hands and imaginations as self-engineered objects of worship. Humans, even at our creative best, are capable only of poor, flawed copies of
the divine copy. Copies of copies are horrible at capturing the essence of the
real thing. There is always a loss of resolution. The images we make are dead,
and sinfully flawed copies that always convey less than the Living God. Moreover,
as Christians there is now for us one who is truly the "express image" of God, the
One and Only, the Only Begotten of God, Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:4,
Colossians 1:15) To look at Jesus is to see God. (John 1:18, 14:9) He puts us
back into a right relationship with God. (Romans 5:10, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20,
Colossians 1:22) Jesus shows us some extraordinary things about our God's passion
for this relationship with us. Our God risks all to be in relationship with us;
our God loves us so completely, that he sent his only Son to die for us. Our God
loves us to the point of tears.Once again, the point of this "2nd Word" is to safeguard our relationship with God, to keep it burning white hot. Our God is passionately jealous of this relationship with us, so jealous that his name is Jealous! (Exodus 34:14) God is so jealous that Moses compares the LORD to a consuming fire. (Deuteronomy 4:24, Psalm 79:5) God cannot abide the sort of diminished ardor that would occur with the displacement of our love onto a secondhand likeness of God that we had devised and created with our own hands. What Harm Is There In Idolatry? If an idol is nothing (Isaiah 41:29, 44:9) but some wood and stone, just a material object, then what is all the fuss about? As Joy Davidman says, "So is a gun. But a man can do great harm with it." (Smoke on the Mountain, p. 39) We have all seen the NRA bumper-sticker slogan, "Guns do not kill, people do." The danger of idolatry is in the idolater, not the idol. Idolatry is a "murderous attitude" that governs the idolater's life: "We begin by offering others to the idol; we end by offering ourselves." (p. 39) The problem with idolatry is the same as with the worship of "other gods"; it leads to death and destruction, usually that of the idolater. (1 Kings 18:28, 2 Kings 23:10) But there are also a curse and a blessing that come with this commandment that relate to the effect of a parent's actions on the well being of the children. Idolatry and the worship of "other gods" will have its effect in terms of punishment. It will bankrupt the spirit of the idolater and rob the children of their spiritual legacy. On the otherhand, worship of the Living God will also have a lasting effect in the form of a blessing, a shower of mercy on untold numbers of family members. How to Keep the Second Commandment Prayer is once again a key to commandment keeping. God desires a loving relationship with us, a relationship that requires both speaking and listening to God. Love will not last without communication between the two persons who are in relationship--and true communication cannot take place with a dead image, a substitute, or a poor copy in place of God. Discussion Questions Read Exodus 20:1-6 and Deuteronomy 5:6-10. 1. Is that picture of Jesus on the wall in your Sunday School class an "idol"? What about the images that appear on the multi-media screen during your worship service? Are there images of birds (for example, at baptism, representing the Holy Spirit) or four-legged beasts (for example, deer, when you sing the praise chorus "As the Deer") or a fish (the famous "ICHTHUS") in your sanctuary? These images would have been forbidden and banished from the church by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the like. Why are we so much less careful about images in worship than they were? What makes these images different from those prohibited by the Second Commandment? 2. Read Romans 5:8-21, paying special attention to Romans 5:20. Do you think that the jealous God of Exodus 20:5-6 (Deuteronomy 5:9-10) is the same as the loving God of Romans 5? Does Romans 5:20 help you understand the ratio of judgment to mercy in threat and promise that are attached to the Second Commandment? Can you believe God would punish someone in this way? 3. When God told Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-3:7), was this a case of "No DIY"? Is DIY always about "becoming like gods ourselves"? (Genesis 3:5) Have you ever been tempted to think that you can make it on your own? That your obedience will get you to heaven or that you must become good enough to be saved? Are these a form of DIY? Is this idolatry? 4. Anne Lamott  has an often quoted line: "You can safely assume you’ve created God
in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." Is
this true? Is it idolatry?
Joy Davidman says it this way:Because you have limited your concept of God to a man shape on a carved crucifix,
you may be in danger of inferring that you are free to outrage the man shapes
walking and breathing around you. Because you worship the god in a specially baked
wafer and a specially designed chalice, you may forget to worship the God of all
bread and wine. And yet it was said of the universal act of eating: "this do in
remembrance of me." (Smoke on the Mountain, p. 33)What might be some other indicators that you are worshipping a self-created image of God instead of the Living God? To what are you sacrificing yourself and others? 5. Do you believe that God punishes children for the sins of their parents? (See Exodus 34:5-7, Numbers 14:18, 2 Samuel 12:10, 1 Kings 14:7-18, 2 Kings 9:7-9 and Lamentations 5:7.) Do you believe that God punishes only the parents? (See Deuteronomy 24:16, Jeremiah 31:29-30, and Ezekiel 18:1-24.) Do you think some children have an advantage in life because their parents are commandment keepers? Have you ever seen the result of loving God or rejecting God passed from one generation to the next? 6. Have you ever thought about the image of God as portrayed in contemporary movies? Brent Plate has suggested that we think of the golden Oscar trophy as an idol, saying we should go all out and call for a special category at the Academy Awards for the best "Image of God in a movie." (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/03/the_oscar_for_best_ image_of_god_goes_to.html) What do you think? Should God be portrayed in our movies? What about the movie, "The Ten Commandments"? 7. Can the Bible be an idol? 8. Have you ever known a time in worship when some "man-made," "artistic expression" seemed idolatrous? 9. Read Isaiah 44:6-22. Given this depiction of idol-making and idol-worship, how could anyone ever become an idolater? What makes it attractive? The people of Judah had been deported and taken into captivity in Babylon when this satire about idol-makers was written. Do you think these captives may have been attracted to idolatry? Why or why not? 10. Our God loves us and responds when we pray, so prayer brings us into the presence of the Living God. As such, prayer is the primary way we keep the Second Commandment. Take time every day this week to enter into prayer and participate in a real conversation with the Living God. Try to increase the amount of time you spent last week in reflection. Remember that conversation includes time for real listening. Use the reading of Scripture to help you come into God's presence. Make notes during and after your prayer about the things that surprise you. How has this time with God been different than you expected? What new thing is God trying to reveal about himself to you? Have you begun to let go of old, habitual, stagnant images of God? NOTE: To comment, log in to your Google account or e-mail the pastor at glovergl@gmail.com. Copyright © 2010 by Gregory L. Glover |
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The Second Word: No Images! |