AP

I carry a photo of a woman in my wallet.

If it were a photo of a woman other than my wife, my wife would not be happy. Perhaps I could calm her down by explaining that I carry around a photo of a woman to remind me of her. The photo is a woman, she is a woman – so what’s the problem? Perhaps…

However one looks at it, my wife would probably not be persuaded that carting around the photo of another woman in my wallet really did remind me of her (at least, in a good way).

Yet many Christians carry around with them an image of a god who looks nothing like the God they profess to worship.

Which brings me to the Second Commandment, the longest but one of all the Commandments:

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—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 nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing loyal-love to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Exodus 20:4-6)

You shall not make for yourself a carved image

Travelling through Europe, one is overwhelmed by the blatant idolatry on show in the great cathedrals, where the dominant image – whether front and centre, on top of spires, or peering out from niches in the walls – is, not usually of Christ, but (supposedly) of the Virgin. One cannot but identify with the apostle Paul who “was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols” (Acts 17:16) when he first came to Athens. Today these sculptures are admired the world over for the skill that created such beautiful works of art; Paul was “greatly distressed.”

Even where the image is (supposedly) of Jesus – or even, sometimes of God the Father Himself – all idols at best trivialise who God is, and inevitably mean one ends up worshipping another god. This is no more defensible that my carrying around the picture of another woman in my wallet to remind me of who my wife is.

John Mackay, in his commentary on Exodus 20:23, observes that such images may be beautiful, but though “undoubtedly costly and embodying a high standard of craftmanship, they would still fall pathetically short of the living reality of the transcendent God.”

On this note, observe that even when the Israelites “made an altar of stones for God” they were “not to build it with dressed stones” (Exodus 20:25). Again, Mackay: “An altar made from such costly and aesthetically pleasing stone would be a tribute to human craftmanship, but it would be defiled from the Lord’s point of view because it distracted attention from Him and His goodness.” I cannot help thinking that the sort of high-tech performance one comes across in some “worship” services today is just this, more about drawing attention to the ingenuity of Man than to the glory of God.

And yes, God is both offended and jealous. He is offended when we conceive of Him in such a trivial manner that portrays Him as infinitely less than He is. “You thought that I was altogether like you,” God rebuked Israel in Psalm 50:21. And, one way or another that is what we end up doing with our idols: we create a god in our image, rather than vice-versa – a god that is like us, non-threatening, accessible the way we want, and controllable.

This may not be by way of a visible image but, for some, simply wanting to re-imagine and worship a god that justifies their aberrant conduct. It may be the “Love is Love” god some worship to justify their LGBT leanings. But at the root of it all this is just the widely worshipped non-judgmental god of Heinrich Heine, the German poet who died in 1856 with these words on his lips: “Of course God will forgive me; that’s his job.” This is the oldest way Man has always tried to re-imagine god, ever since the devil tempted Eve to believe in a non-judgmental god: “The woman said to the serpent, ‘God has said, “You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.”’ Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die.’” (Genesis 3:2-4)

But whatever way some re-imagine god, there will always be those who claim that in the image they have created they are still worshipping the Christian God. Much as Aaron wanted to pretend when he made the golden calf for Israel to worship: “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4)

On this, John Mackay comments on the Second Commandment:

“It seems likely that the idols in view here are not those of pagan gods (the first commandment has proscribed them from Israel’s worship), but representations of Yahweh himself… But such a theology had no place in the worship of Israel because it represented a fundamental confusion of the creation with the Creator… By denying the spiritual nature of God, the idol degrades God and misleads the worshipper into placing the divine on the same level as the world of ordinary experience. Far from being a help to worship, the idol sets up an insurmountable barrier to the refinement of human perception of what is spiritual.”

How vital it is that how we see God be shaped only by the Word of God, not by our feeble imagination of what we would suppose God to be like. Scripture alone tells us the truth as to what God is like.

For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God

God is both offended and jealous: jealous when, by our imagination, our loyalty is to another god. My wife would rightly be jealous if I was carrying around in my wallet – or, even worse, in my head and heart – a picture of a woman other than her.

John Mackay explains this well:

“Though we naturally view jealousy in terms of human relationships where it presents itself in many sinful guises, it is fundamentally something good. Whereas envy is a desire for what is not one’s own, jealousy focuses on what one has a right to, and is an intense preoccupation to take action to guard and keep inviolate a relationship. It debases a relationship between two parties if what intrudes into and threatens its integrity is treated as of little consequence.
“When God says to Israel that he is jealous of the relationship that the covenant has brought into existence, he means that he is committed to maintaining it and dealing with all that threatens its integrity – because the threat is essentially one against himself and his rights in the matter. The threats to Israel’s relationship with the Lord will not primarily be those from other parties, but those that arise from the heart disposition of the people themselves.”

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me; but showing loyal-love to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments

Philip Ryken challenges us:

“What is God doing in your family? As parents plan for the future, they should be more concerned about the second commandment than they are about their financial portfolio. This commandment contains a solemn warning for fathers. When a man refuses to love God passionately and to worship God properly, the consequences of his sin will last for generations. The guilt of a man who treasures idols in his heart will corrupt his entire family, and in the end they will all be punished.”

On the other hand, God’s loyal-love (Heb. ḥeseḏ) streams to those whose love (Heb. ’ahab) for God is genuine and demonstrated in a love for His commandments. “But a man who loves God supremely – a man who bows before him in genuine worship and serves him with true praise – will see the blessing of God rest on his household forever.”

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”(1 John 3:1-3)

– Ken Stebbins