(The SECOND Commandment)
The SECOND Commandment
Next Part 2 (The SECOND Commandment)
"You shall not make unto you any graven 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, nor serve them: for I the Lord your God am jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of those who hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." Exodus 20:4-6.
I. You shall not make unto you any graven image.
In the first commandment worshiping a false God is forbidden; in this commandment, worshiping the true God in a false manner is forbidden.
"You shall not make unto you any graven image." This does not forbid making an image for civil use. "Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, It is Caesar's." Matt 22:20, 21. But the commandment forbids setting up an image for religious use or worship.
"Nor the likeness of anything," etc. All ideas, portraitures, shapes, images of God, whether by effigies or pictures, are here forbidden. "Take heed lest you corrupt yourselves, and make the similitude of any figure." Deut 4:15, 16. God is to be adored in the heart, not painted to the eye!
"You shall not bow down to them." The intent of making images and pictures is to worship them. No sooner was Nebuchadnezzar's golden image set up—but all the people fell down and worshiped it. Dan 3:7. God forbids such prostrating ourselves before an idol. The thing prohibited in this commandment is image-worship. To set up an image to represent God, is debasing him. If anyone should make images of snakes or spiders, saying he did it to represent his prince, would not the prince take it in disdain? What greater disparagement to the infinite God than to represent him—by that which is finite; the living God—by that which is without life; and the Maker of all—by a thing which is made?
[1] To make a true image of God is impossible. God is a spiritual essence and, being a Spirit, he is invisible. John 4:24. "You saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spoke with you out of the midst of the fire." Deut 4:15. How can any paint the Deity? Can they make an image of that which they never saw? "There is no depicting the invisible." Ambrose. "You saw no similitude." It is impossible to make a picture of the soul, or to paint the angels, because they are of a spiritual nature; much less can we paint God by an image, who is an infinite, untreated Spirit.
[2] To worship God by an image, is both absurd and unlawful.
(1) To worship God by an image, is absurd and irrational; for, "the workman is better than the work," "He who has built the house has more honor than the house." Heb 3:3. If the workman is better than the work, and none bow to the workman, how absurd, then, is it to bow to the work of his hands! Is it not an absurd thing to bow down to the king's picture, when the king himself is present? It is more so to bow down to an image of God, when God himself is everywhere present.
(2) To worship God by an image, is unlawful; for it is against the homily of the church, which runs thus: "The images of God, our Saviour, the Virgin Mary, are of all others the most dangerous; therefore the greatest care ought to be had that they stand not in temples and churches." So that image-worship is contrary to our own homilies, and affronts the authority of the Church of England. Image-worship is expressly against the letter of Scripture. "You shall make no graven image, neither shall you set up any image of stone—to bow down unto it." Lev 26:1. "Neither shall you set up any image; which the Lord your God hates." Deut 16:22. "Confounded are all those who serve graven images." Psalm 97:7. Do we think to please God by doing that which is contrary to his mind, and that which he has expressly forbidden?
[3] Image worship is against the practice of the saints of old. Josiah, that renowned king, destroyed the groves and images. 2 Kings 23:6, 24. Constantine abrogated the images set up in temples. The Christians destroyed images at Baste, Zurich, and Bohemia. When the Roman emperors would have thrust images upon them, they chose rather to die than deflower their virgin profession by idolatry; they refused to admit any painter or sculpture into their society, because they would not have any carved state or image of God. When Seraphion bowed to an idol, the Christians excommunicated him, and delivered him up to Satan.
Use one. The Church of Rome is reproved and condemned, which, from the Alpha of its religion to the Omega, is wholly idolatrous! Romanists make images of God the Father, painting him in their church windows as an old man! They also make an image of Christ on the crucifix. And, because it is against the letter of this commandment, they sacrilegiously blot it out of their catechism, and divide the tenth commandment into two. Image worship must needs be very impious and blasphemous, because it is giving the religious worship to the creature, which is due to God only. It is vain for Papists to say, they give God the worship of the heart, and the image only the worship of the body; for the worship of the body is due to God, as well as the worship of the heart; and to give an outward veneration to an image, is to give the adoration to a creature which belongs to God only. "My glory will I not give to another." Isa 42:8.
The Papists say they do not worship the image—but only use it as a medium through which to worship God. "Not even to a statue of Christ is any reverence owed, since it is only a piece of carved wood." Aquinas.
(1) Where has God bidden them worship him by an effigy or image? "Who has required this at your hands?" Isa 1:12. The Papists cannot say so much as the devil, "It is written."
(2) The heathen may bring the same argument for their gross idolatry, as the Papists do for their image-worship. What heathen has been so simple as to think gold or silver, or the figure of an ox or elephant, was God? These were emblems and hieroglyphics only to represent him. They worshiped an invisible God by such visible things. To worship God by an image, God takes as done to the image itself.
But, say the Papists, images are laymen's books, and they are good to put them in mind of God. One of the Popish Councils affirmed, that we might learn more by an image, than by long study of the Scriptures.
"What profits the graven image, the molten image, and a teacher of lies." Hab 2:18. Is an image a layman's book? Then see what lessons this book teaches. It teaches lies; it represents God in a visible shape, who is invisible. For Papists to say they make use of an image—to put them in mind of God, is as if a woman should say she keeps company with another man—to put her in mind of her husband.
But did not Moses make the image of a brazen serpent? Why, then, may not images be set tip?
That was done by God's special command. "Make you a brazen serpent." Num 21:8. There was also a special use in it, both literal and spiritual. What! does the setting up of the image of the brazen serpent, justify the setting up images in churches? What! because Moses made an image by God's appointment, may we set up an image of our own devising? Because Moses made an image to heal those who were stung, is it lawful to set up images in churches to sting those who are whole? Nay, that very brazen serpent which God himself commanded to be set up, when Israel looked upon it with too much reverence, and began to burn incense to it, Hezekiah defaced, and called it Nehushtan, mere brass; and God commended him for so doing. 2 Kings 18:4.
But is not God represented as having hands, and eyes, and ears? Why may we not, then, make an image to represent him, and help our devotion?
Though God is pleased to stoop to our weak capacities, and set himself out in Scripture by eyes, to signify his omniscience, and hands to signify his power—yet it is absurd, from such metaphors and figurative expressions, to bring an argument for images and pictures; for, by that rule, God may be pictured by the sun and the element of fire, and by a rock; for he is set forth by these metaphors in Scripture; and, sure, the Papists themselves would not like to have such images made of God.
If it is not lawful to make the image of God the Father—yet may we not make an image of Christ, who took upon him the nature of man?
No! Epiphanies, seeing an image of Christ hanging in a church, broke it in pieces. It is Christ's Godhead, united to his manhood, which makes him to be Christ; therefore to picture his manhood, when we cannot picture his Godhead, is a sin, because we make him to be but half Christ—we separate what God has joined, we leave out that which is the chief thing which makes him to be Christ.
But how shall we conceive of God aright, if we may not make any image or resemblance of him?
We must conceive of God spiritually:
(1) In his attributes—his holiness, justice, goodness—which are the beams by which his divine nature shines forth.
(2) We must conceive of him as he is in Christ. Christ is the "Image of the invisible God" as in the wax we see the print of the seal. Col 1:15. Set the eyes of your faith on Christ, the God-man. "He who has seen me, has seen the Father." John 14:9.
Use two. Take heed of the idolatry of image-worship. Our nature is prone to this sin as dry wood to take fire; and, indeed, what is the need of so many words in the commandment: "You shall not make any graven image, or the likeness of anything in heaven, earth, water; you shall not bow down to them." I say, what is the need of so many words—but to show how subject we are to this sin of false worship? It concerns us, therefore, to resist this sin. Where the tide is apt to run with greater force, there we had need to make the banks higher and stronger. The plague of idolatry is very infectious. "They were mingled among the heathen, and served their idols!" Psalm 106:35, 36. It is my advice to you, to avoid all occasions of this sin.
(1) Come not into the company of idolatrous Papists. Dare not to live under the same roof with them—or you run into the devil's mouth!
(2) Go not into their chapels to see their crucifixes, or hear mass. As looking on a harlot draws to adultery, so looking on the popish gilded picture may draw to idolatry. Some go to see their idol-worship. A vagrant who has nothing to lose, cares not to go among thieves; so such as have no goodness in them, care not to what idolatrous places they come or to what temptations they expose themselves; but you who have a treasure of good principles about you, take heed the popish priests do not rob you of them, and defile you with their images!
(3) Dare not join in marriage with image-worshipers. Though Solomon was a man of wisdom, his idolatrous wives drew his heart away from God. The people of Israel entered into an oath and curse, that they would not give their daughters in marriage to idolaters. Neh 10:30. For a Christian and Papist to marry, is to be unequally yoked (2 Cor 6:14); and there is more danger that the Papist will corrupt the Christian, shall hope that the Protestant will convert the Papist. Mingle wine and vinegar, the vinegar will sooner sour the wine, than the wine will sweeten the vinegar.
(4) Avoid superstition, which is a bridge that leads over to Rome. Superstition is bringing any ceremony, fancy, or innovation into God's worship, which he never appointed. It is provoking God, because it reflects much upon his honor, as if he were not wise enough to appoint the manner of his own worship. He hates all strange fire to be offered in his temple. Lev 10:1. A ceremony may in time lead to a crucifix. Those who are for altar-worship, and will bow to the east, may in time bow to the Host. Take heed of all occasions of idolatry, for idolatry is devil-worship. Psalm 106:37. If you search through the whole Bible, there is not one sin that God has more followed with plagues, than idolatry. The Jews have a saying, that in every evil that befalls them, there is an ounce of the golden calf in it. Hell is a place for idolaters. "Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters . . ." Rev 22:15. Senesius calls the devil a rejoicer at idols, because the image-worshipers help to fill hell.
Use three. That you may be preserved from idolatry and image-worship.
(1) Get good principles, that you may be able to oppose the gainsayer. Whence does the popish religion get ground? Not from the goodness of their cause—but from the ignorance of their people.
(2) Get love to God. The wife who loves her husband is safe from the adulterer; and the soul who loves Christ is safe from the idolater.
(3) Pray that God will keep you. Though it is true, there is nothing in an image to gain (for if we pray to an image, it cannot hear, and if we pray to God by an image, he will not hear)—yet we know not our own hearts, or how soon we may be drawn to vanity, if God leaves us. Therefore pray that you be not enticed by false worship, or receive the mark of the beast in your right hand or forehead. Pray, "Hold me up—and I shall be safe." Psalm 119:117. "Lord, let me neither mistake my way for lack of light, nor leave the true way for lack of courage."
(4) Let us bless God who has given us the knowledge of his truth, that we have tasted the honey of his Word, and our eyes are enlightened. Let us bless him that he has shown us the pattern of his house, the right mode of worship; that he has discovered to us the forgery and blasphemy of the Romish religion. Let us pray that God will preserve pure ordinances and powerful preaching among us. Idolatry came in at first by the lack of good preaching. The people began to have golden images when they had wooden priests.
Next Part 2 (The SECOND Commandment)