“You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them…” (Exodus 20:4).

Friends, many people find great comfort in the second commandment. It is one of the few they don’t have any difficulty with… hmmm, perhaps? The first commandment is primarily concerned with “who” we worship. The second is about “how” we worship. The key phrase of verse 4 is, “You must not bow down to them or worship them …” Friends, it’s not taboo to make an image – make as many as you like. Making an image, however, becomes an offence when it is used as an object of worship!

Why would anyone want an image to centre their worship? Well, people tend to think in pictures than in words. We learn more through the eye “gate” than through the ear “gate”, so we want to imagine a picture. The problem for us is the little word of three letters, “God”. Some people “imagine” God as being old, stern-faced, judgemental, fearful… seated on a cloud. What kind of picture is sketched by your imagination when someone says, “God”?

There are three kinds of images; Man-made, Mental, and God-made.

Man-made images are material images we can see and handle. When Moses asked God to let him see His face, God said, “… you may not look directly at My face, for no one may see Me and live” (Ex. 33:20). Friends, no man or woman has ever seen God. We don’t know what shape He is. It is for that reason we find it difficult to worship a god we cannot imagine, a god we can’t picture, and that is the simple reason why people have made images of God. As no human being has ever seen God it is therefore wrong to make something that fits our faulty, finite imaginations. The fundamental principle of all graven images is this: when you want to picture something, you always picture in terms of something you have already seen and recognise… working from the known to the unknown.

Three reasons why it is wrong to make images of God:

Firstly, all of them “reduce” God. They turn the Creator into a creature because an image has to start with something we have seen and know. Man-made images reduce the greatness of God. Isaiah wrote, “To whom can you compare God? What image can you find to resemble him? Can he be compared to an idol formed in a mould, overlaid with gold, and decorated with silver chains?” (Isa. 40:18-19).

Secondly, man-made images of God “restrict” His omnipresence (His presence everywhere, at all times) to being in one place only. It localizes God; placing Him somewhere in time and space, and God is the infinite, all-present God! An idol made by human hands is dead–it doesn’t move; it doesn’t talk; it doesn’t walk; it doesn’t respond to you. Isaiah wrote, “Who but a fool would make his own god —an idol that cannot help him one bit?” (44:10).

Thirdly, an image not only reduces and restricts – sooner or later it replaces God. God is forced behind the curtain while our man-made image is positioned at centre stage, receiving our attention and affection. A visual aid in worship is a risky practice… drawing too much attention to itself. A representation of God will sooner or later replace God.

Mental images are those that are formed and entertained in the human mind. Commandments can be broken with our minds – Jesus taught that lusting over a woman, and anger, is equivalent to adultery, and murder. (Scripture teaches us to guard our minds.) So, mental images of God is not a sound practice.

God-made is the third kind of image– it’s the stand-alone winner! This image is gravened with the hands of God, not man! God knew we’d have difficulty imagining Him. He wanted us to have a picture in our minds when the word “God” is said. When God made the world and the trees and the mountains, He wanted to set within that world a gravened image of Himself so that we would know what He is like.

Adam, the first man who walked the earth was a gravened image–not gravened by human hands, but by God’s hands so that people could have looked at Adam and said, “Now I know what God is like. Now I have a picture in my mind.” Genesis records God as saying, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like Us” (1:26). Indeed, before Adam sinned, Adam was “like” God.

However, because Adam sinned, God gravened a new human race through Jesus. Hebrews says that Jesus reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of His image. At last, in the Person of Jesus people have a perfect image of God… gravened by the Father in Mary’s womb.

Do you need an image to worship? Look in Scripture and consider the Person of Jesus. In the Book of John, Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! (14:9). Also, daily, as we permit the Holy Spirit to make us more and more like Jesus, our family, friends and acquaintances will see the beautiful image of God emerging from “within” us! Believers are called to “be” image-reflectors of the only One true God of the universe. 

Best wishes
Bill