Back in the 60's eight wrestlers took their own lives because
world champion 37 year old Gohlam-Rexa committed
suicide. Three of them left notes saying they could not stand
the death of their idol. Almost every time a well-known
person takes their own life some of their worshipers do the
same. Idolatry is alive and well in our world today. We are
deceived if we think idolatry is not a modern problem. It is
one of the most common sins of our day.
So often we connect sin with sex, as if sex was the major
area of human sin, but in the Ten Commandments that is
number 7 on the list while idolatry is number 2. From God's
perspective idolatry is a greater danger than immorality
because idolatry is the cause for immorality. Men would not
be so immoral if they did not idolize sex.
When man takes a real but relative value, and makes it
absolute, he perverts it. That is why idolatry is mans
greatest problem, for by it he ruins, destroys, and perverts
all of the good things of life. By absolutizing the relative, or
by putting the good in place of the best, man distorts reality
and lives a life out of balance with the laws of God. True
faith is faith in the truly ultimate--it is faith in God.
Idolatrous faith is a putting of ones trust in some finite
reality which has been raised to the level of the ultimate.
If sex, science, the state, society, or superstars are made
the ultimate values in our lives, they become idols. The
result will be we will take these valid values and turn them
into monsters of evil, for nothing can be God but God
without leading men into one kind of hell or another.
There has been some progress in the history of idolatry.
Modern man is not quite so conspicuous about it. He no
longer bows before idols of wood and stone. He has become
far cleverer in disguising his worship. The poet reveals one
area of this higher level idolatry.
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone.
The Christian in his wisdom
Bows down to gold alone.
Man has become more sophisticated in his folly. His
idolatry is on a level that sometimes is almost noble. The old
gods have been destroyed and their temples burned.
Centuries ago, Edwin, the ruler of Northumbria in Britain,
accepted Christ and called for an uprising against the useless
gods in the temple. The high priest galloped towards the
temple in the sight of all the people, and he hurled a lance
into the interior where the idols were. When this sacrilege
remained unpunished, the people at the command of this
daring challenger of the gods proceeded to overthrow and
burn the temple. These days of the glorious overthrow of
visible idols are over, but the battle against idolatry
continues in full force.
Erich Fromm, a social scientist, in his book, The Sane
Society, writes, "Is it not time to cease to argue about God,
and instead to unite in the unmasking of contemporary
forms of idolatry? Today it is not Baal and Astarte but the
deification of the state and of power in authoritarian
countries and the deification of the machine and of success
in our own culture."
William Jennings Bryan pointed out long ago that some
forms of idolatry are on such a high level that they produce
good, and that is why we are blind to their dangers. The
man whose god is gold is often very industrious, zealous, and
clever, and we praise him for these qualities which lead him
to his success in his idolatry. The man who worships fame
and does his best to attain it may do much good for the state
and community. Therefore, we respect his form of idolatry.
We are impressed with any form of idolatry that succeeds,
and so we tend to idolize success. As we study this
command, therefore, we must recognize it is Gods Word for
us today and not just a record of His Word to others of the
past.
Like the First Commandment, this one has a negative and
a positive side to it. And, again, the Old Testament
emphasis is on the negative, whereas, Jesus emphasized the
positive. The negative must come first, however, for as we
said on the First Commandment, all other gods must be
eliminated before concentrated devotion can be given to the
one true God. So also, sensual idolatrous worship must be
eliminated before man can worship God truly in spirit and
in truth. Let's consider the negative first which-
I. PROHIBITS IDOLATROUS OR SENSUAL WORSHIP.
Idolatry is basically the worship of the visible and,
therefore, God prohibits any image of any likeness of
anything in heaven, earth, or sea to be an aid in worship, for
the aid tends to become an object of worship.
It is important that we recognize that true worship is
what is being protected by this Second Commandment. The
First Commandment was to eliminate worship of all false
gods, and the Second is to eliminate all false forms of
worship of the true God. In other words, it would be
possible to be monotheist, and obey the First Commandment
by having no other gods but Jehovah, and yet be an idolater
by worshipping Jehovah in the form of some idol. This is
exactly what happened while Moses was receiving the Ten
Commandments. The people in their craving for a visible
god melted all their gold and made a golden calf to represent
Jehovah. Aaron proclaimed a feast to the Lord, and they
worshiped and sacrificed to the golden calf as the god who
brought them out of the land of Egypt. It was a symbol of
the true God, but this is what is being forbidden by this
Commandment, for it reduces God to the level of a visible
thing.
This same thing happened when Jeroboam divided the
kingdom and established a new worship in Israel. He did it
so the people would not have to go into the southern
kingdom of Judah to worship at Jerusalem. He was not
advocating the worship of other gods and breaking the First
Commandment. He was breaking the Second
Commandment by setting up idols to represent the true
God. In I Kings 12:28 we read, "So the king took counsel,
and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, you
have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods,
O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt."
Idolatry, we see, can be either a visible substitute for the
invisible God, or a visible representation of Him who is
unseen. In either case idolatry is involved only when worship
or service is an issue. You are not to bow down or serve them
is stressed over and over in the Old Testament. Lev. 26:1
says, "Ye shall make no graven image, neither shall ye set up
any image of stone to bow down to it." Deut. 16:22 says,
"Neither shalt thou set up any image which the Lord Thy
God hateth." Ps.97:7 says, "Confounded be all they that
serve graven images."
Even if the image represents your idea of the true God, it
is wrong and folly to worship it, for God can only be
dishonored by such an image. It is absurd to bow to what
represents God when the One it represents is ever present.
No mate would be pleased if they were ignored while great
respect is given to their picture. Thomas Watson, the old
Puritan, has a delightful rebuke to those who defend idols
because they remind them of God. He says this is as if a
woman should say she keeps company with another man to
put her in mind of her husband. There is no way to justify
any use whatever of any representation of God. It took Israel
a long time to learn this. Watson wrote, "If you search
through the whole Bible, there is not one sin that God has
more followed with plague than idolatry. The Jews have a
saying, that in every evil that befalls them, there is an ounce
of the golden calf in it." God is a jealous God, and He will no
more tolerate an idol than any man would tolerate his wife
keeping the picture of a lover on their bedroom dresser. God
demands loyalty of His bride, and this means no competition
with visible images of any kind.
If you apply this Second Commandment to all contexts,
regardless of their relationship to worship, you have the
extreme position the Jews finally came to, as well as the
Mohammedans and some Christians. Art and sculpture were
forbidden entirely. There have been great musical geniuses
like Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, but who ever
heard of a great Jewish artist or sculptor? Their temples are
without any paintings or statues. Some Christians have even
refused to have their pictures taken because it produces an
image. This extreme position has no support in Scripture. It
is, in fact, an idolatrous exaltation of the Second
Commandment to a level above the Word of God. A Jewish
saying goes, "The Torah warns us not to make idols of God's
commandments." This is what the extreme view of the
Second Commandment does. It makes an idol of the
command against idols.
God in this commandment prohibited sensual worship,
but He did not prohibit art or sculpture. All of the statures
of famous people in capitol buildings and parks are not idols,
for they are not objects of worship. If people bowed to them
and worshiped them they would be, but this is not likely a
problem. Images are not idols unless they are connected with
worship and service. God commanded that two images of
Cherubim be set up to overshadow the mercy seat in the
Holy of Holies. He also commanded the image of the serpent
to be set up on a pole so that people could look at it and be
cured when they were bitten. It just so happened that this
image did become an idol to people and it had to be
destroyed, but it was a legitimate image authorized by God.
People can take what is not an idol and make it one. They
can worship any picture or any statue, but this does not
make them a violation of the Second Commandment in
themselves. They can be just as legitimate as the serpent God
commanded be set up for good, but people can abuse the
good and make it evil. Until they do so, however, the good is
still good. The creative arts are to be enjoyed. God used
creative men to make His temple filled with beautiful images
on the walls. He is not opposed to creating beauty in things.
He is only opposed to images being used to represent Him,
and thus used as objects of worship. The reason for this will
be clear as we consider the positive side of the
commandment which-
II. PROMOTES IMAGINATIVE OR SPIRITUAL WORSHIP.
Jesus gave us the positive side when He said, "God is
spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in
spirit and in truth." God cannot be reduced to an object.
True worship depends upon the imagination, for where
anything visible is an object of worship, even if it represents
the true God, it is idolatry. One of the reasons there is no
authentic picture of Christ is, no doubt, the danger of
idolatry. And if we had even one sliver of the real cross of
Christ it would be held in reverence and be considered
priceless, when in reality it would have no more value than a
broken matchstick. Man has this tendency to reverence
things, however, and to give to them the devotion due to
God alone. The Second Commandment is given to protect
man from this tendency, and lead him to a high spiritual
concept of God.
God is Spirit and He does not want sensual worship. He
wants spiritual worship. Jesus said we are to love God with
all our minds and souls, and this calls for a committed
imagination. Imagination is essential to effective Christian
worship. Leslie Weatherhead wrote, "The imagination, we
must remember, is not only a faculty by which we may
conjure up something that has no existence in reality, but by
which we may apprehend a reality which cannot be seen. If
it is scientific to use the faculty of sight to make sure of the
presence of a visible person, why is it unscientific to use the
faculty of imagination to realize a unseen presence?"
If you ask what imagination is you enter a vast field of
investigation. Alex Osborn said, "It is a tough question
because that word is wider than a three ring circus tent and
covers wild beasts as well as tame." It has over 50
synonyms. Like so many things that are hard to define and
talk about, we know about the imagination by experience.
We have this faculty in us. Someone said that a bee stinger
is only three tenths of an inch long--the other two inches is
imagination. Imagination is that faculty that has been called
the eye of the soul. In itself it is no more virtuous or skillful
than the physical eye of the body. It too must be developed
and trained or it can be very faulty. But this is the faculty
which is to supply the images for the worship of God rather
than the eye of the body.
If you object that mental images can be as faulty as metal
ones, you are right. But the mental image is fluid, and can
be changed by increased knowledge and maturity of
understanding. A physical image is fixed and tends to hold
back growth in our understanding of God. The image
degrades God and limits God to the sensual, whereas, the
imagination is a wide-open field for advancement allowing
man to penetrate deeper and deeper into the unseen realm o
spirit and truth.
The Second Commandment was given to help man escape
the bondage of the flesh, and to rise to the high level of
spiritual fellowship. God often cannot get through to men at
all because of their dead imagination. They are slaves of the
invisible, and have no capacity to see the vision of spiritual
values. Jesus said that we must become as little children to
enter the kingdom of heaven, and certainly one of factors
involved here is the imagination. Children are open to the
world of spirit. Reality is not shut up to the physical and
visible for them. Macaulay said, "He who, in an enlightened
and literary society, aspires to be a great poet must first
become a little child." He is only echoing Christ, and is
adding his testimony to the evidence that says man can
never rise to the highest level of his nature if he loses his
childlike imagination. God wants man to worship Him on
this highest spiritual level where his imagination plays a
major role.
Napoleon said, "Imagination rules the world." Arthur
Brisbane wrote, "Like color and perfume in a flower, the
fruit of a tree, imagination is the highest, noblest attribute of
a human being. It is the quality that sees truths by intuition,
that carries the mind flying through space, the forerunner of
all useful, material achievements of human beings." If
imagination is essential for material progress, how much
more is it essential for the advancement of the spirit?
The materialist likes to think he deals only with the facts,
as if imagination, hope, thought, and prayer were not as
much facts as bricks and bones and sticks and stones.
Imagination is one of the greatest facts, for it allows man to
reach out beyond his five senses into the supersensual realm.
When men refuse to use this faculty for worship, and instead
bring God down to the level that can be grasped by their
senses, they break the Second Commandment.
All arguments, therefore, that seek to justify the use of
images because they make it easier to worship are arguments
in defense of the very thing that is forbidden. No doubt,
there are impressive statues that could stimulate awe, but
they would then become the objects of adoration and detract
from our adoration of God. Ernest Thompson wrote,
"History has shown that the use of any material symbol in
worship is attended by two dangers. The first is that men lift
the symbol up to the level of God; the second that they drag
God down to the level of the symbol." A visual image soon
becomes an end rather than a means. There is a subtle shift
from faith to sight. If you must see anything to feel you have
worshipped God you are in danger of the most subtle kind of
idolatry.
True worship comes from within, and is dependent upon
a sanctified imagination. The Second Commandment is a
call to forsake the dependence upon the sensual and climb to
the higher level of spiritual worship. If you reduce God to a
material image you reduce Him to time and space and have
a man made god, not the God of Scripture. A material
image of God locks Him into a static unchanging form and
reduces the infinite to the finite. The essence of this Second
Commandment is that God if infinite and it not to be locked
into any finite form. He must be worshiped in spirit and in
truth so that He can keep on growing in our minds as we
gain more light about His nature. We are never to limit His
unlimited nature, but be ever open to grow in our awareness
of who God is. That is why imagination is essential to
authentic worship, and why it is commanded.
