The Gospel Coalition

Is this Commandment Relevant?
 How many of us bow down to idols in your house? Do we have a shrine with a bunch of wooden or stone objects that we kiss and kneel before? Do we sing and dance around bronze statues?

We in the West don’t bow down to graven images. We might think that Catholics and Orthodox go a little too far with the statues or icons they have in a sanctuary, but we can pat ourselves on the back as good Baptists who don’t worship idols. We think we’re free from the problem.

But we are deceiving ourselves. Our human hearts will find something to worship, whether it’s something we’ve made or not. This was the commandment that Israel broke before Moses even had time to come down the mountain with the Ten Commandments. They were dancing around the Golden Calf, casting their riches to the Calf, giving everything they had to make the Calf exist and be powerful.

 We might think that is ridiculous. Why in the world would they throw all their money away to some useless calf? But think about people who throw all their money away to idols today. The chances of someone winning the Lottery are one in 14,000,000, yet people are silly enough to throw their hard-earned money to the Golden Jackpot – a jackpot that will never fulfill their needs or desires, but will just rob them of the very money they hope to win.

Or think about how people throw their money to the idols of fashion and design. Some people will pay $150 for a name-brand outfit that they could get at Walmart for $15.

And it’s not just money. What about time? If you were to bring someone from the ancient East into America today and show them the average living room, they would say, “what’s the shrine for with the big box?” And you’d say, “What shrine?” And they’d say, “The box that all the seats are arranged around and all the room seems to be pointing to? The place where all the family members spend so much time?” And you’d realize, “oh… you mean the TV.” And they’d say, “why do you spend so much time worshipping that god? What does it do for you?”

Idols are always a temptation for us as human beings. We want to make God manageable. We want to see him. We want to manage him. We want him in a box. We want a god who will do what we want him to do.

We like to have a god that lives according to our boundaries and edges. We want to control god. But when we find out that God is a spirit who does not exist in any shape or form, when we find out that God’s presence is too intense for someone to look upon his face, well… this God scares us a bit. And if we decide to worship this kind of God, we lose control. We surrender the addiction of having to always be in control. We surrender our own control to the God who made us.

And that is a very unnatural thing to do. We like to be in control of our situation, or circumstances. We like to control those around us. We like to control our churches, our entertainment, our money, our health. We like to control the religious part of our lives and keep God all boxed up nicely in his own little corner. But the God of the Bible will not be confined!

What does this command tell us about God?
 God tells us what not to do and then tells us why. He is the only God. He is our God (personally), and He is jealous. He will not share his glory with another.

What does this command tell us about ourselves?
 We are prone to idolatry. John Calvin said that our hearts are “idol-making factories.” We want to worship a god of our own choosing. 

Ultimately, when we break the 2nd Commandment, we are dehumanizing ourselves, because we are trying to make something else into the “image of God” so we can worship. God made human beings to bear his own image. We bear the image of God. We can’t make the image of God. We can only be the image of God.

We reflect God, his majesty, his power, his control, his love, his goodness, his truth. We as human beings reflect God. Now, since we are sinners, that image is shattered and bent and the reflection is poor, but the image of God is still stamped on our hearts.

How does Jesus keep this commandment in our place?
Jesus came into the world as the true image of God! The Bible says he is “the image of the invisible God.” You want a God you can see? Look to Jesus. He is the Image of God. He represents God the way that human beings were always intended to represent God. He reflects God’s glory. He reflects God’s grace. He reflects God’s holiness. And He does it perfectly.

Take down the idols in your life. Don’t let them have control. Get control back from the idols in your life. What do you devote your time to? Where do you turn when things are going wrong? What do you give your money to? Look at your life. Are you giving money to God? If not, where is it going? Look at your checkbook. Look at your time. Are you spending time with God? Are you spending time serving others? If not, where is your time spent? Root out the idols. Stop making idols in God’s image and realize that you yourself have been created in his image.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2007 Kingdom People blog