Ethics Week 6

Second Commandment

Exodus 20:4-6:  4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved 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. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands [2] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Images

-           What is forbidden

• In Islam all representative art is forbidden
• Not even all images used in worship are forbidden
  • God commands images be made for worship at times
    • Exodus 25:18-20
    • Exodus 36:8
    • Exodus 25:33-34
    • Numbers 21:6-8
      • John 3:14-15
  • Images existed in the temple
    • I Kings 6:18
    • I Kings 6: 23-28
    • Ezekial 41:17-20
  • Obviously making images is not intrinsically sinful
• Some interpretations
  • Only allowed when God commands it
    • I Kings 10:19-20 – Solomon’s throne – not condemned
  • Wrong to display images in places of worship
    • God required images precisely for places of worship
• Forbidden: Making images for the purpose of bowing down and worshipping them
  • “pesel” = carvced image – always one used for worship, never simply a piece of artwork
  • Explicit in Lev 26:1
    • Exodus 20:23
  • 2 Kings 18:4
    • Only destroyed once people began to worship it
• Objects of Worship
  • Actuial identity with the god worhsipped, or
  • A conduit to the god worshipped
• Images of the True God
  • Idolatry incolves the image as well as what it claims to represent
  • Exodus 32
  • I Kings 12:25-33
    • Worshipping the true God by means of images

-          Why does God forbid it?

• Redemptive-historical
  • The visible image distorts the nature of the invisible God
    • Col 1:15
    • John 1:18
  • God reveals himself through visible means
    • Ex 24:10
    • Num 12:8
  • God reveals himself through Jesus Christ
    • John 14:9
    • I John 1:1-3
  • Man as God’s image
    • Gen 1:26-27
  • God chose to hide himself at one point in history, but not forever
    • He revelaed himself through word and deed in OT
    • He revealed himself in the above images at other times
  • Under the new covenant God reveakls himself in visible and material form
    • John 14:9
    • I John 1:1-3
    • Rev 1:7
    • Heb 11:27
  • God’s revelation of His image is the sign of the End of the Age
    • The word now creates images in our mind of Jesus/God
      • We do not worship the images in our mind
      • We do worship Him who those images represent
        • We are not forbidden from having mental images
• God as the Living God
  • Personal and living
    • Deut 5:26
    • Josh 3:10
  • Idols are impersonal, made of Gold, silver etc
  • Idols are lies because they fail to picture what is true about God – living and personal
• God’s True Image
  • Images are not as strong as the creator
  • Only Jesus could properly image God
    • Those who bow down to him become like him
• God’s Covenant Jealousy
  • Ex 20:5-6
  • Worship of other God’s is covenant disloyalty – adultery
  • This brings punishement under the second commandment
  • Children punished for sins of fathers?
    • Idolatrous parents creat an datmospher in their families that encourage their children and later generations to be idolatrous
      • Ezekial 18:20
  • Children can turn away and not find punisemnt
    • Exekial 20:14-18
    • Repetance and God’s grace
      • Acts 2:40
  • Promises to those who keep the commandments
    • Exodus 20:6
    • Deut 7:9
      • Generations
      • Shows God’s mercy is greater than his wrath
        • We saw 3-4 generations for wrath

Application of Second Commandment to Worship

-           The Regulative Principle

• In worship we should only do what God has prescribed for us to do
  • WCF 21:1
  • WCF 1:6
  • Lev 10:1-2
  • Calvin:  The sum, therefore is, that the people of God should abstain from all the inventions of men, whereby pure and simple religion is adulterated.
• Elements – those things that scripture commands
• Circumstances – those things we must do in order to perform the elements
• RP in the New Jerusalem
  • No Temple
  • No light
  • Worship in spirit and truth
    • Woman at the well
  • Now worship is:
    • Nature:  homage to God
    • Revelation
    • Sufficiency of scripture
    • Caring for others
      • Matt 25
    • Not worship based on human reason but God’s law written in our hearts
  • Elders – authority
    • All are priests
    • Hierarchy in churches gives way to mutual leadership
      • We still have those gifted in teaching – but none esteemed above others
• Problems with applying the regulative principle
  • Determining biblical elements?
    • Incest?  Gold Altars?