In this second teaching in the Ten Commandments Series by God Honest Truth, we conduct an examination of the Second Commandment, focusing on the theological, historical, and linguistic implications of the biblical prohibition against graven images and idolatry.
This lesson will explore the Hebrew terms pesel (פֶּסֶל) and temunah (תְּמוּנָה) and their meanings, nuances, and contextual usage in the Hebrew Bible. We will examine the distinction between the First and Second Commandments, and why the Second is not merely a reiteration, but a deepening of the covenantal boundary regarding the worship of Yahweh. You will learn modern equivalents of idolatry and how contemporary believers may unintentionally violate this command through conceptual or representational distortions of the divine.
This is not merely a prohibition against sculpture—it is a mandate that God must be worshiped as He truly is, not as He is imagined to be. Join us for a biblically grounded, historically informed, and theologically rich study designed to deepen your understanding of divine worship and the spiritual significance of this often misunderstood commandment.
So join us as we learn the God Honest Truth about the second of the ten commandments. And don’t forget to subscribe to follow the full Ten Commandments series and be equipped to walk in deeper obedience to God’s revealed Word.
#SecondCommandment #TenCommandments #Idolatry #BiblicalStudies #Torah #Exodus20 #GodHonestTruth #HebrewBible #OldTestamentTheology
Transcript
The second commandment. We think it’s all straightforward and it’s easy to understand and we can just take it as it comes off those first few words to us. But there’s a lot more involved than just a graven image. There’s a lot more that goes into it, and there’s a lot more of the nuance. So make sure to stay tuned for this particular episode and this study on the second commandment as it regards idols and graven images.
So this teaching is gonna be all about the second commandment as the second episode in a series on the 10 commandments. And this second commandment, this second episode is gonna be all about not having any idols, any graven images or likenesses and stuff like that. So if you would like to know more or if you need more notes than what we give you here, go to our website at GodHonestTruth.com. Click on the post for this episode. You’ll be able to find the on demand video that you’re seeing here.
If you’re watching on a video service, you’ll be able to see the draw slides that you see here on your screen. You’ll also be able to find the notes that we took for this episode, and you’ll be able to find the transcript if that so helps you. So go check it out today at godhonesttruth.com or go down below in the description, and we’ve provided for you a convenient link to take you directly to that article post on godhonesttruth.com. And the link in the description should be there whether you’re watching on a video platform or an audio podcasting platform. So getting right into it.
Second commandment number two. Quote, you do not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of that which is in the heavens above or which is in the earth beneath or which is in the waters under the earth. You do not bow down to them nor serve them. Now here is your King James rendition for those of you like me who grew up in a with a King James background. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them. Now it seems a little confusing or I’m sorry. It seems rather straightforward when you just read it out loud and take it directly for what it is. But it can get kinda confusing if you take this verse and this commandment in the context of the entire scriptures. The command itself, like I said, comes from Exodus chapter 20 verses four through six.
And we just read this and we’re gonna read it again the whole thing in context from the scriptures 2,009 translation. Quote, you do not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of that which is in the heavens above or which is in the earth beneath or which is in the waters under the earth. You do not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, Yahweh, your Elohim, am a jealous el visiting the crookedness of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving commitment to thousands to those who love me and guard my commands. And that comes from Exodus chapter 20 verses four through six.
You can also find the 10 commandments reiterated in the book of Deuteronomy as well. But here you’ve got a lot going into this one commandment. You’ve got images. You’ve got lightnesses. You’ve got bowing down.
You got worshiping. You’ve got blessings and curses. You’ve got all kinds of stuff. And we’re gonna go over these various points as we go through this particular teaching or daraj. Now a lot of people kinda combine the first and second commandments.
So in one sense, they are distinct from one another, but in another sense, they’re not really distinct from one another. In the first commandment, you have no other gods before me. And the second commandment is idols, and you’re not supposed to have any idols or anything like that. So is this really one commandment altogether or is this two different commandments? Well, it really comes from which tradition that you come from.
If you’re like me and you come from a Protestant background, then you have them just like we’ve have been presenting them. With verse three being the first commandment and verses four through six being the second commandment. However, if you’re of the Jewish faith or more specifically, Orthodox Judaism, then number the first commandment is gonna be in verse two. And that’s gonna be the apparently, they consider a command, I am the lord thy god. I mean, take that for your will, agree, or disagree.
That’s not really the point of this draw. This is what they consider as the first commandment. And then the second commandment, it they combine what we protestants would refer to as the first and second. So their second commandment in Judaism or Orthodox Judaism would be verses three through six. Now the Samaritans or the Samaritan way of calculating the 10 commandments, the Catholic way, the Lutheranism way, they combine the first and second together as the first command.
So the first command for the Samaritans, Catholics, and Lutherans would be verses three through six. So is what we consider from the Protestant background is the first and second commandment distinct from one another or are they the same or do they go together? Well, the whole bible goes together, obviously. But the first and second, I would say, is different. I would say that it really is distinct from the first commandment.
The first commandment forbids you from worshiping or serving other gods. And this isn’t really a, as we went over last week, it’s not, per se, like, a physical, tangible thing, like a golden statue or golden calf, things like that. It’s more of the the concept and what is master and god and lord over your life. The second commandment forbids worshiping Yahweh in a false way. And this is particularly speaking about graven images and likenesses and things like that, icons as it were.
Now don’t take that too far right now. We’re gonna go into the nuances of that because it doesn’t mean no pictures whatsoever. You can’t take a Polaroid. It doesn’t mean that, and we’ll get into more of that in just a minute. But as far as the distinctions go, think of it like this.
If the first commandment says don’t marry anyone else, like if we’re going back to the whole marriage analogy thing, and the first commandment says don’t marry someone else, well, then the second commandment is more like don’t misrepresent your spouse. And that’s really what the heart of the second commandment comes down to is how Yahweh is being represented. And we’re not to do that with images, with icons, with idols, with whatever, with sculptures. We’re not to do that. That’s what he’s telling us here.
And there’s a whole lot more that goes into that. We’ll get to it here in just a minute. But just take it for what it is that the second commandment as we’re presenting it and as we see it is different from the first. It’s distinct from the first. If you disagree, that’s fine.
Like I said, we’re still brothers and sisters in Messiah. We’re not going to anathematize you. We’re not going to excommunicate you. That’s fine. We can disagree on things like this and still break bed and fellowship and support each other.
So you decide for yourselves. Now the second commandment, like we said, it is really dealing with sculptures and idols and things like that. Things made by hands. And it prohibits the physical representation of Yahweh himself. And we get into different words here, get real nerdy like I like to do.
But here in this second commandment, we have two different Hebrew words we’re gonna pay attention to here. The first one is gonna be Strong’s eight six four five nine. That’s the Hebrew word, Pesel. Pesel. And that means a carved, sculpted, or engraved image.
The second Hebrew word we’re gonna be looking at is the Hebrew or I’m sorry. Strong’s h eight five four four, and that is the Hebrew word tamuna. Tamuna or tamanna. You’ll see it here spelled two different ways, but it’s Tamuna. And that means, like, a likeness or some sort of representation.
And we don’t want to take and make any sort of image or likeness or sculpture or idol and say that is Yahweh. That is what Yahweh looks like. That is where Yahweh resides. None of that. And all these things and everything he’s talking about here in the second commandment includes any visible attempt to portray Yahweh, whether it’s as statues, drawings, pictures, symbols, whatever, that’s used as part of a religious worship or service toward Yahweh.
That’s not what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re not supposed to say, hey, that’s where Yahweh lives. That is a representation of Yahweh because that’s the kind of thing that pagan cultures did, pagan societies. And we are not to worship Yahweh in the way the pagans worship their gods. For the nerds of you out there like me, here is your lexicon and dictionary entries for Pasell, and that’s, again, Strong’s h six four five nine, Hacelle.
You look at Strong’s definition, idol carved image, ground Brown Robert Biggs idol image. Jacinus’ Hebrew lexicon is engraving image of an idol made of wood, molten image. And here’s something that’s really caught my attention going over it this week and putting together the research and the information is that you’ll see here when we read the second commandment, we usually think of chiseling out of wood or chiseling out of stone, things like that. But we really don’t consider like a molten image. And there is actually times in scripture where this word is used of a molten image, not just something that’s formed by a hammer, something that’s actually poured and molten.
We’ll get into that in just a moment. But here is your Jastrow’s dictionary of the Targums. Pretty much the same thing. It’s image, an idol. Client’s dictionary, an image, an idol.
And I also listed out for you the various verses here where you can find this word being used in scripture itself, if that’s hopefully, something that helps you out there. And speaking of being used in the context of something that is molten and not just something that is carved or beaten or hammered or something like that, look at Isaiah chapter 40 verses 18 through 19. And to whom would you liken El? And what likeness would you compare to him? The workman molds a graven image, and the goldsmith overspreads it with gold, and the silversmith casts silver chains.
Now here, this first word that I emphasized, that word molds, is Strong’s h five two five eight, nasak nasak. And that literally means the like an image of something being poured out, especially something like a libation, something that’s being cast or melted, things like that, like liquid metal being molded, like molten metal. So here is this graven image, this pastel is being used in reference to something that’s being molten. I thought that was kind of interesting. Hopefully, you did as well.
And then we go on and we look at Tamuna or Tamuna and that is Strong’s h five four four. Here you’ve got Strong’s definition meaning something portioned, it’s shaped, it’s embodied I’m sorry. It’s an embodiment of something else, a phantom manifestation, image, likeness, similitude, run driver Briggs, prints the same thing, likeness, form, representation, semblance. Went on to Jacenius’ Hebrew Lexicon meaning this, Tamuna meaning appearance or form image. Jastrals meaning form or shape.
Klein dictionary defining it as likeness image, form description image, geometric figure. And once again, I have looked up various verses that you can find this word being used in scripture. So going on from the nerdy part, let’s look at some possible reasoning for why it is that we have the second commandment at all. Well, obviously, it’s because Yahweh is incomparable to anything that we can see, anything that we can create, or anything that we can imagine. He’s just that great and awesome and so far above us.
As scripture tells us that no man has seen Yahweh and lived. Moses saw his back, various things like that, and there’s been representations as when he’s spoken through the Angel of the Lord, but no one has actually ever seen Yahweh. So no one actually knows exactly what Yahweh looks like. As such, we really cannot, in addition to should not, make idols or representations of Yahweh himself. Also, Yahweh cannot be reduced in any way to a form or a likeness of anything, again, that we could make or shape or think of or imagine.
The images or the shapes are constant the image that we would might produce something like that, it would unfortunately shape our conception of Yahweh himself and would eventually replace our real thoughts of Yahweh and what he has or how he has revealed himself in scripture. They would replace our concept of Yahweh with the imagined or the created. And Yahweh is not created, Yahweh is uncreated and eternal. And even if intended as a representation of Yahweh, image based worship quickly devolves into worship of the image itself, idolatry. The biggest and most prominent example that comes into at least my mind and probably your mind out there as well is the example of the golden calf.
I won’t read it to you because you probably know it by heart already. But if you wanna look it up for yourself, it’s Exodus chapter 32 verses one through 25. That’s the incident with the golden calf. But in a nutshell, what the people did is when they were at the base of Mount Sinai, Moses had went up to receive the two stone tablets and the 10 commandments, the Torah. While he was up there for so long, the people thought something had happened to him.
They thought he had died, and they thought they needed a mediator. And so they did what they were used to back in Egypt. They created an idol. They created this golden calf. And they said, behold, your God who delivered you from Egypt.
And they were going to party and feast and sacrifice to it. And they talked Aaron into it and this did not turn out well for them. They were trying to worship and serve Yahweh in the way of the pagan Egyptians, and this did not turn out well for them. It’s a lesson for all of us. We should not do things our way.
We should not do things according to the traditions of the world. We should do things according to scripture. And what is scripture? It’s the word of Yahweh. What he tells us to do and how to do it.
That’s how we should worship and serve Yahweh. And the Egyptians weren’t just the only ones having an influence over the Hebrews were the nation of Israel. There were other nations all around too. And that’s part of the reason I would say for the second commandment itself is the context of the nations that surrounded them pretty much their whole life, their whole existence, even the day with the Arabs I’m sorry, the Muslims that are surrounding them even today. But back in the day, the pagan nations, they had their idols, they had their statues, and they believed that these idols, these statues that they’d created were the dwelling places of their gods.
Their gods would actually live inside the statues that they made and they could go and they could talk to the statue, they could hold it, kiss it, things like that, like you do with or like you see with Catholics nowadays kissing the feet of Jupiter, the statues of Jupiter in the Vatican. They thought that their gods back then actually lived in these statues, and this is not how we are to think about and serve and worship Yahweh himself. That is the pagan way of doing things. Yahweh reveals himself in word through his scripture, through the revelations that he has given us, and he hasn’t revealed himself through form. We know him by his attributes, what he has said, what he has done, the miracles, but not any physical representation.
That’s what’s going back to the heart of the second commandment. We look at Deuteronomy chapter four verses 15 through 19. Therefore, diligently guard yourselves, for you saw no form when Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you should do corruptly and shall make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure. The likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the heavens, the likeness of any creature that creeps on the ground, or the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth, unless you lift up your eyes to the heavens and shall see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of the heavens, and you be drawn away into bowing down to them and serving them, which Yahweh your Elohim has allotted to all the peoples under all the heavens. Here’s another point.
A lot of the sun worshiping pagan cultures around them would look up and they would see the stars, they would see the moon, they would see the sun, and they would think of these as gods. I mean, after all, we refer to it as sun god worship because, usually, the sun was the chief god in these pagan cultures. And that’s not so. Even representations that or even things you see in the heavens cannot contain or accurately represent all of Yahweh. Those are things he created, and Yahweh is uncreated.
Israel, on the other hand, Yahweh’s people, those of us who have joined himself or, I’m sorry, joined ourselves to him to devote ourselves to him, we are Israel. And Israel was unique. They were the only nation without a divine image or idol in the temple, in the Holy of Holies. Now, of course, when Antiochus the fourth came in, they put the statue of Zeus in the temple, but that was all defilement. That wasn’t according to Torah.
It wasn’t according to scripture. So Israel was unique, and they were to be unique. And that sense of unique is what we call set apart. And the Hebrew word for set apart is translated into our English word, holy. Holy means set apart.
So by being set apart, by being holy, that means doing what Yahweh says, not having any graven images or likenesses. The second commandment also can I’m sorry, reflects covenant loyalty. We looked at a little bit last time about how our relationship with Yahweh is like a marriage relationship where we are the bride, we are the wife, and Yahweh is the husband. And having other gods is spiritual idolatry. I’m sorry.
Spiritual adultery. What goes on and idols engraving images are pretty much the same thing. There’s still spiritual adultery. The phrase, I am a jealous god, when we look at the second commandment, especially verse five, it reveals a marital or covenantal context. Idolatry, again, like we looked at last time throughout scripture, idolatry is oftentimes, equated with spiritual adultery.
And Yahweh’s desire for us and towards us is for us to be exclusive towards him, to be faithful towards him like a good faithful wife would be toward her husband. And this second command also includes a warning and a blessing. We look at the specific parts here from the second commandment, but showing loving commitment to thousands to those who love me and guard my commands. This reflects generational consequences of idolatry. And so you get the generational blessings there.
And that makes around. Anyways, yep. You get the generational blessings there and it doesn’t mean because I do good and follow the commandments that my children automatically have everything they’ve ever wanted. No. Something like that is probably gonna mean more along the context of if I do good and I am blessed, that sets my children up ahead of the crowd for other things in life.
It gives them a step up. Likewise, we look at the other part, the curses. I’m sorry, the warning or the curses. We read in verse six, for I Yahweh your Elohim am a jealous Elle visiting the crookedness of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving commitment to thousands to those who love me and guard my commands. So once again, to break this commandment and especially this commandment but all other the commandments as well, here we’re just talking about the second one, but this also comes with a generational cursing.
And once again, just because, say, I as a father do wrong, I break the commandments that my children are, therefore, automatically gonna be punished for my sins. When we went over the episode on original sin, we saw for ourselves from scripture that other people are not punished or judged for the sins of others. However, just like the blessing part, the context here I would put forth is that the curse or the warning part and the visiting of the crookedness would be such that if I do wrong, I break the commandments, and I am cursed or punished for the breaking that, that my children and the generations after me will automatically be set back because of where how low in life I was. That make any sense? Hopefully, I’m explaining that like I’m thinking of it, but that’s what I’m thinking of.
My children are not gonna be punished for my sins, but they’re gonna be in a situation that was created because of what I did right or what I did wrong. And that’s the context, I think, is going on here with this whole warning and blessing of the second commandment. Now, as you think about this whole image of Yahweh, this whole sculptures, whole graven idols, things like that, one thing that might come to mind is the concept and the thought of Messiah because it does say that Messiah was the image of Yahweh himself. Look at Colossians chapter one fifteen, for instance, where it uses that very particular language that Messiah is the image of the invisible God. But this doesn’t mean that Messiah was a sculpture or a graven image.
No. In context, what it’s I’m sorry. What it’s resembling him. In context, what Colossians one fifteen is referring to here is the representation how Yahweh interacts, how he treats people, how he acts himself, the miracles he performs, what he does for others. That’s the kind of representation and the kind of image that Yeshua put out.
The representation that he put out, not the actual physical representation of Yahweh. In fact, Messiah makes known Yahweh through his person and work not by encouraging or portraying a visual iconography. We looked at, I’m sorry, let’s look at John chapter 14 verse nine. Yeshua said, he who has seen me has seen the Father. And that Greek word that’s used here for seen can also be translated and validly so as discern and some other things as well.
But we take this as discern and Yeshua would be saying in another way of translating that, he who has discerned me has discerned the Father. Obviously, you make your own decisions once again and come to your own conclusions about the Godhead, but we don’t hold to Yeshua being the Father himself. We hold that Yeshua is different than the Father. So just because he says that you he who has seen me has seen the Father doesn’t mean that he who has seen Yeshua has seen the Father because Yeshua is the Father. No.
What he’s saying here is if you have discerned and understood Yeshua, the Son, then you have discerned and understood the character and the representation of the Father. That’s what he’s really getting at or that’s what we would put forth that he’s really getting at here. But this whole concept of the second commandment, not having any graven images or likenesses and stuff like that, also portrays the concept of having right worship, and right worship requires right representation. We see that true worship must be, number one, based on revelation and not our own imagination. How has Yahweh revealed himself, not how have we imagined Yahweh to be?
True worship should be spirit led and truth centered as Yeshua himself said in John chapter four verse 24, Elohim is spirit, and those who worship him need to worship in spirit and truth. We cannot worship him in truth if we have an idol, if we have a graven image, because, number one, he said, don’t do that. Number two, there’s no possible way we could ever accurately or even close to accurately capture what Yahweh actually looks like or represent Yahweh in anything close to the way he actually is. And, finally, true worship must be faithful to Yahweh’s self disclosure in scripture. It goes back to that very first one.
It should be, according to Yahweh’s self disclosure, his revelation of himself and not our own imaginates. Now in the spirit of full disclosure, some of you out there may be thinking of some verses in your head. You were already thinking of this when you heard what this episode was gonna be about. And we’re gonna address these right now. You may be thinking to yourself, okay.
Well, the second commandment says, do not make or have any graven images or sculptures or things like that. But what about those times when we are actually commanded to make graven images or sculptures or things like that? Take, for instance, the ark, the ark of the covenant. And on top of the ark of the covenant was the lid of atonement. We look at Exodus chapter 25 verses 17 through 22.
And here is the relevant portion for our discussion this evening. Here we see that it’s referencing the Lid of Atonement and Yahweh says, and you shall make two carobim of gold, make them a beaten work at the two ends of the Lid of Atonement, and make one carob at one end and the other carob at the other end. Make the carobim from the Lid of Atonement at its two ends. So here we see Yahweh himself commanding the design of the lid of atonement and he’s saying put these two what we call angels, a type of angel, on either end of this lid. Okay.
Well, that is a sculpture that has been graven, and it’s a what would you call it? A representation of something that’s in the heavens. Right? So how does this jive with the second commandment? Remember, we go back to second commandment.
This is all about how we relate to Yahweh. And trying to make any kind of image or representation or idol of Yahweh is to put it softly and fuzzy, it is disrespectful. Now, we don’t want to do like the pagans did and make an idol and say this is Yahweh or Yahweh lives here because that is forbidden. But we could make things like we see here. We see in scripture itself.
We can make things of other representations, like representation or a sculpture of a carob, of a or cherub, however you wanna spell it, of a type of angel, and that is not breaking the commandment. So we see Yahweh commanding it, but it’s not a representation of Yahweh, and we’re certainly not going to worship and bow down to it. We’re just gonna put it up there for pretty much decoration and because Yahweh said to do it on the lid of atonement. But this isn’t the only place where we see sculptures and things like that or carvings in scripture that are being done and produced by the righteous. We look at the Temple Of Solomon in first Kings chapter six verses 23 through 35.
And here are the relevant parts. And he made two cherubim, again, cherubim, of olive wood. And these are gonna be really big ones. Okay? But, anyways, he overlaid the carabim with gold, and he carved all the walls of the house all around both inside and outside with carved figures of carabim and palm trees and open flowers.
And he carved on them figures of carobene and palm trees and open flowers and overlaid them with gold. Now here, it’s not just Carobene that he’s creating images of or it’s not just Caribbean. He’s making Carib graven images with. He’s doing the Caribbean, which is a heavenly thing. He’s also doing palm trees, which is an earthly thing in the earth and open flowers.
So, again, these are things that are okay to do because they are not objects of worship. We’re not gonna bow down to serve them and we’re certainly not even gonna think about claiming that is any sort of representation of Yahweh. And one more that I’m gonna bring up real quick here too. Another example of a sculpture or a graven image, if you would say, but this is the famous bronze serpent that Moses made while they were in the desert. This comes from Numbers chapter 21 verses six through nine, and here are just the relevant parts.
Yahweh said to Moshe, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it shall live. So Mosheh made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. And it came to be, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. Once again, let’s think about the context here and how it relates to the second commandment. This bronze serpent is not being bowed down to, is not being worshiped, is not being served, is not being spoken of as a representation of Yahweh or somewhere that Yahweh lives.
So, again, this is okay. And that’s how this whole thing of making these statues, like the bronze serpent, like the cherubim on the Lit of Atonement and in the temple. How all of this is okay because it’s not being worshiped and served. It’s not being represented as a representation of Yahweh. So that’s how it all jives.
I certainly hope I have not confused anyone with my wordplay here. But, yeah, it’s all about worship and service and the devotion that you put to it and who you say that’s representing. It shouldn’t be representing anyone thing. It should just be for decoration. So, anyways, going on and looking at the summary of this particular dross or teaching, we see that, at least in our opinion, there is a distinction between the second commandment and the first commandment.
The first is who you worship, being no other gods, and the second is more related to how you worship. Now some people who are lacking brain cells might worship an idol, but, you know, pretty much the second commandment is dealing with how you worship. The prohibition of I’m sorry. The second commandment is a prohibition of the physical representation of Yahweh because Yahweh cannot be physically represented in any way. There’s absolutely no way we could ever even come close to accurately representing him in some sort of physical manner.
Second Commandment prohibits creating or using physical objects or images to represent Yahweh. Second Commandment is about Yahweh’s invisibility and incomparability. And, once again, we don’t know what he looks like. We can’t see him. So there’s no way we can actually ever physically represent him.
Yahweh cannot be seen or shaped and any attempt to depict him, it really does limit Yahweh as we cannot put him in a box. We cannot put him in an idol. We cannot put him in any kind of constraint because Yahweh created the universe. Think about that. How is something we make with our hands gonna come anywhere close to representing Yahweh?
Our worship must align with Yahweh’s self revelation, not our own imaginings. Images, if we make any kind of idols or craving images, things like that, often and pretty much always lead to idolatry even if it’s something that’s unintended. Even images of Yahweh, like the golden calf that we looked at, distort who Yahweh actually is and he says, do not worship me in the way the pagans worship their gods. Humans tend to transfer reverence to the image itself, and this is another thing that we didn’t hit on and we should have. Is that if you have an idol, you start thinking more of your reverence towards the idol than the actual god itself.
Then you start thinking the actual idol is the god and it gets all sorts of confusing and that’s something that second commandment is there to prohibit and prevent. The surrounding cultures, we looked at that a little bit. They had all sorts of images and idols and things like that. But in pagan cultures, these idols were thought of to be the dwelling place of their particular gods. And it really depends on which pagan culture you’re talking about because once again some pagan cultures worship the things in the heavens like the sun, moon, and stars.
So this really depends on which god and which pagan culture you’re speaking about and which context. We also saw and know not just from the second commandment but in many places in scripture that Yahweh reveals himself as a jealous god and that worshiping images is a form of spiritual adultery. We see time and time again that we’re told in scripture the analogy of Yahweh being our husband, we being his bride, and that idolatry, including the worshiping of images or idols, is a form of spiritual adultery. Blessings and curses are around this particular commandment. Remember, if you disobey this particular commandment, then there’s generational curses that come up on you and your offspring, but if you do it, there are generational blessings that come upon you and your offspring.
There are various modern forms of idolatry as well and this is not just about statues. This tends to meld and go back into the first commandment as we discussed last time, but this can be a form of idolism, making an idol out of various ideas and things like that. Where it’s not just about statues, it can be about things like false theological portrayals of Yahweh himself, your own personal version that you come up with instead of the self revelation that comes out of scripture. It can also be shaped and your idol could be the tradition that you were handed down, that you hold on to in spite of what scripture actually says. Another idol, something that well, like I said, just kinda blends in with the first one.
You’re another idol, another kind of god would be a political or cultural ideology that masquerades as the will of god. Don’t wanna get specifics, but there yeah. Okay. We’ll leave it like that. It could be a political or cultural ideology that can be your idol or your God.
But Christ, as we saw, is the image of Yahweh, but he is not the image for the purposes of idolatry. Remember, he’s not the physical representation, but he is more of the, oh, how should I put this correctly? He portrays the attributes of of the father, Yahweh. He’s not the physical representation. He is Yahweh’s self disclosure in person.
He’s not the graven image of Yahweh. And right worship requires right representation. Our worship service or I’m sorry. Our worship and our service to Yahweh must be guided by scripture and it must be guided by spirit. It should be free of distortions, both physical and conceptual.
It goes back to, I guess, what we’re talking about with Messiah being the image of Yahweh. He’s the conceptual image of Yahweh, not the physical representation of Yahweh. And it should be rooted in Yahweh’s revelation, not what we’re speculating Yahweh to be, not what we are imagining Yahweh to be, but what Yahweh has actually revealed himself to be in scripture. And that’s just the God honest truth.
