"Thou shall not make unto thee any graven 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. Thou shall not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments." (Exodus 20:4-6)
While the first and second commandments of the decalogue are closely related in that they both prohibit idolatry and false worship, there is, nevertheless, a distinct difference between them. The first deals with the question of who is the true God, and the second, of how He shall be worshiped. The second is not a repetition of the first as some believe. The distinction is as great as that which exists between any of the other ten. The first commandment reveals the true object of worship; and the second, the true mode of worship. The first tells us who alone must be worshiped, and the second tells us how He must be worshiped, or how He must not be worshiped. The first prohibits false gods; the second forbids false forms of worship.
The first commandment deals with our conception of God; the second, with our external acts as manifested in worship. The second is directed against the false worship of the true God. He must not be worshiped through idols or images or any other visible manifestations. We must not forget that the negative always implies the positive. Prohibited false gods and false worship presupposed a true God and a true mode of worship, and forbidden sins always involve commanded duties. The negative command, "Thou shall not," always implies the positive command, "Thou shall." Iniquity forbidden indicates righteousness commanded. The command, "Thou shall have no other gods before Me," implies the command, "Thou shall worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shall thou serve."
Spiritual Worship
Both internal belief and external acts are involved in worship, and these are distinguished by the first two commandments. The outward acts of worship reveal the thoughts and intents of the heart. As a man "thinks in his heart, so is he" in conduct. The distinction between false gods and false forms of worship must be recognized, for counterfeit methods of worshiping even the true God are a dangerous species of idolatry.
We are told that spiritual things are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14) It is therefore impossible to portray spiritual things through material images or representations. To the woman at the well in Samaria, Jesus said, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24) The prohibiting of bodily prostration to visible gods or idols presupposes the spiritual worship of the invisible God. To attempt to substitute a visible image of a created object for the invisible Creator Himself would be as foolish as substituting the light of a candle for the light of the sun. Jesus said to the woman, "The hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him." (John 4:23) This is the spiritual worship demanded in the second commandment. True worship is far more than religious forms and ceremonies. Worship is always perverted and degraded by those who become fully occupied with externals and substitute them for spiritual experience. The vision of the Christian must transcend things material and behold the spiritual, and like Moses be able to endure, "as seeing Him who is invisible." (Hebrews 11:27)
Graven Images
The second commandment first of all forbids the making of images or likeness of any created object in heaven or earth for the purpose of worship. That it does not prohibit pictures in the form of paintings, engravings, photographs, or statues for other purposes than worship is evident from the fact that the Lord, soon after this command was given, directed Moses to make such likeness in connection with the building of the sanctuary. Moses was commanded to make engraved and embroidered figures of angels, oxen, lions, trees, fruits, and flowers. When he erected the temple at Jerusalem under divine direction, Solomon declared that "he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims and palm trees and open flowers within and without." (1 Kings 6:29)
In 1 Kings 7:29 we are told that there were statues of "lions, oxen, and cherubims." The tabernacle and temple were both built under divine direction, and we can be sure that the Lord would never transgress His own command or compel His people to do so. At a later time the Lord directed Moses to make the likeness of a serpent and set it up in the camp of Israel. Seven centuries later when 'this brazen serpent was venerated as an object of worship, King Hezekiah had it destroyed. (2 Kings 18:3-7) Everything depends on the motive or purpose for which the likeness is made. The fact that the Jews have never been given to painting or sculpturing is no argument against these arts or an excuse for such extreme and fanatical positions taken by some professed Christians. The work of human hands is not forbidden by the second commandment. The prohibition has to do only with the worship of that work. Only when the work becomes the object of worship is it idolatry.
The injunction, "My little children, guard yourselves from idols," was written, not to the image-worshiping heathen, but to Christians. The most dangerous forms of idolatry are not easily discernible. A superstitious reverence for the forms, ceremonies, and ordinances of religion may lead to idolatry. The worshiper who trusts in baptism as a means of salvation rather than as an outward sign of an inward cleansing has made this ordinance an idol. Likewise he who looks to the bread and wine of the communion service rather than to that which it represents, is an idol worshipper. To make saving acts of religious symbols is to transform them into idols.
Creature Worship
An idol is any creature or created thing put in the place of God. Idolatry is creature rather than Creator worship, and of all forms of idolatry the most degraded and senseless is the worship of the mere image of the genuine. A man is always superior to what he makes, and in worshiping the works of his own hands he is worshiping that which is below and inferior to himself. Image worship is even inferior to the worship of what God has made. But a picture or image even of God, if such a thing were possible, would of necessity degrade our conception of Him. To make sure that man can never make an imitation or likeness of God, He has made Himself invisible to man and has never permitted him to behold His person. It is therefore impossible to produce a picture, engraving, or statue of the Creator. On the banks of the Jordan, Moses gave a detailed explanation of the second commandment, in which he reminded the children of Israel that when the law was given on Mount Sinai they saw no similitude of the Lawgiver: "Take you therefore good heed unto yourselves; for you saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spoke unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire." (Deuteronomy 4:15) This is one of the reasons why no man hath seen God at any time."
If God had at any time displayed His person to man, idolatry would have been much worse. It is for this same reason that Christ left no painting or even word picture of Himself by which we may know what He looked like. Our pictures of Him are of very doubtful origin. They are simply the product of human imagination and doubtless bear but little or no resemblance to His appearance during His earthly sojourn. The prophet declared that when He would come into the world there would be "no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him." (Isaiah 53:2)
When the law was given, the Israelites had just been delivered from one of the worst forms of pagan idolatry and were about to enter a land filled with idols and idolatry. In both Egypt and Canaan polytheism and pantheism reigned supreme. The Egyptians worshiped "the likeness of male and female." Osiris and his wife, Isis, were the chief Egyptian divinities. All heathen gods were men and women in their originals. After their death they were deified and worshiped, and still are, under various names.
In Egypt the ox and the heifer were objects of worship, as were also the stork, crane, hawk, crocodile, serpent, frog, and the fish of the river Nile. Every living thing was a god, and God was in every living thing. Within forty days after receiving the law with its prohibitions of idolatry, the Israelites made and worshiped a golden calf, demonstrating the instability and untrustworthiness of human nature. The golden calf was probably never intended to represent a false god, but was their conception of the image of Jehovah, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. Aaron said to them, "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." (Exodus 32:4) The next day Aaron proclaimed "a feast to the Lord" or "to Jehovah." (American Revised Version.) They had not seen "any manner of similitude" of Jehovah, and feeling that they must have some visible representation of Him, they made one after the manner of one of the gods of Egypt with which they were so familiar.
Heathen Claims
The most enlightened heathen have always claimed that they did not worship the idol or image itself, but the being or power dwelling in or represented by it. This was doubtless the conception of Aaron and the Israelites at the base of Mount Sinai. They probably had no idea of deliberately worshiping a false god, but Jehovah, through a visible symbol of Him. That this is the pagan idea of worship is evident from the following: "We worship the gods ... through the images." "We do not consider materials of brass, silver, or other things of which the statues are made, to be themselves gods, or sacred divinities, but in these materials we worship and venerate the gods whom the holy dedication brings in and causes to dwell in the images wrought by the craftsman."--Arnobius, Against the Heathen, book 6, chaps. 9,17. Arnobius lived near the close of the third century A. D.
Another pagan said: "Visible and tangible images are, as it were, only the bodies of the gods, and that there dwelt in them certain spirits, which have been invited to come into them, and which have power to inflict harm, or to fulfill the desires of those by whom divine honors and services are rendered them."--Hermes Trismegistus, quoted by Augustine' in The City of God, book 8, chap. 23. This is also the position of the Greek and Roman Catholics in regard to the images of Christ, angels, and saints. They claim that they do not worship the images themselves, but what they represent. But this is also clearly forbidden in the second commandment. "Thou shall not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them," is a condemnation of Catholic practices, and for this reason the second commandment is eliminated from most of their writings, even though it is found in the Latin Vulgate which is considered by Roman Catholics to be even more authentic than the original Scriptures themselves.
Worship of the Dead
The worship of images is really the worship of dead and deified men and women who after death supposedly became gods or "as gods." All graven images represent dead heroes, ancestors, or saints. At its root idolatry is ancestor worship.
"Sun worship and nature worship constituted the essence of the pagan system. But there is, nevertheless, the strongest evidence to show that the first originals of the pagan gods were men who after death were deified; that this was the real foundation of the pagan system. And that these spirits of the dead, according to their different attributes, were subsequently identified with the sun, moon and stars, etc., which were regarded as their habitations."--J. Garnier, The Worship of the Dead, p. 13.
Hesiod, a contemporary of Homer, said: " 'The gods were holy men, and the sun, moon, stars were regarded as intelligences because they were the abode of deified men.' " " 'The gods were the souls of men who were afterwards worshiped by their posterity, on account of their extraordinary virtues.'"--Faber, Origin of Pagan Idolatry, Vol. 11, pp. 224, 227. This is also the basis for the worship and veneration of saints by Roman Catholics. Plutarch states that the Egyptian priests taught "that Cronus, Osirus, Horus, and all their other principal deities were once mere men, but that after they died their souls migrated into some one or other of the heavenly bodies, and became the animating spirits of their new celestial mansions."--De Iside, p. 354. Cicero declared that " 'the initiated (into the pagan mysteries) must know that they worshiped men's souls departed from their bodies into heaven, and that all heaven was filled with men.'"--Bishop Cumberland, Tully and Tusculam Questions, p. 349. This is the origin of the saying that a person "has found his place in the sun."
Demon Worship
Since the dead are unconscious and "know not anything" and have nothing whatever to do with "anything that is done under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 9:5,6), and the pretended spirits of the dead are really the spirits of devils, or evil angels, impersonating the dead for the purpose of deception, the worship of idols constitutes demon worship and is so designated in the Scriptures. Moses told the Israelites that they "shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring." (Leviticus 17:7) He also said: "They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoke they Him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. Of the Rock that made thee thou art unmindful, and has forgotten God that formed thee." (Deuteronomy 32:16-18)
In Psalms 106: 36-38 we are told that the children of Israel "served their idols: which were a snare unto them" and "they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils" when they "sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan." In verse 28 we are told that the Israelites "joined themselves also unto Baalpeor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead." The apostle Paul declared that the pagan Gentiles "sacrifice to devils, and not to God." (1 Corinthians 10:20) This explains why idol worship is such an abomination unto the Lord. In reality it is the worship of Satan, "the god of this world," which is creature worship of the worst type. How true it is that "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one." Idolatry is Satan's effort to substantiate his first lie to Adam and Eve when he said, "You shall not surely die: for God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:4,5) He is still saying that the dead are not surely dead, but are gods, or as gods. The majority of mankind believe this lie. The belief in the immortality of the soul is almost universal. This is the very essence of paganism and the foundation of demon worship.
The Great Apostasy
The great apostasy, or "falling away" from the apostolic faith, during the early Christian centuries was a return to heathen idolatry under the disguise of a Christian exterior. The apostles were scarcely dead before the early Christians began to make images of them and venerate relics of apostolic days. This apostasy ripened into its full fruitage between the fourth and eighth centuries. The historian Gibbon says of this change in the form of the Christian religion:
"The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted; and the monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology, which tended to restore the reign of polytheism."--Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. II, chap. 28, p. 619.
"The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross, and of relics. ... At first, the experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the venerable pictures [of saints and martyrs] were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes." "Before the end of the sixth century, these images ... were the objects of worship, and the instruments of miracles." "But in the beginning of the eighth century. ... the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an apprehension, that under the mask of Christianity, they had restored the religion of their fathers."--Id., Vol. IV, chap. 49, pp. 249, 250, 252, 253.
It seems to be a human instinct to want to worship something visible and tangible. It is so much easier to be carnal than spiritual. This explains the general demand for ritualism on the part of unspiritual people. They seem to feel that a great outward show of religion makes up for the lack of an inward experience. They do not seem to know that "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:18) The most lasting and valuable things even of this life are invisible. Love, joy, peace, righteousness, and character cannot be seen, and yet they are more precious and eternal than all the things that are visible to the naked eye. Faith is said to be "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)
A Jealous God
"For I ... am a jealous God," is the reason the Lord gives as to why man should worship Him alone. This is not the kind of jealousy so severely condemned in the Scriptures. This is a just and holy jealousy that is free from sin. Human jealousy is usually based on selfishness. It is characterized by envy and unjust suspicion. It is the result of a lack of trust and confidence. Human jealousy is divinely declared to be "as cruel as the grave." "O jealousy, thou ugliest fiend of hell!' exclaimed Harmah More, and it is described in Othello as "the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on."
But God's jealousy is the off spring of love. His love for us is so great that He will brook no rivals. He so values our purity and happiness that He threatens to destroy all that would mar them. A father guards and protects his children and a husband his wife with jealous care, because of his love for them. Dale spoke of this sort of love when he said that "jealousy is but the anger and pain of injured and insulted love."
False gods and false worship wound God's love. The original word for jealousy indicates the jealousy of a husband for the purity of his wife, whom he loves with an affection that will tolerate no rival. All through the Scriptures the relationship between God and His people is represented by the marriage union, which is the sweetest and most intimate human relationship known. The violation of this relationship is the greatest of all human trespasses. It is for this reason that idolatry is so displeasing to God. All through the Scriptures it is designated spiritual fornication and adultery.
Penalty and Promise
The second commandment is enforced by a threatened penalty and sustained by a precious promise: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me. And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments."
This is not an arbitrary decree. It is the unalterable and eternal law of heredity and environment that the sins and faults of the parents are handed down to their children. It is the way of life, and it is foolish to question its justice. "They enslave their children's children who make a compromise with sin," is a true saying. That the parents' traits and tendencies are transmitted to their posterity is a well-known law of science. It is not guesswork. It is a scientific fact.
Most of the sins of children were also the sins of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandpa rents. This commandment does not mean that the Lord will punish children for the iniquities of their parents, for we are plainly told that "the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son." (Ezekiel 18:20) In Jeremiah 31:30 we are told that each sinner "shall die for his own iniquity." (See also 2 Chronicles 25:4) It is an unfailing rule of justice that the iniquities of the parents are visited upon their children if they follow in their footsteps, and they usually do. "As is the mother, so is her daughter," is a Biblical proverb recorded in Ezekiel 16:44. Sin is very contagious. But in this commandment it is especially the sin of idolatry that is handed down to future generations. Our characters are largely determined by our religion and the nature of our worship. The parents' ideas of religion are usually accepted by their children. It is a terrible thing to pass down to our children a false conception of God; a heritage of false worship. This is the chief cause of the continuation and perpetuation of evil. It is usually inherited.
Reward of Obedience
The reward of obedience reaches to "a thousand generations." If sin is contagious, virtue and goodness are also. While disobedience descends to the third and fourth generation, the blessed results of obedience reach to the thousandth generation. This is the way of saying they are eternal. Iniquity will eventually run its course and become extinct, but virtue and loyalty will never die.
Obedience to God's laws, moral and natural, bring a rich reward in character and happiness. On the banks of the Jordan, Moses said to the Israelites, "Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keeps covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations." (Deuteronomy 7:9) Wrath and divine judgments are spoken of as God's "strange work" (Isaiah 28:21), but He "pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage. He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy." (Micah 7:18)
"The third and fourth generation" indicates a limit to God's wrath, but "a thousand generations" shows that God's love and mercy are unlimited. His mercy far outweighs His justice. His justice is great, but His mercy is greater. His mercy reaches far beyond His wrath. Men may criticize God's justice as set forth in this commandment, but they never object to the benefits they inherit from their ancestors. We are constantly reaping a golden harvest of character and conduct from the seed-sowing of previous generations.
The second commandment suggests that "the righteousness of men endures longer than their sin. 'The third and fourth generation' may suffer the penalty of great crimes; but thousands of generations cannot wholly exhaust the reward of fidelity to God and obedience to His commandments. The evil which comes from man's wickedness endures for a time, but perishes at last; the good that comes from man's well-doing is all but indestructible."--R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 57. The righteousness of God, which is imputed and imparted to His people, is called "an everlasting righteousness." It will endure through all eternity.
Lesson for Parents
In this threat and promise is a warning to parents. The evils they transmit to their children in character, example, conduct, and disease, will endure through several generations. What a fearful responsibility this places upon them. On the other hand, the goodness, virtue, and righteousness they instill in their children's characters through precept and example, will continue in their posterity through all coming time and eternity. Those who love and obey God will be rewarded with the life that is "more abundant" in the kingdom that will never end. There will be no limit to their existence and happiness.
The psalmist said: "Evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shall diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace." (Psalms 37:9-11)
This is another way of expressing the threat and promise of the second commandment. The promise of mercy extends to all generations of those who love and obey the Lord. We must love God before we can keep His commandments, for "love is the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13:10) Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments," and the apostle John declared, "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous." (1 John 5:3)