QQ49-50. Which is the second commandment and what is required in it?
A (49). The second commandment is, Thou shalt 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 shalt 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.
A (50). The second commandment requireth the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his Word.
I want to open off with a crucial text from Deuteronomy that helps us understand what is going on in the Second Commandment.
“Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure” (Deut. 4:15-16).
If we don’t catch the significance of this, we won’t see why the Westminster divines spent so much time talking about the positive duty of this commandment as including the whole life of religion and public worship that doesn’t seem to have icons or images or stattues anywhere. But then that’s the whole point, isn’t it? We do what is forbidden because we first fail to do what is required! There is a spiritual worship that, if forsaken, leaves us with only one alternative—an anti-spiritual worship, or in other words, a carnal worship.
Calvin very famously said that we are all natural born “idol factories.” Truly this natural tendency was in view when God warns Israel to WATCH YOURSELVES. And what exactly are they to watch, as they peer into that idol factory of their own hearts? Notice the logic of Moses’ words here: SINCE YOU SAW NO FORM OR FIGURE, therefore do not carve for yourselves either form or figure. Step 1: God is spirit (no form or figure); 2. therefore worship him in spirit and truth. And then take special note of a diagnosis of heart: BEWARE LEST YOU ACT CORRUPTLY. Corruption. Here we see the irony of idolatry. As the craftsman tries to make God “more solid” he causes himself to crumble! Make an image of God and lose an image of yourself.
The Diagnosis of Idolatry
Speaking of Calvin’s thoughts on idolatry, you may recall that there were two attributes of God that Calvin focuses on in his Institutes: the infinity and the spirituality of God. Since God is spirit and infinite, it follows that the very attempt to picture him, even in one’s own mind, is to deny him. A picture of God would thus be a contradiction in terms. It cannot do anything but lie about him, so much so, Calvin adds, “that every thing respecting God which is learned from images is futile and false … and all, therefore, who have recourse to them for knowledge are miserably deceived.”1 Last time we saw that how we worship determines what we worship, and that is all the more true the closer we get in our worship to depicting God. We may remember the warning elsewhere in Deuteronomy.
“that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same’” (Deut. 12:30).
Calvin’s diagnosis is that idolatry flows from the Imagination of the Mind to the Images of the Hand. Any instance of an idol comes down to this. So how does it happen?
“The mind, in this way, conceives the idol, and the hand gives it birth. That idolatry has its origin in the idea which men have, that God is not present with them unless his presence is carnally exhibited … After such a figment is formed, adoration forthwith ensues: for when once men imagine that they beheld God in images, they also worshiped him as being there … [and] as soon as a visible form is given to God, his power also is supposed to be annexed to it.”2
Idolatry is a disease before its symptoms reach the surface of stone and stained glass.
We can take a view into the idol factory. Two things are evident here. There is the mind and there is the motive. Calvin draws back on a statement by Augustine, “that no person thus prays or worships, looking at an image, without being impressed with the idea that he is heard by it, or without hoping that what he wished will be performed by it.”3 A genie that we stuffed into the bottle! There is an illusion of harnessing divine power. I quoted from Psalm 115:8 last time, but if we look at that verse in the wider context, we can see the contrast between what the idol crafter thought he was getting into and what he got:
“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Psa. 115:4-8).
This was a great part of Augustine’s argument in the early going of the City of God. Right where the pagans wanted to blame the Christian faith for the fall of Rome—Why? Because their gods were not being fed!—right at what they thought was their strong point, Augustine exposes such “gods” as their weak point. What kind of gods are these to begin with? It turns out that they could not protect their cities because they are sort of things that need men to protect them! Again, in the words of Jeremiah, “Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk” (10:5). But Augustine actually gets very specific, where he says that the Romans should have taken this Second Commandment of the Jews to heart, that their images only increased error, and debased the people’s view of their own invisible soul by lowering the divine to the visible and tangible.4 So there is this twisting of truth into error.
Idolatry twists good things into evil. This is to take nature, which is good, and act as if it could be the ultimate good. So the Persians worshiped the sun, the Arabians the moon. The Egyptians worshiped their animals, and the Chinese their ancestors. While the Greeks and Romans worshiped what Schaeffer called “amplified humanity.”5 None of these things here are evil in their ordained nature and place. This even happens with good religious objects. There was the case of the bronze serpent. At first God ordained that the serpent on the staff be looked upon for the healing of the people. But as it was cast with bronze, what was supposed to be a type and shadow of Christ became adored as the Substance. And so we read that, “[Hezekiah] removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan)” (2 Kings 18:4). This is one of the basic problems with the Romans Mass. In claiming that the bread is transformed into the Substance of Christ himself, the host is an object of worship in itself rather than a sign.
The Regulation of Worship
Our answer comes with action words: RECEIVING, OBSERVING, AND KEEPING PURE AND ENTIRE. This, in a nutshell, is “religion.” This word has become a dirty word in modern “spirituality,” as we often call it instead. Now to make all this clearer, we’re going to have to “cheat” a little bit and preview part of the prohibitions of next week. A foundational question that must be asked about the meaning of Exodus 20:4-6 is this: Do we understand all of the words within the context of worship? And if so, how does that condition how we hear what is forbidden and what is not? As I have said, the difference between the First and Second Commandments is that the first regards the object of worship, whereas the second regards the manner of it. So, if the context is what you worship, then the problem with the depictions has that object as its meaning. So, to the misgiving that this commandment forbids any artwork, Frame addresses the core of this. We’ll make a larger argument next time. But he says:
“What Exodus 20:4-5 teaches, rather, is that we should not make images for the purpose of bowing down to them and serving them. That is plain from the use of the word pesel (translated “carved image”) in verse 4. A pesel in Scripture is never simply a piece of artwork. It is always an image used for idolatrous purposes.”6
Now let’s stop there. As I said, I don’t want to get too far into the prohibitions yet. I bring this in here because the worship context aims the Second Commandment at the first. The manner of worship is for the right object of worship. Now that last phrase that Frame used is worth pondering: idolatrous purposes. A religiously-minimalist way to hear this is: “Exactly, the only issue here is actual objects that one is holding up to be worshipped as if it were God.” But if one of the Westminster divines were here (and probably still most Reformed pastors), they would reply: “Anything you hold up” you say? It’s been said that “the medium is the message.” It is actually difficult to disentangle the substance of a message from the way it hits one’s senses—especially in an increasingly sensory-driven culture. Now the Puritans will be charged with being Gnostics here, but it was not Purtians who said, “Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you” (Deut. 4:15) and it was not a Westminster divine who said, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn. 4:24).
The Word spiritualizes our view toward the object of worship. Here I use the word “spiritualize” in a good way. Our tendency is to materialize that object—to “carnalize,” if I can invent a word. And the setting up of images is not merely about pointing to a physical object and saying, “That thing is God—worship it!” Rather, it is about setting up any images in a way that trains the souls of those worshiping to depend on the visual center of focus.
Just as the Reformers were sensitive to call the piece of furniture for communion the Table and not an Altar, so we may consider not calling any platform in the front a “stage,” since that is where performances take place. And even the order of worship in Reformed churches tends to dramatize the gospel: flowing as it does from God’s initial call to himself, to our adoration and confession, to his assurance of pardon, to another offering of song, to hearing most clearly from God in the word preached, to more of the means of grace, finished by the benediction: or a word of blessing. Embedded in these rythyms are the law preceding grace, word explaining sacraments, all receiving from God (not contributing to him).
The Reformed tradition is often criticized for its Regulative Principle (WCF, XXI.1), and the spirit of it shows up here in this answer: ALL SUCH RELIGIOUS WORSHIP AND ORDINANCES AS GOD HATH APPOINTED IN HIS WORD. Let’s first look at that principle.
“But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture.”
In my experience, Christians do not directly attempt to refute the language of the principle. Instead the argument deflects to charges of legalism or irrelevance or hypocrisy. In other words, it is alleged that what the Reformed call “biblical” and “historic” is really just their own culture-driven ideal. Everything from the music to the structure to the lingo to the architecture is nothing but the culture of the northern European countries of the centuries following the Reformation. So the principle is loaded to begin with, and the product will not work in, say, Africa, Asia, or Latin America.
A simple answer can be given. In the first case, there is no reason to conclude that the principle does not cut across cultures. Derek Thomas responds to the subtle “monolithic-worship” or “high brow” objections in saying:
“Calvin’s order of worship differed from that of his admirer John Knox, just as Owenwould have differed from Matthew Henry. Adherence to the regulative principle, as we have already said, does not bring about uniformity of worship practice—it did not in the seventeenth century anymore than it does today …The issue has to be focused to ask the question: Is anything in the worship service that should not be there and are all the necessary elements of worship present?”7
Here we can see that the shoe is on the other foot. It is the simple worship within the boundaries of this principle that is transferable from one culture to another. The Christians of the Roman catacombs could have taken it into downtown Orlando. But the same cannot be said for all that sound equipment being dragged the other way.
Contrary to another criticism—that is it is unscriptural—the principle’s whole aim is to be Scripture-driven. Indeed it is “an extension of … sola scriptura”8 to the one area that a God-centered theology would most naturally apply it: to worship. And it takes “Scripture as a whole and not merely in the New Testament church.”9 The principle is also conscience-driven. When the congregation is compelled to perform acts of worship of which they are unsure, that ministry cultivates sin because “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). Hart and Muether say that the principle “liberates worshipers from the tyranny of churches that impose on their people elements of public worship that have no biblical warrant.”10 The several Reformation traditions understood that our structures speak. All of the churches of the sixteenth century would have agreed that liturgy matters. From there they would part ways. The Lutheran view (adapted somewhat by the Anglican tradition) is sometimes called the Normative Principle. It basically says that whatever the Bible does not explicitly forbid is permissible. Now what is the difference between doing only what God commands as opposed to restricting only what God forbids? Here Scripture does give specific aid. We might think of where Paul says, “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful” (1 Cor. 6:12). Would not this principle apply all the more in matters that are more essential?
APPLICATION
Use 1. EVANGELICAL USE. There is a picture of what pure versus impure adherence to the Second Commandment would look like in this history of the Kings. Compare righteous kings Hezekiah and Josiah to virtually all of the other kings (and even they were not perfect). But you will notice that at the end of each king’s reign, they get something of what Dr. Futato called “a report card.” There’s a kind of formula. For example, with King Asa,
“And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, as David his father had done … But the high places were not taken away” (1 Kings 15:11, 14).
Usually of those two marks, the king did not walk in the ways of David their father and they did not take down the high places, but only multiplied idols. Josiah was very different. Read about Josiah’s reformation in 2 Kings 23. He smashed all the idols and drove out all the false priests. So how does this apply? We are not called to go around smashing things. We will see one reason why in the eight commandment. And of course we are not kings. But if we have X amount of idols and are related to X amount of the priests of those idols, well then we need to smash X amount of one, and separate from X amount of the others.
Use 2. CIVIL USE. Romans 1:18-32 is not the picture of mankind falling from theism to atheism, but rather a picture of mankind turning from true worship to false worship: from the one true God to idolatry. All mankind. Mankind in private and mankind in public. And that means that secular states will have their religion. They will have a civic religion of one kind or another. And they will have to engrave an image to make the people’s devotion to the almighty State intelligible. They may do this with symbols, like the hammer and sickle, or the swastika; or they may do this with any common idea, such as a fist or a rainbow. But the key is the exaltation of the object.
“King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold … And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace” (Dan. 3:1, 6).
And you know the rest of the story, and the three young men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, would not bow down, and so were cast into the furnace. But this Image itself is a raging, building bonfire of cultural fervor, an all-encompassing ideal to which all must be subject as fuel: all conform to, or else be fed to.
“We only bow the knee to the image, but we still reserve our heart to God!” Interestingly another Roman pontifex maximus agreed with that. “So long as you say, when the legions pass by, ‘Caesar kurios!’—which is, Caesar is Lord!—why then, you can worship whatever little tribal ornament you like! But the first Christians said “No. We will not bow to your image. Christ alone is Lord.”11 But so it is that in every age until Christ returns, the church must be seduced and bullied all at once, to bend the knee and to genuflect and to render unto Caesar what is God’s.
Use 3. DIRECTIVE USE. This idea of the anatomy of idolatry is useful for showing the advantage of words over physical images. There are advantages to pictures as well. That’s why I use diagrams in my own teaching. However, I want to reflect on the words of a secular observer of culture in one of the most widely read books of the last generation. It comes from Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death.
“In studying the Bible as a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking command of a culture. I refer specifically to the Decalogue, the Second Commandment of which prohibits the Israelites from making concrete images of anything …I wondered then, as so many others have, as to why the God of these people would have included instructions on how they were to symbolize, or not symbolize, their experience. It is a strange injunction to include as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture. We may hazard a guess that a people who are being asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity would be rendered unfit to do so by the habit of drawing pictures or making statues or depicting their ideas in any concrete, iconographic forms. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking.”12
Now why I include this under the directive use of the law? It is because, for the Christian, the method of our instruction can make or break whether the soul is discipled upward toward a more coherent and comprehensive worldview, more fitting for rational beings, or whether that discipleship will leave the soul more dependent on the flattened and the fractured expectations and habits of the merely sensory-animal thought process.
I’m sure you’ve heard the principle of church methodology in general: What you win them with is what you will win them to. I am convinced that a similar principle holds true for what we call pedagogy, whether of school children or adult Sunday school or preaching from the pulpit—and it’s why the Reformed have insisted on ministers of the Word administering the sacraments incidentally. The Word has a priority over the sacraments because the sacraments are sensory. And that’s a good thing; but it is also an opportunity for our sinful sensations to bend and twist the significance. It turns out that there is a great benefit in the Second Commandment for our whole souls. It trains in us a particular metaphysical outlook, that expects being, essence, and cause to flow from the invisible to the visible.
We are well aware of the objection that the Reformed—following Calvin and then the Puritans—”disenchanted” and “de-sacramentalized” the world. “And, after all,” the objection goes, “isn’t it obvious that, though reality flows from the invisible to the visible, that we ourselves take a journey in the other direction? We need the sensory like drowning men need life rafts to ever reach the spiritual shores.”
Indeed. But the issue is not about what nets the church spreads, but about how the fish will be transformed into fisherman by rightly pointing to the Lord of the catch. We can disagree about art per se. We cannot disagree about the essence of God, and then go on pretending that this is not what we are doing.
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1. Calvin, Institutes, I.11.5
2. Calvin, Institutes, I.11.8, 9
3. Calvin, Institutes, I.11.10
4. Augustine, City of God, IV.31
5. Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1976), 21.
6. Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, 453.
7. Derek Thomas, in Ryken, Thomas, and Duncan, ed., Give Praise to God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2003), 83.
8. Duncan, Give Praise to God, 21.
9. Thomas, Give Praise to God, 92.
10. D. G. Hart and John R. Muether, With Reverence and Awe (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2002), 85.
11. cf. Matthew 22:17-21
12. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (New York: Penguin, 1986), 9.
