Grace and Peace Episode 47
Presbyterian Church of Easton
August 22, 2021
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:2
Heidelberg Catechism
96Q. What is God’s will for us in the second commandment?
A. That we in no way make any image of God nor worship him in any other way than has been commanded in God’s Word.
97Q. May we then not make any image at all?
A. God can not and may not be visibly portrayed in any way. Although creatures may be portrayed, yet God forbids making or having such images if one’s intention is to worship them or to serve God through them.
98Q. But may not images be permitted in churches in place of books for the unlearned?
A. No, we should not try to be wiser than God. God wants the Christian community instructed by the living preaching of his Word—not by idols that cannot even talk.
Deuteronomy 5:1 Moses summoned all Israel and said:
8 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
In the ancient world people worshiped many gods. And it was thought that to worship a god you must first have an image of that god. So craftsmen would fashion an image out of wood or stone or metal to represent a god. Worshipers believed that their god inhabited the image. They could talk with their god by talking to the image. They could hold their god by holding the image. They could love their god by loving the image.
The people of Israel wanted images to worship too. They worshiped golden calves made by Moses’ brother Aaron and by king Jeroboam of Israel. Sometimes the images they worshiped were of other gods like the fertility goddess, Asherah, or the weather god, Baal. It didn’t really matter what the image represented. The Bible is clear, you do not worship images.
Is worshiping an image of God, our creator, also wrong? The answer here is yes, absolutely. The God who created us reveals himself to us not through an image but through spoken words. That’s why we don’t have pictures or statues of God here in church. These would be inappropriate. We worship not an image of God. We worship Jesus as revealed in the word of God spoken to us from the Bible. Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for revealing yourself, not with man made images, but in Jesus as revealed to us in the pages of scripture. It is in his glorious name that we pray. Amen.
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