(The fortieth in a series of sermons on Exodus, preached October 2, 2011.)
Exodus 20:4-6 “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. 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, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.[1]
Don’t expect to see the likes of it today. In October 1854 Stephen Douglas sat down after his three-hour speech on the political controversies of the day. His audience? An Ivy League classroom? The Congress of the United States? No, just the farmers and laborers and merchants of Peoria, Illinois. Sound taxing? Abraham Lincoln, Douglas’ debate opponent, thought so. That’s why he suggested to the crowd that it break for dinner at 5:00, go home, and return refreshed for the remaining four hours of debate, which included his lengthy responses to Douglas’ arguments.[2]
Lengthy speeches and debates were not uncommon in Lincoln’s day. No power points, no video clips, no 30-second sound bites. Only the spoken word. The prevailing assumption was that debaters could speak at length intelligently, and that their audiences, informed by newspapers, could follow their arguments.
The culture of Lincoln and Douglas was word-based. That’s no longer true. Don’t expect to see the Republican nominee and President Obama in a seven-hour debate. Instead of word-based, we are an image-based culture. The majority of Americans do not value careful reading and careful listening. Attention spans are not measured by hours, but by minutes.
And that’s a problem for Christians, because Christianity is a word-based religion, a religion that teaches that where the eye is open to idols, the ear is shut to the word of God.
Right from creation words are critical. God, who is invisible, creates by his omnipotent word. He speaks the cosmos into existence. Eight times the first chapter of the Bible records: “And God said.” “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light… And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters’…And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.;” And God goes right on speaking until he finishes his work of creation. “God said”…“And it was so,” the refrain of Genesis 1.
Whether it’s the millions of stars in the heavens or the animals and plant life of the world or the rivers that sustain them – everything we see is the handiwork of our good and skillful Creator. The first of the Ten Commandments says, “You shall have no other gods before me,” so don’t you dare make a god out of something he’s created.
The second commandment reads, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, you shall not bow down to them or serve them” so don’t you dare worship him in a way he does not command. Every other nation worships its gods with images, but Israel mustn’t make an image of Yahweh. When the eye is open to idols, the ear is closed to the word of God. The Lord’s religion is word-based.
The first and second commandments forbid different sins. The first commandment forbids worshiping false gods. “You shall not have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). The second commandment forbids false worship. You may not worship an image of the true God. The first commandment requires worship of the true God only. The second commandment requires worship of the true God only in the way he commands.
You and I must worship our Creator and Redeemer – that’s our joyful duty. But it’s worship without images. When the eye is open to idols, the ear is closed to the word of God. The Lord’s religion is word-based.
Notice how comprehensive this commandment is: “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.” The heavens, the earth, the seas - the whole creation - nothing may be used as a symbol for the one true God.
Instead of devoting themselves to visual images, believers must devote themselves to listening. Our Savior says that man lives “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Paul writes to the young minister Timothy: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16,17). The word directs the life that pleases God, and the word directs the worship that pleases God.
So, serious Christians ask, What kind of worship pleases God? The answer: only worship given to him through Christ and commanded by his word. We are not given the liberty to worship him in any way we choose, but only in the way he chooses.
Historic Protestant worship emphasizes the hearing of God’s word read and preached. As we joyfully submit ourselves to God’s word we are made more and more into the likeness of Christ, who is the perfect image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3). In him “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9), and in him we see the Father (John 14:9). The one image of God men and women are commanded to worship is Jesus.
But even as I say that Jesus is the one image of God men and women are commanded to worship, I quickly add that doesn’t mean we make a statue or image of him, like a crucifix, and use them in worship. The ancient church synod that met in Constantinople in 753 A.D. correctly said: "The only admissible figure of the humanity of Christ, however, is bread and wine in the holy Supper. This and no other form, this and no other type, has he chosen to represent his Incarnation.”[3]
We need to think more deeply about why idolatry is dangerous. We resemble what we worship. The Psalmist declares, “Those who make [idols] become like them; so do all who trust them” (Psalm 115:8). An idol is deaf to the word of God, and those who make them are also spiritually deaf. Think about the golden calf Israel later worships. In ancient cultures, bulls were symbols of sexual potency and fertility. The worship of them always included lewd and sexually immoral behavior.
We resemble what we worship. With Israel, we must make no room for images of God.
Since we always, always resemble what we worship, let us worship Christ, not by an image of him, but as he reveals himself in the word: As we worship Christ we will be renewed in his image - in knowledge, righteousness and holiness (Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:24).
I’ll note several ways common ways we violate the second commandment.
The first is by using images to worship the living God. I enjoy reading church history. As I read the history of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy I find much that I admire and benefit from, but also much that troubles me. There are, after all, reasons why I am a Protestant.
One aspect of Catholic and Orthodox practice that troubles me is the use of statues and images of Christ in worship in these two traditions. I know that the best theologians in these traditions seek to distinguish between the respect and veneration given to images and the worship given to the true God, but I think these distinctions fail in practice. The bowing before statues and pictures of Christ, the kissing of them and praying before them blurs any distinction between devotion to the image and the supposed reality behind it. They become objects of worship. Besides, it seems to me that these statues and images in worship are clearly what the commandment forbids. Both history and personal observation that where the eye is open to these images in worship the ear is likely to be shut to the word of God. Strong, expository preaching by ministers and a broad knowledge of the Bible by the church’s membership seldom mark these traditions. When the eye is open to images, the ear is closed to the word of God.
Sometimes it is argued that the statues and pictures of Jesus are books for the uneducated. I dispute that claim. If a person is uneducated, he needs to listen to the word of God read and preached, and to learn to read it for himself. The early Puritans in New England achieved a male literacy rate of 90% compared to 40% in England. The Puritan determination that men and women read the word of God for themselves drove these high literacy rates. They wanted ears open to the word of God.[4]
But we are neither Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox, so I will quickly move on to a form of violating this commandment that is common to Protestants. We break this commandment when we carve out in our mind an image of the God that is not faithful to how God has revealed himself in scripture.
I’ll supply three examples.
Many professing Christians find themselves uncomfortable with what God says about his wrath against sin, so they conveniently refuse to think about this aspect of his holiness. After all, to think about hell is frightening. So, God becomes an indulgent Father, ever ready to grant our requests regardless of whether they promote his glory and our good. This is carving in our minds an image of God that is manifestly false.
Others find the biblical standard of ethics restrictive. What could be inherently wrong with cohabitation and homosexual marriages, especially if two people are in love? When the Bible talks about God’s judgment on these lifestyles then it must not be his word, but the unenlightened views of earlier generations. This is carving in our minds an image of God that is manifestly false.
Others dismiss the abundant scriptural testimony, and conclude that God never visits us with adversity, sickness, and trials. A loving God, after all, would never do anything to bring pain into the lives of his children. His single goal is our personal happiness, safety and comfort. Again, this is carving in our minds an image of God that is manifestly false.
I could multiply these examples, but you get the point: We can manufacture in our mind views about God that are wrong, and turn the God of the Bible into something other than what he has revealed himself to be in scripture. We end up worshiping a false image of God, and have violated the second commandment. We need to abandon the false images, and allow the word of God read and preached to shape our minds.
Now I will turn our attention to why we find forbidden images and idols attractive. Whether they are idols of wood and stone or idols in our minds, what about them appeals to us?
First, they are easily approachable. Read those accounts in the Old Testament where men are confronted with the glory of the Lord (e.g., Isaiah 6, Exodus 40:34-35). They are filled with fear; the glory of the Lord is overwhelms. To this very day men and women are visibly moved when they are confronted by God’s holiness in his word. Yet, an idol is safe. It strikes no terror. If we are not careful, we can construct a mental concept of God that is devoid of the power of his glory and holiness.
Next, idols make no demands. We tell them what we want, but they do not speak and make no claims.
Finally, idols are comforting. Some wear or carry around religious symbols as if they were good luck charms. And many professing Christians comfort themselves with a view of God that thinks him never angry and always affirming, and he would certainly never do anything that would bring pain and suffering upon one of his children.
What must distinguish us is our repudiation of idols. Not the human imagination but the word of God is the sole rule to teach us what we are to believe about God and what duties he requires of us. More than a thousand years after Moses, God sent his own perfect image into the world to redeem us from our sins and to manifest in his incarnation the glory of the invisible God.
Exodus 20:5 provides one reason why we must abstain from employing man-made images of God in worship. We must repudiate idols because God is jealous. “You shall not bow down to [idols] or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5). God is jealous for our exclusive allegiance and pure worship.
We meditated on jealousy last week. Human jealousy may be sinful. We are jealous of someone because God has given them things he declines to give us, and we resent it. Sinful jealousy is ugly: it’s never content with God’s providence and is unwilling to delight in the good things God gives others.
But there is a righteous jealousy. Husband - be jealous for your wife’s exclusive marital devotion. Wives - be jealous for your husband’s unrelenting loyalty to your marriage covenant. Anything less than fervent jealousy is sinful.
God’s jealousy is, of course, good, righteous, and holy. He commands our exclusive allegiance. He will not have us take the glory, honor, and worship that belong to him alone and transfer it to a man-made image, even if it purports to be an image of him.
Worship idols and the consequences are severe. God threatens to visit “the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me” (Exodus 20:5).
This verse does not mean that God punishes children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren for the sins of the father. Sometimes ungodly parents find their children walking faithfully with the Lord. God’s grace is greater than the bad example they set.
But the principle stands firm: fathers must be ever so careful how they lead because idolatrous parents ordinarily raise idolatrous children, and the consequences of the father’s godless leadership can devastate a family. In the ancient word, three or four generations of a family often lived in a household. The warning is clear: be careful fathers; your idolatry can wreak havoc upon the children under your care.
God’s judgment is great; God’s mercy is greater. God promises to show “steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:6). Blessings abound where our eyes are shut to idols and our ears are open to the word of God. By God’s grace we establish a church and home environment marked by godly obedience, and in that godly environment blessings flow to our children and our children’s children. This does not mean that every child of godly parents will become a believer and grow strong in the Lord; grace is not inherited. But we must never underestimate the influence of godly parents on their children and grandchildren as they worship faithfully and patiently according to God’s word.
I believe it was James Boice who observed that the church tends to overestimate what it can accomplish in a few years and underestimate what it can accomplish in 20 years. Substantial changes require substantial commitments that last more than a brief time. They demand what one writer calls “a long obedience in the same direction.”
My challenge to you is not to underestimate what God can accomplish in and through our church as we give ourselves to him year after year - saturating our minds with scripture, filling our worship with hymns, prayers, and preaching steeped in the language of the Bible. As we do the word of Christ will dwell in us richly (Colossians 3:16), and he who shows “steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” will continually refresh us – his promise to believers who shut their eyes to idols, and open their ears to his word.
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible,English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Penguin Books: 1985), 44.
[3] The Synod of Constantinople, 753 A.D. Retrieved at http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/NICAEA2I.HTM on May 11, 2011.
[4] Postman, 31-32.
0 comments:
Post a Comment