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The Commandment
God is holy, and He calls His people to be holy by worshiping and serving Him only. He will allow no admixture of pagan practices in the worship and service of His Name, nothing that reduces His immensity, restricts His sovereignty, compromises His holiness, obscures His uniqueness, or otherwise profanes His Name.
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.”
Deuteronomy 5.8-10
“‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on 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 fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.’”
1 Corinthians 10.14; 1 John 5.21
God is jealous of the worship and obedience of His people, for He knows that He alone is worthy of these. He is the Lord, and beside Him there is no other. It is futile and foolish to give worship and obedience to anyone or anything besides God. Therefore God expressly forbids the making of any images for the purpose of worship, for reasons which we shall see. He alone is to be worshiped and served.
Worshiping God, bowing before Him to acknowledge His greatness and our dependence on Him, is the primary way of showing God that we love Him.
This series of In the Gates we present a detailed explanation of the Law of God, beginning with the Ten Commandments, and working through the statutes and rules that accompany each commandment. For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the practice of ethics, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.MyParuchia.com and click on our Book Store.