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

The Westminster Catechism reminds us that “God is a Spirit, infinite and eternal…” He is not bound by any limits beyond Himself. The worship we owe to Him is thus unlimited and qualified only by our growing knowledge of and love for Him. The more we grow in the Lord, the greater our love for Him will be, and the more complete and satisfying our worship will become.

Idols, on the other hand, create limitations, forcing our ideas of the infinite God into images constructed by our own finite and fallible minds and contained within the parameters of the object we have made. Contrary to what we may suppose, such images, because they limit and constrain our understanding of God, do not enhance worship but actually confine it and, at the same time, bring the honor of the uncreated God down to the paltry substance of created things. While there is a place for depictions of God in the arts and in education, in worship all such representations must be set aside, leaving our hearts and minds free to search the infinite depths of the holy God under the guidance and tutelage of the Spirit of God alone.

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.