The Second Commandment

The Second Commandment and the God Who Redeemed Israel

Well this morning we take a look at the second commandment and as we look at Exodus chapter 20 verses 4 through 6 we see that God has elaborated on the second commandment by again pointing to himself and We'll we'll keep seeing that theme as we work our way through this morning in fact It's very important that we understand how the second commandment flows from the first commandment.

Which flows from that prologue. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt out of the house of bondage. So this is the God who speaks to us in this way. You shall not make for yourself a carved image 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 nor serve them for I The Lord your God am a jealous God. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.

But showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments. Well again this morning. We're looking at the second commandment. Second commandment similar to the first in this first table.

Respects our relationship to the Lord God by way of our worship of God. And so like the first which says we are to have no other gods. But the Lord God the second commandment says we are to worship God not by images of God.

But as image bearers of God, that's the three points that we'll consider this morning. We worship God first point secondly not by images of God. Thirdly but as image bearers of God very important that third part a Dimension that is often missing in this discussion, and I hope we'll have enough time to do justice to it.

Pure Worship and the Jealous Mercy of God

So we worship God question 56 from our catechism. What's required in the second commandment? Second commandment requires the receiving Observing keeping pure and entire all such religious worship and ordinances as God has appointed in his Word.

Now you'll notice that our catechism Begins to explain the second commandment without reference to images. We read the second commandment and all that we see is Images are forbidden. We are not to worship God through images, but our catechism I think rightly says what the commandment requires is pure worship the right worship of God tied to that especially in the life and experience of the Israelites is that They are not to worship God in the ways that idolaters and pagans around them worship their gods.

For this is the true and living God. He appoints how he will be worshipped. He's not to be devised or approached by the vain imaginations or efforts of men and so rightly they say what's required is receiving and observing keeping pure and Entire the worship of God now.

We're gonna start again in the kind of middle of our passage just to remind you the Lord Whenever he gives a command Whenever he gives that imperative He also gives this reminder this picture this presentation of who he is and what he's done.

In other words his identity and his saving Activity and we find that here You shall not bow down nor serve them. That's the command. But look at what's attached to that command or what it's standing upon for.

I the Lord your God am a jealous God. He showed his jealousy when the Israelites were still in Egypt and he brought plagues upon that pagan Empire and All of their gods the sort of contest of the gods.

You know the gods of the harvest the God of the day the God of the Nile. Whatever it may be and God going to war against these gods as it were Putting them to nothing exposing them to be fraudulent to be hollow.

I The Lord your God am a jealous God. And you're jealous you're craving in your flesh to go meet to go and serve me in the ways of the pagans. But I am jealous for my own worship. I Visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.

But show mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments. So this is attached to this commandment that we are not to bow down and serve images. We're not to have any other gods. But neither are we to produce images or have some inventive way of worshiping the God who is invisible and cannot be seen with our eyes.

We usually find this combination to bow and to serve with the worship of pagan gods. Solomon's heart was turned away to bow down and serve after the gods of his wives. So we're not to lower ourselves or find ourselves prostrate to the ground.

In fact That second verb could be pointed and understood in a hopeful stem. Which would be a you're not to allow yourself to be carried away and and bow down to two other gods. So neither are you to do this?

But you're also not to put yourself in a place or be dragged away by others to do this. There's no place to say well, you know when in Rome this is how they kind of worship. So this is what we're going to do as well.

We're not to lower ourselves in reverence to anything but the Lord God. So we worship God. We saw that last week right worship is tied to knowing God. We said the first commandment requires that we glorify God.

How do you glorify God? You must know God. How can you glorify one whom you do not know? We are not as those in act 17 who build an altar to an unknown God. We can only glorify God if we know him. And God makes himself known in this way.

This is who I am. I brought you out of Egypt. I redeemed your life. I Took you to myself that I would be your God and you would be my people. That you would serve me know me. Be light to the nations be my salt on the earth.

Make my name renowned and and spread my glory as far as the seas. What kind of God is he. He visits iniquity to the threes and the fours? Translators supply generations. It's I think it's a wise decision, but he visits iniquity to threes and fours.

He shows mercy to.

Thousands.

So what's being highlighted there with all the gravity and weight of this God who is just and judges righteously? But yet what he puts forward as his strong leg as it were his great hand is his mercy.

He adorns his mercy. It's this word has said loving kindness. It endures to the thousandth generation another possible translation. Not just to thousands but to the thousandth generation. Another way of saying a sort of idiomatic way of saying his love his cassette Endures forever the mercy of the Lord endures forever that constant refrain of Psalm 118.

Right worship then is tied to knowing God and we know God, right? If we understand the justice of God and the mercy of God. We do not understand God rightly if we fail to understand his justice His perfect holiness and all that that means for fallen people like you and I.

And yet we certainly if we know God is an austere judge. That's at least something. We know we have some handhold on something of the nature of God. But you still do not know God or right unless you know God to be merciful.

But then indeed Paul says to the Galatians when you did not know God. You serve those which by nature are not God. We're always serving other gods until we come to this knowledge this saving knowledge of the true and living God.

Knowing him in this way according to his justice which fell down upon our substitute our Savior the Lord Jesus that we might receive his mercy the mercy that endures forever. Now, of course to serve any other God is folly.

This is the constant Rebuke of the prophets. It's foolishness. It's ignorance. It's blindness but as we see this The service to false gods is more than just folly. It's actually a way of being bound. It's important that we understand this it's it's at the very heart of the second commandment to be drawn after the images after the imaginations after the Production of what men call God is to actually be held captive to hope to be held in sway by these very things.

Though they're empty hollow fraudulent nothing a lie nevertheless. Spiritually, there's this power this force The Prince of the power of the air working through even these false ways and false means and false gods to hold Captive fallen people we see this for example in Isaiah 44.

We see idolatry is folly, but it's more than folly. Isaiah 44 beginning in verse 18. Really 9 through 20 is this wonderful rebuke of idolatry beginning in verse 18. They do not know. You're an idolater unless you know the true and living God they do not know nor understand Why he has shut their eyes.

They cannot see their hearts. They cannot understand. No one considers in his heart nor is there knowledge or understanding to say I've burned half of the wood in the fire. Yes, I've also baked bread on its coals.

I've roasted meat and eaten it and shall I make the rest of it an abomination. Shall I fall down before a block of wood? What do they say he feeds on the ashes? Now listen to this a deceived heart has turned him aside now he cannot deliver his soul.

Do you see what has taken place? It's just a block of wood. It's just a block of wood with half of it. He's making dinner. He's opening up that can of dinty more. He's putting it on half of the wood. The other half has become his God.

That's just a block of wood and you become like what you worship. The worshipper becomes a block of wood. He's so clueless that he's worshiping when he's just has the ashes of the other half of his God.

He just finished his meal over there's pieces of beef stew as it were mixed into the ashes of his God. He's as dumb as the wood. He's worshiping. But what is Isaiah says this fallen heart this predilection to worship what he can make what can fulfill his desires?

He feeds on the ashes. His deceived heart has turned him aside. Now he cannot deliver his soul. Something has happened though. It's just a block of wood. Something has happened in this vacuum of nothingness that holds the idolater captive.

Isaiah says it's not just the ignorance or the foolishness of the idolater. But at a deeper level this act of idolatry forms a grip around the worshipper that the worshipper cannot break. So idols are nothing and yet they hold sway.

They hold captive the ones who render service to them. Paul essentially says the same thing in 1st Corinthians 10. Observe Israel after the flesh he says are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar.

What am I saying then that an idol is anything or what is offered to idols is anything? He's just made the argument an idol is nothing just like Isaiah 44, but The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons not to God and I don't want you to have fellowship with demons.

More is at play than a block of wood or a statue of stone. And so Paul says you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. It's not just empty. There's actually a spiritual captivity at stake or he says do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?

It's the same language we have in Exodus or throughout the prophets. The Lord is jealous for his worship. Idolatry has a certain cost. There's a captivity that comes with the things that you serve. Now the problem here is the second commandment doesn't just forbid objects of stone or wood.

These graven images that have the names of false gods or even graven images that haven't had the name of the true God. We see that the second commandment as our Catechism rightly points out holds before us the purity of God's worship.

God requires us to Follow after what he has laid down in his worship. Now we live in an age where much teaching about God tries to display him according to our own palette our own imagination, that's as much a Transgression the second commandment as if we were building a stone statue and saying this is Yahweh.

For conferences to be had where God is reimagined or he's made sort of politically acceptable culturally acceptable to sort of defaying the threats and warnings of God to a twist to manipulate his character and His revelation of himself in his word according to our dictates and our vain fleshly Imaginations is to break this second commandment our fleshly mind wants to.

Wants to constantly tinker with and portray God in a way that somehow What we're doing and what our likes and what our wants are at exactly how God is and what God likes and what God wants. If you don't feel the bite of that somewhere in your life, you probably aren't thinking rightly about the second commandment.

This isn't just something for them out there, this is something for each one of us. There's a way that we actually think we're deeply spiritual. We're deeply committed somehow we're. We're having a sort of humility and we're understanding things in a much broader way.

And that looks like well, I just realized God is not like this narrow God. He seems so I don't know angry and and vengeful and spiteful. You know, I've just gotten to this place where I realize how broad and how Transcendent everything is and and you think somehow you become more spiritual when in fact, you're just in raptured with the God of your own imagination and.

So you start to condescend and denigrate and remove yourself from those who are saying this is who God is. Look at I'm just telling You from his word. What do you said about himself? No, no, no. No, that's not spiritual.

Look at how humble I am. Look at look at the warm fuzzies I have in my life. That can come from worshiping a God of your own imagination. Paul says this in Colossians to let no one cheat you of your reward taking delight in false humility worship of angels.

Intruding into those things which he has not seen vainly puffing up his fleshly mind. Why what has happened? He has not held fast to the head. He hasn't taken his thoughts captive to Christ. Rather he's made his own Christ and imagined Christ to worship and follow after and it just so happens this Christ Blesses and agrees with everything he seeks to do.

There are conferences throughout our land year by year where this is exactly the Christ that is being preached a Christ who would honor your sacrilege that would actually smirk at your sins. That doesn't require you to follow after him and pick up a cross a Christ That will actually embrace your sins and allow you to keep them.

Maybe smuggle them with you into his kingdom. There's no place for I gouging no place to cut off your arm. This is not the Christ of Scripture. And if you don't feel the bite of the second commandment in this way Paul is speaking to you this vainly puffed up fleshly mind.

You haven't held fast to the head. This is how I feel. This is what I want. Therefore. This must be what God is like. But the Lord is jealous for his worship and this is not only for his glory. But it's also for our good if we worship God according to our own design according to our own vain Imagination instead of according to his word we become idolaters.

There are many well-intentioned idolaters that surround us vital that we understand and what happens is it in The way that we worship a God of our own making a God who always agrees with us. This own little privatized God our grandfather in the sky.

What happens is it seems to offer us this enhancement of spirituality? Now I'm freed now. I'm liberated now I'm strengthened and empowered to follow after the Lord God when in fact you become weak and Unable to walk after the true and living God.

This is always the cost of idolatry there's only one way to be transformed into the likeness of God that is knowing God and Glorifying him as God and guarding and protecting his worship for he is jealous.

So worshiping him in a likeness according to our image in our own vain imagination will derail our sanctification. What is sanctification? Come tonight SLBC. We're starting it in chapter 13. What is sanctification?

It's conformity to the image of God it's conformity to the image of God. You will not be sanctified if you have the wrong image of God before you. If it's not the image of God that is drawn from his word God as he has revealed himself if that's not who is before you who you are seeking.

You are not going to be conformed to that image, which means you're not sanctified. If you make up a god of your own imagination and seek to be conformed to that imagination It won't look like sanctification.

It will look like the very opposite thing. We've seen this play out time and time again. So we must worship God. That was the first point secondly. Really at the heart of the commandment now in terms of the text we worship God, but not by images of God.

We worship God, but not by images of God. Catechism again 57 what's forbidden in the Second Commandment? The Second Commandment forbids the worshiping of God by images or any other way that's not appointed in his word.

So the Second Commandment forbids the worshiping of God by Images that's just reading our text. You shall not make for yourself a carved image any likeness of anything That's in heaven above or that's in the earth beneath the image here.

There's Different words that are translated image out of Hebrew that the image here is a graven or a carved image a peso. Which almost always is something used in worship. There's other words for architectural elements or Adornments, but the pestle here clearly in the context of the Second Commandment is being used for worship.

That is what is forbidden another example same use Daniel 3 let it be known to you. Oh King. We do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.

All right.

This representative image this pestle that is to be worshipped now the plight of fallen man is presented to us in this way. As we established last week We cannot deny that we were made to worship. We must worship as much as you have to bring blink and breathe.

You have to worship. It's what it means to be human. You will worship. Something somehow you must. It's inherent to your to your nature as a human being. The plight of fallen man then is that because we are fleeing from God.

Because of our own sinful fallenness and alienation from him. We flee from the presence of God and instead of that proper reverence and worship toward him Which is what we were created to inhabit. We then want to let that worship and reverence be toward things that we produce that we can make.

Paul says the plight of fallen man is expressed in this way. Romans 1. Although they knew God They did not glorify him as God nor were they thankful but They became futile in their thinking. Their foolish hearts were darkened.

You see how he's taking up this language of idolatry.

The fool.

Professing to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into.

An.

Image. That's the plight of fallen man. We must worship if we can't worship the true God. We'll make an image to worship. We'll imagine a God to worship. Something must be worshiped and so Paul looking at fallen man says they change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and forfeited animals creeping things.

What's the response of God to this. Therefore God gave them up to uncleanness handed them over. They wanted to be idolatrous Rather than worship and be conformed to his image. They want to worship and be conformed to the images that they produce then God hands them over to it.

You want to worship animals? You'll be wild like animals. You'll be unclean like that. They exchange the truth of God. For the lie worship and serve the creature Rather than the Creator. So God specifically says this this making of an image the very heart of idolatrous worship.

We're gonna understand in the third point why it's such an abomination why that image is held out in the second commandment. God specifically says that making an image of him is an abomination. It's nothing that Israel is to tolerate though.

They're surrounded by all of the nations that this is all they know about worship. You make an image. You make a representation of the God that you will serve. Of course the Israelites themselves as we see in Exodus 32, they're tempted to do this very thing with the golden calf.

This is the Lord who brought us up out of Egypt. What does Moses say in Deuteronomy 4 take careful heed to yourselves? You saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb in the midst of the fire. You see what he's saying.

Here we are in Exodus 20 the mountain is on fire. Thunderings clashing. The people are trembling like leaves. Moses himself will go on to you. I'm gonna die if I keep be hearing this. The commands of God are thundering down the mount to the assembly of Israel and Moses is reminding them in Deuteronomy 4 when you were at Horeb you saw no form.

You saw no form of God and so he says here take careful heed. You saw no form when the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. Lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image. Remember when you were receiving the second commandment, it wasn't a bull that was speaking to you.

It wasn't any created thing. You heard this voice. You knew that this was the Lord God. So don't go make the image of that which you did not see. The likeness of male or female the likeness of any animal that's on the earth any winged bird anything that creeps on the ground.

Take heed lets you lift your eyes to heaven. And when you see the Sun the moon the stars all the host of heaven you feel driven to worship them and serve them. You see that's the heart. When you make the image and you say look at the splendor look at the glory.

Look how now I have something that I can see and behold and therefore worship and serve and manipulate and control. Moses reminds the people at Sinai they saw no tokens of God's presence no visible representation of God himself.

But only heard his word and Moses says as you continue to serve and follow after this God. May it be his voice ringing in your ears. May it be his words hiding in your heart and not something to behold with your eyes.

Don't make a graven image. God is free to determine how he'll be worshipped. We've already seen throughout Genesis and Exodus God manifests his presence in these symbolic ways. We've seen it in Exodus with the burning bush theophany.

God is free to do this. But God also understands that the nature of our heart and a classic example of this. I believe Watson mentioned it as well the the fiery serpents attacking the Israelites in numbers 21 and God says Lift up a brazen serpent on the pole and command that the the children of Israel look upon it that they might be healed.

And so you have God ordaining an image to be made. This image is a representation of the Lord Jesus. John 3 makes it clear when the Son of Man is lifted up. So God commands this brazen serpent. To be crafted and lifted up and for the Israelites to behold it.

God's free to do that. They look upon it and they're healed. This is not a transgression of the Second Commandment. But it becomes a transgression of the Second Commandment. Because a cult develops around this brazen serpent.

What do you do after you craft a serpent that miraculously heals of people that were you know stung with these fiery? Serpents with this venom and they were dying by the thousands and all of a sudden they look upon this brazen crafted image.

And they're healed. What do you do with it out? You know, that was good. I'll keep that one in the closet might come in handy something. What do you do with it? Well, they adore it. They revere it it becomes this Testimony, but more than some sort of artifact it it actually develops a cult around it.

Now.

Still they're looking to Yahweh. But now they have this brazen serpent this serpent that was used in a miraculous manner. And we can understand that there was a false worship being attached in God's eyes a false worship a false reverence being shown to this Artifact the the nahush time the serpent is nahash the nahush time this brazen serpent.

And when we come to second Kings 18 Hezekiah. It starts breaking down the high praises cutting down the sacred grove starts purging idolatry. From the people of Israel. And what does he do in second Kings 18?

He breaks into pieces the brazen serpent of Moses and we read he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. This was right for Hezekiah to do. God can command something to be fabricated and for it to be looked upon and he can use it as a powerful means.

To go beyond that to turn reverence toward that object or toward that Manifestation that then is a transgression of the second commandment. It's not a problem for the Israelites to craft and to look and to be healed by that brazen serpent.

But after that act to then adore it to reverence it to use it as an article of worship that then is forbidden. And sadly they carry on this idolatry until the days of Hezekiah only he understands. This is idolatrous though.

God appointed it though. God used it. We are not to adore it. We adore God alone worship him only. So the second commandment deals with the manner of our worship. Now, I want to make a point here about the arts about fabrication about beauty the second commandment is not a rejection of human creativity it is not a.

A.

Deprecation of artistic endeavor it is not a putting down on the vocation and labor of artisans and architects and and engineers and craftsmen. The second commandment should never be used in this way because these skills are Inherent to what it means for people to be the image of God.

God is a creator as J. R. Tolkien the professor of Literature in Oxford Maintained humans are sub creators. We create with what he has created. But because we've been created by him as his image bearers we can't help but create whether you're creating a piece of art or an Excel spreadsheet or opening a business or Arranging wood on your pile for the winter.

You can't help but create. You can't help but do things in an aesthetic way. Even a reaction against Aesthetic form is it becomes its own aesthetic. It's inescapable. We are Creative because God is our creator.

So I say the second commandment is not a rejection of artistic labor far from it far from it. And I won't derail the message here, but I have a lot to say about the danger of Fundamentalism when it comes to the arts, I Think right now there's a Big temptation a big sort of threat to the the sort of reforms Calvinistic circles a real danger of fundamentalism, I Think would do well to learn some of the lessons from World War two and beyond those first two decades after World War two and the rise of neo evangelical Evangelicalism coming out of the fundamentalist modernist debate.

Would do well to understand some of the lessons and some of the Institutions in ways the culture was engaged in the fruit of that though Imperfect was far better than the fruit that came out of the fundamentalist drive and right now I see a lot of reform types that are almost circling wagons and putting their head into the sand.

They're almost becoming willing fundamentalists and fundamentalism goes hand-in-hand with philistinism. Philistinism is a sort of Deprecation on higher forms of culture of the arts. I think it's a huge mistake.

It's a huge mistake. It's been a mistake for many decades that we've handed our culture over to the idols of the left. And we've handed artistic endeavor and creativity over to the left. Huge mistake big mistake.

And we're you know, we're reaping the whirlwind for it. That's as much as I'll say on that point. I have a lot I want to say about that. But as it relates to the second commandment, let me say this Moses spent as much time in Exodus and Deuteronomy Receiving instructions from God for the purposes of artistic decoration as he did in receiving and elaborating the law.

Think about that God had as much to say about the objects and adornment and beauty and craft and skill of the artists and the way he wanted things to be Decorated and what that would mean for the worshiper beholding it aesthetically.

He had as much to say about that as he did about the moral commands of his law and what that meant to live in an upright and holy way. God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses and then he gave a command to Construct a tabernacle in a way that involved almost every form of representational art imaginable.

So the second commandment is not forbidding The value the good the need the blessing the God-glorifying nature of art. We have to establish that to be human is to be creative, but it is to say Our artistic and creative endeavors just like everything need to be redeemed.

They need to be saved. There is no neutrality. Art is formative, but it's also deformative. Like everything we do as human beings with all of our potential as those who bear the image of God. We can do things in a way that bless or in a way that wound we can do things that glorify God or desecrate His name.

We can do things in a way that are beautiful and formative in that way or ugly hideous and deformative in that way and This all is the backdrop for the second commandment and the controversy. It gave birth to in the history of the church now.

Here's where we could be in some deep water. Because I've done a lot of reading this week and I want to give a Snapshot of some of the issues, but I don't want to spend too much time on it. So bear with me.

But it's important that we understand the nature of the controversy when it comes to the image. That God is forbidding. You have what's called the iconoclastic controversy. This takes place in the 8th century.

Now there's many controversies that are related to this. There's many periods of iconoclasm, so icon image. Clasm to to break or to destroy so iconoclasm you have of course this Iconoclastic controversy because images are widespread in the church in the 8th century.

The Eastern Church and the Western Church are very different. There's a lot of Strain and tension for that reason and yet there has not been the great schism. There has not been the separation of the East and West that takes place in 1054 but in the 8th century the nature of images in the worship of Christians comes to a head.

Christians had begun to lose a series of battles and Emperor Leo the third began to think perhaps it's because we're using images in worship that God is no longer blessing our Military strength. And so the use of images became the sort of lightning bolt and it became tied to some of the political concerns of the Holy Roman Empire the Synod convened in the time of Constantine the fifth it was called the Council of Hyria.

It was also known as the mock council because only Western bishops came none of the patriarchs from the east came to it.

And.

Against their rejection of images a second council was formed where both East and West came together. This was the second council of Nicaea 787 and Rather than rejecting the use of images in worship. They required it.

This is how volatile things were in the in the hundred year stretch Surrounding this iconoclastic controversy. You have church councils that say it is absolutely forbidden and then three generations Later, it is absolutely required.

You're sinful. If you do it to your sinful if you don't. Now both councils understood that it is God alone who is worshipped. Even the second council of Nicaea where they affirm the use of images they distinguish between Latreia which would sort of be a sort of formal adoration and proskynesis.

So you have veneration distinct from adoration. God alone receives adoration, but veneration kissing. Utilizing images was seen as necessary. One of the chief figures that comes out of the second council of Nicaea is John of Damascus.

And he had the most to say perhaps the most outspoken proponent of the use of images in worship. John of Damascus said I'm emboldened to depict the invisible God not as invisible. But as he became visible in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ Some of you men yesterday morning as we said, it's the nature of Christ's humanely and divinity that turns this whole issue of.

Iconoclasm.

By the way, John of Damascus even some of the Puritans and some of the reform like Peter Martyr ver Migli. He would agree with John of Damascus he would say the nature of the incarnation is such that as a Creature it's allowable to make images of the incarnate or human Christ.

Largely he was beyond the pale of what the consensus was for the reformed. We'll get there in a moment. So this was John of Damascus his claim. Do we not? Believe that Jesus was incarnate that he was born of the Virgin Mary.

Did he not dwell among us as a human in all of our humanity as the God-man Emmanuel? And so I'm emboldened to depict the invisible God not as invisible that's forbidden the second commandment, but as he became visible In flesh and in blood as Jesus Christ now.

This was the response of the iconoclasts if an image pictures only Christ's human nature. It severs his humanity from his person. Remember his personhood is divine. It's the divine person of the Sun that takes to himself a human nature.

And so the iconoclasts respond it severs his humanity from his divine Personhood if it portrays Christ in both natures his deity is then reduced to the level of his humanity. In other words, you cannot truly portray Christ as the God-man.

That was the iconoclast response. Well, even after the Council of Nicaea and this didn't settle. Rightly, so just because the council says it does like well, what can we do? The council has spoken in 843.

There was a whole other burst of iconoclasm. And this was finally ended in the east by a patriarch named Methodius. And by the way, these are nasty times. I know right now you're you're tempted to be bored.