LAW HOMILY: "Thou Shalt Not Make"

The Second Commandment Forbids Making Images of God

Every week we look at the law of God because we want to know what God has to say to his people. About how to worship him rightly how to love him. Truly today. We're on the second commandment before we get there.

I wanted to read Isaiah 40 verse 18. To whom then will you like in God or what likeness will you compare him? The obvious rhetorical answer is you can't no one.

I.

Want to ask something uncomfortable for a second something that we shouldn't brush aside. Have you ever seen a picture of Jesus? You may say yes, but no you haven't. Because it wasn't him that you were looking at.

It was a rendering. It doesn't matter if it was hung in your grandmother's hallway, or if it was stitched into your childhood Bible that image be it a bleeding Savior on a crucifix a weeping Savior on a canvas or a glowing Savior in a cartoon or Something that has been produced by big-budget studios.

It was a lie. It wasn't just a mistake. It wasn't just a well-meant guess. It was a lie it was not an image of our Savior Jesus Christ and I think that it's a lie that breaks the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20 verse 4 says you shall not make for yourself an idol of any likeness.

The Regulative Principle and Unauthorized Worship

The second commandment does not merely forbid Worshiping the image it forbids us making it. It's begins with you shall not make an image of God in the heavens above or in the earth below. You can't even get to the point of making the image without breaking the commandment.

Which means that God's jealousy is not only provoked when people bow down to the image. But when they craft it Aka the golden calf and they named it Yahweh, didn't they? And yet They were punished severely for that.

See the question at the heart of it is do we have the right to determine how we worship God. Does God give us freedom to determine how we come to him or is it identified and regulated and prescripted by the Word of God.

The Reformation was divided over this doctrine of Normative versus Regulative principle. The normative principle says that if the Bible does not forbid it Therefore we may do it which is how you get to churches that have laser light shows and Xboxes in their lobbies.

Because the Bible doesn't forbid it right. The regulative principle on the other hand says that we may only worship God in The way that it is prescribed in Scripture. Not only what is forbidden, but what is prescribed and if it is not prescribed it is not Worship and we do ourselves a favor in taking a tour of the Old Testament.

Right after this command is given the second commandment Aaron's sons decide With the greatest of intentions what could have possibly went wrong. To bring unauthorized fire into the sanctuary not even an image of God, but just unauthorized fire.

What does that mean? I'm not quite sure. But they did they brought the fire in a way that God had not prescribed to them and what happened to them. Fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

You.

Israel's Golden Calf and God's Hidden Form

Think about the people of Israel. We're not told to make an image of God as a golden calf and I can understand why they did it if You think about it in That particular era of time. What is the beast? What is the animal that stamps the head of the serpent if not the cow?

So they're coming out of Egypt a Place where this the Pharaoh literally had a serpent on his forehead and I can imagine I could be wrong, but I can imagine that they said We'll show him our gods more powerful than him.

Our God is the one who stamps the serpent's head. We'll call our golden calf Yahweh as a sign of who he is and what he's done and God was repulsed by it. Because you shall not make any image of God in heaven above on earth below and yes, you shall not worship them, but you shall not make.

Is the point God never in the scripture showed us his form. Deuteronomy 4 15 Moses screams to the Israelites. You did not see any form on the day of the Lord when he spoke to you at Horeb. So that you do not act corruptly and make graven images.

Did you hear that God loves us so much that he protects us from seeing his form so that we will not make idols. You think about the Catholic Church for a moment the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformation period especially.

They made idols of everything. You can go to a church and you can see the hair of the Apostle Peter. You can see the breast milk of Mary. I'm not making that up. You could even let's not go there. My point is is that we are the kind of people who will take things and turn them into little deities very quickly.

Repentance for Idolatry in Our Hearts and Minds

So God gives us a command here to help us in our weakness. He doesn't say don't worship idols. He does end up saying that but the but the protection that he gives us is don't even make them. Don't even make an image.

It violates the law and it's hard because we Have so much of Christian culture that's built upon this. Because what we're visual learners most of us. We've grown up in an era where TV and memes and we have some incredible meme makers in this congregation.

Yet we've grown up in this world. That's saturated with visual.

Stimulation and.

We think what's the harm? We cast a movie about Jesus we cast a television show about Jesus we make a Animated cartoon about Jesus. It's just to help us know who he is, right? But that's not what he looks like.

That's not how he revealed himself in Scripture and God didn't give us license to even do it. So, how would God bless such an act? Yes, God uses our sins sinlessly, but we have to reckon with the fact that he says do not make.

So, however.

This command works itself out whether we've literally placed idolatrous pictures of Jesus up on our wall or whether we in our hearts and our minds have entertained a Jesus that's not revealed in Scripture.

A Jesus who? Allows me to sin in this private sin and doesn't actually call me to repentance. So, you know that that's the same thing. We're making an image of Jesus that's more palatable to our to our conscience so that we can ignore him and violate his word.

However, we've done this. However, we've imaged Jesus in the wrong way. Let us repent because Jesus is holy and the triune God is holy and we must worship him as he Commands not as we deem best. Amen.

Seeing Christ by Faith Until We See Him Face to Face

So let us pray and let us repent for how we have fallen short of these things. Where there are many ways that we have fallen short whether it be through the consumption of media or whether it be through The visage and image of Jesus that we have constructed in our minds.

That would not call us to repent of that thing whatever it is whether it's the The effeminate Jesus that culture Has tried to offer us the Jesus that never ruffles feathers the Jesus that never overturns tables the Jesus that never Confronts us in our sin.

The Jesus who basically looks at you with a hippie smile on his face and says you do you? Whatever Jesus That is biblically Inconsistent and idolatrous at its core that we have adopted in our hearts and minds.

Lord let us repent of that and let us know him rightly in the only way This side of heaven that we can know him and that is through your word. There will come a day when we see you face to face and our faith will become sight.

But today is not that day and you tell even Thomas that blessed are those who did not see and yet believed and Lord let that be our hope as well today. That blessed are we for this season of redemptive history that we have not seen your face.

So that when we do Lord our faith will be made sight. Lord help us to be vigilant about these things help us. Maybe repentance could look like not believing that this command is that serious or that important?

That it's no big deal that's something worth repenting of. Lord help us to take your word seriously help us to love it passionately and help us to follow it with conviction and Clarity all our days in Jesus name.

We pray. Amen.