DIVINELY ORDAINED WORSHIP
We stand this morning before the second commandment of God's law. It will not do to look at this commandment superficially. This second commandment has not merely to do with images that are formed by men's hands. Then we probably think that this commandment doesn't touch us at all. After all, none of us has in our homes an image of Jehovah God that is formed out of wood or stone, and none of us bows before that kind of an object. But as the Heidelberg Catechism points out in its exposition of the second commandment, the requirement here, stated positively, is that we worship God as He has commanded us in His Word. That is the positive instruction of the second commandment. So important is the right worship of God, that He has devoted one commandment of the Ten to that very concept.
There is a distinction, therefore, between the first and the second commandments. In this connection it can be noted that the Roman Catholic Church as well as Lutheran churches generally number the Ten Commandments differently, failing to make distinction between what we number as the first and second commandments. The commandment that we consider today, they count as part of the first commandment. They come up with Ten Commandments, therefore, only by arbitrarily dividing the tenth commandment distinguishing between a coveting of the neighbor's goods, and a lusting after persons. But that is incorrect. This Word of God, recorded in Exodus 20:4-6, as well as Deuteronomy 5:8-10, is clearly distinct from the first commandment which stated simply, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." After the first commandment rejects all other gods, so that only Jehovah remains, the second commandment rejects every wrong form whereby people would worship Jehovah. The pagan, you see, could make an image of his god, and set it wherever he wanted. He could do that, because he found his god within the limits of the creation. As we pointed out last week, he really had no god. But his idol was derived from the creation, and therefore was able to be represented by objects from the creation. But that is not possible with God. He who created all things, and who stands incomparably exalted above all the works of His hands, cannot possibly be represented by an image. Any image of Him is necessarily a lie. And therefore we His people must never commit this sin of defining God in how we serve Him, but must humbly hear His Word concerning Himself and worship Him according to His own self-revelation.
So that is the difference. The first commandment says, "no other gods." The second says, "No self-determined and self-willed worship of the only Lord God." Which is to say, "If you stand with your back to idols, you still have to learn to bow properly before the only true God." You may serve no other gods; but the Lord in turn will be served in no other way than He has commanded. So that while the first commandment holds forth the one only true God, the second would maintain true service of Him, true religion, if you will. And God knows how much we need this directive. God knows how readily we are given to a false worship. God knows that for us to worship Him in spirit and truth is not something that we do naturally, but only by grace and only as those who are in Christ Jesus.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 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: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." That Word of God is just as imperative and just as much in force today as it was when it was first given Moses, as written upon the tables of stone. Let us hear Him, then, as we consider:
DIVINELY ORDAINED WORSHIP
I. REJECTING GRAVEN IMAGES
II. BEING TAUGHT BY THE WORD
III. OFFERING THANKFUL PRAISE
BUT WE MIGHT ASK: IS THIS EVEN RELEVANT ANY MORE TODAY?
Where does one see graven or carved images in our day? When the nation of Israel erected the golden calf at the foot of Mt. Horeb, that was intended as an image of Jehovah. "This is thy God, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 32:4). Oh no, it wasn't that they thought that golden calf was itself God. That wasn't it. It was simply an image, a representation, of Jehovah. The same was true of the two golden calves that Jeroboam had built at Bethel and at Dan. Jeroboam, worried that the people would return to Jerusalem to worship Jehovah at the temple, instituted a new form of worship. The two golden calves were to serve as images of Jehovah. The people knew very well that Jehovah was not identical to the calves. Pagans who have images of their gods know very well that the deity is not identical to the image. If one worships the sun, moon and stars, for example, he might have in his house a mobile hanging from the ceiling, an image of the sun, moon and stars. He knows that his deity lives in the heavens. But the image represents that idol and brings him near. And in the mind of him who would worship his god, that image serves to bring him nearer his god. But I ask again: Where does one see graven or carved images in our day? Yes, you will find them among Roman Catholics. They will worship especially with the helps of their crucifixes and Marys and so on. But we know better than to carve or paint pictures of Jesus. How then does this second commandment apply to us?
That is an important question. But the answer is readily found, when we consider the nature of the sin. Image worship is the heinous sin of dragging the glorious Creator down to our level, of subjecting Him Who is incomprehensible to a form that is of our own imagination, and so worshiping Him in that way. We may not carve an image of God out of wood or stone. But there are many other ways in which images of the alone living God can be constructed according to our vain understanding. To disregard God's own revelation of His holy Being and the requirements of serving Him is to make an image.
Let's look, first of all, at what is involved in rejecting God's own revelation of Himself. Every time we deny one of God's glorious attributes, or bring Him down to our level in His attributes, we make our own image of Him. God is love. That is true, isn't it. The Bible clearly states it, and we know it in our own life and experience as His people redeemed in Christ. But if we conceive of God as a God of love only, or rather as a God that is so loving that He can deny His righteousness and justice even for a moment, we have made an image, a corrupt image, of the true and living God Who is holy. If we so misconstrue the teaching of His Word, that we speak about God as One Who certainly loves all men, and say that it is inconsistent with His love that He would hate all workers of iniquity, we have rejected His self-revelation and made an image of Him in our own minds, a twisted image. If we think of God as a being who exists to serve us, to accommodate himself to our life and to solve our problems, so that we offer prayers to him in times of trouble, while continuing to walk in our sinful ways, we have made of Him a graven image in our own mind. When we imagine that we can continue to live in sin before Him, acting as if He doesn't even exist, let alone maintain His holiness, we have become image worshipers, rather than those who serve the true and living God. If we deny God's absolute sovereignty, we have made of Him an image of our own imagination, rejecting all that He has revealed of Himself in His Word. The same is true if we confess that He is Lord of all good, but not of evil, One Who sends health, but not sickness, prosperity, but not adversity, and so on. Then we limit Him to one particular realm, while giving Satan powers beyond those which are really his. All such rejection or twisting of biblical truth results in making an image of God in the mind, a misrepresentation of the one only true God.
Then there is the matter of our worship of Him. When Jehovah says, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," that means that all self-prescribed worship, every attempt to worship God one's own way, also makes one guilty of violating this second commandment. God requires of us not only "that we in no wise represent Him by images," but also that we do not worship Him in any other way than He has commanded in His Word. And He has commanded us to worship Him in spirit and truth, John 4:24. He has commanded us to worship Him in the beauty of holiness, to fear before Him, Psalm 96:9. To think, e.g., that God will be pleased with our worship, if only we mean well, is to make an image of Him. To think that we can decide how to worship Him, and that He must be pleased with us, is to construct an image of God in our minds that brings Him down from His exalted place and subjects Him to our will and desires. Do you understand that?
It means still more. All indifference in public or private worship of Jehovah makes us guilty of violating the second commandment. When our service of God is not heart-felt, when we approach the hearing of the Word with a desire for the "amen" and nothing else, or give no attention to that Word, or when with the least little ache or pain we can absent ourselves from that holy service of God, it is because we are transgressors of the second commandment. God is very small in our own mind. When our attending of worship services is done for men, for vain show, social status, to make ourselves look okay, maybe even before our family; when we sit in church with pious faces, while our hearts burn with hatred toward a brother or sister in Christ, we don't appear in the beauty of holiness before Jehovah, but in the corruption of our flesh as violators of the second commandment. For, you see, all such wicked behavior is the refusal to listen to God's prescribed service. It is the attempt to make God fit into our own little scheme of things, and subject Himself to our desires. So you see, it doesn't take a block of wood or a boulder to construct an image of God. The mind, governed by a deceitful heart, is a powerful instrument of sin when it comes to violating the second commandment.
NOW, WITH THIS KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT IT IS TO FORM AN IMAGE OF THE ALONE LIVING GOD, WE CAN SAY THAT THERE ARE ESPECIALLY THREE REASONS WHY GOD FORBIDS MAKING SUCH IMAGES OF HIM.
In the first place, to capture Jehovah God in an image of man's imagination is to belittle His majesty. So majestic is our Holy God, that no man can see His face. That is clearly illustrated in the history of Israel at the time God gave the law. Hebrews 12 offers commentary on that history in connection with the authority and the power of the Word preached. The inspired writer points back at that history, even as recorded in Exodus 19 and 20, and points at the great majesty of God as He appeared in the mount and spoke with the voice as of a trumpet. So holy is He in His majesty, that the very mountain quaked and smoked as Jehovah descended upon it in a fire. And when He spoke, so powerful was His Word, and so penetrating in its majesty, that the people begged that He would not speak to them directly, but through Moses, the mediator of the old covenant. And the point of the writer to the Hebrews is this: "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven." That the holy and majestic God, Jehovah, speaks to us in Jesus Christ by His Word, and chooses not to reveal Himself in any other way, tells us that His majesty cannot be represented in any creature.
And that our inclination is to belittle His majesty is evident in those same Israelites immediately after that incident of which I just spoke. I refer now to the history recorded in Exodus 32. When the people saw that Moses did not come down from the mount within the period of time that they thought he should come down, they turned to Aaron, and said, "Up, make us a god who will go before us," who will lead us. And Aaron in a terrible act of unfaithful leadership, took the jewelry from the people of Israel and formed that golden calf as a representation of Jehovah God. And Israel gathered around that golden calf and offered sacrifices and ate and drank and played. That is what we read. Since Moses was taken from them, they would make of Jehovah something that they could see and before which they play. They would take the majestic God, before Whose holiness they trembled and feared just days before, and make of Him something that they could handle without fear. And so is every attempt to make an image of the Holy One.
In the second place, God forbids such image worship because it is a vain attempt to shackle Him with the bonds of man's desires and thoughts. By image-making, even in our sinful minds, by rejecting His Word and making Him that which we conceive, we attempt to control God. Let us be reminded, beloved: God controls us and all things; He will not allow Himself to be controlled by the creature. The Lord has created us, and not we ourselves. He has chosen us to be His people; not the other way around. And He determines how we shall live. He will not be controlled by any man. He will not be shackled by man's desires and thoughts. He will not be worshiped by those who will walk their own way and "do their own thing." He will be worshiped by those who recognize that He alone is God, and that we are His servants.
In the third place, to attempt to capture Jehovah in an image is to misconstrue the truth of His covenant. God says, "In worshiping Me, the one only true God, you are to worship Me only in the way of My appointment. You are not to make images and idols and representations of what you think me to be, as if that will help you worship Me." Why is that? Because God has structured the worship of His Church and established a covenant relationship with His people in such a way that it does not need the assistance of carnal helps. For us it isn't only that God is too majestic to be represented by an image. It isn't only that God cannot be confined by the imaginations of men. But we don't need to represent him by an image. When you stand in an intimate relationship of fellowship and love with your wife, and she stands next to you and is with you, you don't need a picture of her! In the same way, when we stand in covenant fellowship with Jehovah through Jesus Christ, that relationship is our life. Should someone ask you, Why don't you have statues of Jesus, or images of God in your home? Why don't you carry around pictures of Jesus, or have a crucifix on the dashboard of your car, the answer is: What need do I have of those things. My Lord is with me! I have an intimate relationship with Him! He walks with me and talks with me, and receives me into the fellowship of His own life!
In the darkness of my sin, the Lord has shined with a new light, the light of His grace. It shines from the face of Jesus. In the Christ of the Scriptures, the Son of God in the flesh, Who reveals the Father, Who shed His blood for me, blotting out the iniquity of my horrendous sins, Who was raised from the dead and exalted at God's right hand, God speaks to us concerning Himself. And He reveals Himself as Jehovah God, the Redeemer, Who delivers us out of the bondage of sin and death, and by grace makes us partakers of His covenant life, eternal life. He speaks to us by His gospel, drawing us unto Himself. And drawing us into His fellowship, gifting us with that true knowledge of Who He is and how we stand in relationship to Him, He says to us, "I am jealous of My own honor, and will give it to none other. Now, then, as I have revealed myself to you as the God of your salvation in Jesus Christ my Son, listen to my Word. Be still, and know that I am God. Diligently give ear. Do not speak, but listen. Don't say anything of yourselves about the Christ in Whom I reveal myself to you. Don't attempt to approach me in any way of your own making. But listen to My Word."
IT IS INTERESTING THAT THE CATECHISM'S EXPOSITION OF THE SECOND COMMANDMENT COMES TO FOCUS ATTENTION UPON THE LIVELY PREACHING OF THE WORD.
One who looks at the second commandment might initially wonder: Where do they come up with the need for lively preaching? But that is correct. After explaining that God cannot and may not be represented by images of any kind, the question is faced: "But may not images be tolerated in the churches as book to the laity?" If we may not have statues of God and His Christ, before which we bow down and worship, mayn't we at least have some representations of Him in stained glass, so that we feel His presence, or in some other form as a teaching method? No. But why not? Because "we must not pretend to be wiser than God, who will have His people taught, not by dumb images, but by the lively preaching of His Word." The Catechism, you see, maintaining that rich development of the Reformation, will hold forth that great biblical doctrine of the centrality of preaching. And it does so by referring in the footnotes to Jeremiah 10:1, "Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel."
God Himself has chosen to speak to His people by His Word. He comes to our level, as it were, to speak to us in language unmistakably clear. And to us His people, that is all we need. We who have Christ revealed to our hearts by the Spirit in all the magnitude and uncontainable glory of His exalted Person, don't need a picture of a man to think lofty thoughts of our Savior. The Scriptures tell us in II Corinthians 4:6: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." And when that Holy Spirit has stamped a picture of Christ's glory upon our hearts, any external picture of man's imagination of Christ is at best disgusting. What picture, what artist with his brush, can capture the glory of the Godhead?! The majesty of the exalted Redeemer, the full spectrum of all that is glorious in our Savior, from His compassion, His tenderness, His patience, to His holiness and righteous anger against all that is opposed to Him — it is utterly impossible to put it on paper or in an image of any kind! There can be no substitute for the voice of our Lord, even though it comes to us through weak and even sinful men. His Word, and the operation of His Holy Spirit applying that Word to our hearts, is the precious application of His love for us, of His covenant of grace with us in Christ Jesus. We can want no more than that.
The Apostle Paul says, "Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yea, henceforth know we him no more." Even those who lived with Him in the days of His earthly sojourn did not make as the object of their worship what they saw with their physical eyes. But as Paul said in Philippians 3:3, "we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit." Not laying hold of some physical appearance of their Lord, but upon His divine majesty, they worshiped Him. And so must we. And the living proof of that is seen in Revelation, chapter 1, where John on the Lord's Day has this vision of the exalted Christ. He received this vision of what his Lord now is in the state of glory. And John doesn't snuggle up and put his head upon Jesus' bosom any longer. He says, "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead." (Rev. 1:17). And isn't it interesting that the Bible says that the same is to be the fruit of true biblical preaching upon the unsaved as well. For Paul says in I Corinthians 14 that if the unbeliever comes among you, and through the opening up of the truth he sees himself as he is, we read, "falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth." The fruit of the proclamation of the gospel is not that a man will ask to see a picture of Jesus. But he will recognize that God is among us. He will fall down upon his face and worship. We need no man-designed pictures and images to help us to worship. We have the Word of God.
FOR THOSE WHO RECEIVE THIS WORD OF GOD, THERE IS A RICH BLESSING APPENDED TO THIS SECOND COMMANDMENT.
There is also a most dreadful visitation of God's wrath promised for those who wantonly ignore or reject this Word. God is a jealous God. He will not allow men to trample His glory under foot. When the head of a family rejects the Word of the Lord, and walks in the way of His own imagination, serving an image of his own making, he will observe how disastrously his disobedience influenced his own family. His sin will become their stumbling. That ought to be a grave warning to us, even in old age. Jehovah God takes seriously the evil of twisting His Word into images, and rejecting that which He gives us in faithful gospel preaching. He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, until the knowledge of the gospel is completely lost for them. No, God does not punish the children for their father's sins. But the sin of hating God and departing from His Word is a sin that runs in the line of generations, even becoming magnified.
But He is merciful unto thousands of them that love Him and keep His commandments. Into a thousand generations, i.e., perpetually, in children's children as the covenant line of the promise is continued, God blesses those who love Him, and who show that love by keeping His commandments. To them the light of God's revelation will continue to shine by faithful preaching. And by that light of the gospel they will hear the God of their salvation, saying, "I have forgiven all your iniquities; I have redeemed thee from destruction. Seek ye my face."
WE WORSHIP OUR REDEEMER WHO IS GREATLY TO BE PRAISED.
Hear again the words of Psalm 100. "Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands." Psalm 100, with its reference to all ye lands, is one of the great missionary hymns of the Old Testament Psalter. The Lord Who had promised to proclaim His glory to the ends of the earth, calls all lands to praise Him. He Who has sent His gospel to the United States of America, and to Randolph, Wisconsin, calls you and me to make a joyful noise to Him. "Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing." Do we do that, beloved? Does the joy of our Lord fill our hearts when we approach His house on the Lord's Day? And when we hear Him speak to us, knowing the great gulf that He must bridge with the blood of His own Son, in order to condescend to approach us, does the joy of that privileged fellowship with Him consume you? Does it?
THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY THAT HAPPENS.
That is God's great work with us. He has formed us to show forth His praise. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to the praise of the glory of His grace. "Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture." It is true, beloved. This doesn't speak merely of our creation by the hands of God. That is true of everyone. That very forming of the living creature at the moment of conception is a wonder work of God, as Psalm 139 clearly extols. But Psalm 100 speaks of God's work of grace by which He has delivered us from the bondage of sin and death, and made us His people, the sheep of His pasture.
He Who alone is God, perfectly holy, consecrated with perfect jealousy to Himself and His own glory, has taken us into His own covenant life, to nurture and to feed and to love us in Christ Jesus. So He teaches us by His gospel. And when that truth lives in you, when you have been formed this object of God's love, to you comes the call, the irresistible call, "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations."
Amen.
Preached: Randolph PRC 9/14/97 (am)
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