LAW HOMILY: Faith Without Images

The Second Commandment and Christian Obedience

Now every week we go through the law of God because we want to understand what God has to say to his people. We want to understand how to obey. We don't throw out the Old Testament and say that we're just New Testament Christians.

The New Testament is the fulfillment of the old, but it's not the abolishment of the old. So we look at the law in order to know how we would live now that Christ has saved us. We don't obey to be saved.

We are saved, therefore we obey. So today we're going to be on the second commandment of 10. It's Exodus 20, four through six. This is what it says. 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 sea or 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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.

Worshiping the True God in the True Way

Now, the second commandment forbids us from worshiping the true God in an untrue way. The first commandment tells us whom we may worship. The second commandment tells us how he must be worshiped. We must not invent, therefore, representations of God or manufacture visible likenesses of him or approach him through images that he's neither commanded us nor authorized us.

I find it interesting that Christ lived in a time period where famous people could be sculpted, could be drawn, could be put onto tile floors, and yet he forbade it. He did not allow it. God is sovereign.

If he wanted us to have any photograph of him, he would have given it. He even says, blessed are those who don't see me, which means that he's saying that there's something about faith not requiring sight that's a blessing.

Faith Comes by Hearing, Not by Seeing

Now, we also see that when Moses reminded Israel at Sinai, he said, you heard the sound of the words, but you saw no form. You only heard a voice, Deuteronomy 4 .12. And then he drew the necessary conclusion from that.

Take careful heed of yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of fire lest you act corruptly and make for yourself a carved image in the form of a figure. He's saying that you saw no form so that you would not act corruptly, and yet they did.

They heard his word, but they saw no form. That was not an omission by God. God was not saying, oops, sorry, the craftsmen weren't of the quality yet in order for you to make an image of me. Maybe if you send them to craftsman school, we can get a right image.

He's not what he's saying. He's saying that this was by design. God deliberately withheld an image of who he is and supplied only his voice because faith comes by hearing and not by seeing, Romans 10 .17.

Human Images and False Representations of Christ

Every image of God therefore is useless at best and blasphemous at worst. It cannot show us who God is. It can only reduce the infinite creator to the dimensions of a creature. It cannot reveal his glory and all of its splendor.

It can only replace his glory with the product of human imagination, whether fashioned from gold or painted upon a canvas, carved into wood, projected onto a screen or generated by artificial intelligence.

The problem remains unchanged. God has not sanctioned that he would be represented by anything under heaven. And that's why no artist knows the face of Christ. When you look at paintings of Christ, it's an Italian family named Medici who paid for the painting.

And think about the hubris. They paid for the painting. Yeah, I want to be Christ. That's why Jesus looks Italian and not Israeli. No sculptor's ever seen the father. No painter can capture the Holy Spirit.

Every supposed likeness is invented by human imagination that is necessarily limited and smaller than the infinite. This is why it's such a big deal. But it's also a big deal because maybe you don't have a statue of Jesus that looks like the Buddha statue.

Maybe you don't have that in your home, okay. Maybe you don't watch TV shows that depict the image of Christ, okay. Maybe you don't have some other form of image, okay. But what about the way that we treat Christ?

This is something that's really impactful for me. When I lie and I don't feel guilty about that lie, or I excuse that lie, or I try to placate someone else, or I try to justify myself through some sort of situational ethics, what I'm saying is that Christ's death was not so ubiquitous that it would reach down into the caverns of my heart and make me feel sorrow over my sin.

I'm saying something false about Jesus. When I refuse to repent, I'm saying something false about Jesus. When I refuse to worship, I'm saying something false about Jesus. When I refuse to bow down and worship Jesus, I'm saying, Jesus, you are not as excellent and beautiful as you actually are.

It's easy for us to point our fingers at paintings and TV shows. It's not so easy when we say, how has my behavior crafted a different Christ? How has my actions bowed down to a false savior? That also is a violation of the second commandment.

Any Jesus that makes us more comfortable in our sin is a false Jesus made in our image and not in the image sanctioned by scripture. So we ought to repent for any way that we've done this and ask the Lord to help us.

Jealousy, Judgment, and Mercy in the Commandment

The passage itself is striking. It says, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Jealousy is not a sin. Jealousy is having a zeal for the thing that belongs to you. You belong to him, so he's zealous for you.

And he says, I will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation. This is not a general prohibition or general punishment. It is in a sense, but he's saying, if you do this sin, if you carve me into an image, if you create a false vision, image of me, I will visit you and your family for three and four generations, but show mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.

And here we have sort of a challenge because none of us have obeyed the commandments. Therefore, all of us deserve our generation and four more to be poured out with the punishments that this passage has pointed out, which means that you're gonna get it, your children are gonna get it, their children are gonna get it and on and on and on in an unbroken line of covenant consequences.

Christ's Perfect Obedience and the Joy of Repentance

If it were based on our merits, if it were based on our behavior, if it were based on our righteousness, but it's not based on that anymore because Jesus Christ obeyed perfectly for you. He brought you in union with him, which means what he has, you have, what he earned, you earned, not because you did it, he did it, he gave it to you freely.

So you and I get the blessings to a thousand generations, not because we obeyed, because he obeyed. And because he obeyed, now we can repent with joy. We can repent not thinking that if I don't do this perfectly, I'm going to hell.

We can repent now with joy saying, I've been bought, I've been paid for and this sin that displeases my God, I will confess and I'll confess it freely and with joy because Christ is Lord. So let us confess our sins together.

Confessing Sin and Resting in God's Grace

Dear God, we confess that we don't really fully understand the depth of this commandment. We don't really truly understand that under every single sin is a false gospel claim about who you are, which means that under every sin is a second commandment violation.

Every iniquity and transgression that we have accomplished, that we have done, is a redefinition of who you are. And Lord, we also don't fully understand the depth of our iniquity and our guilt. The day where we felt the greatest sorrow over our sin was still 10 ,000 times too muted for what it is and what it deserves to be.

And yet, we also don't understand the depth of your grace. Because any level of astonishment, any level of wonder, any level of us being aghast at the glory of God is still 10 million times too small for what it actually is.

And Lord, in the midst of all of that, you are still exceedingly gracious. Lord, would you forgive us of our sins? Would you forgive us of our inability to repent fully? And Lord, would you continually restore us back to you?

Not because we've lost our salvation, but Lord, so that we can gain a fuller and more intimate knowledge and experience with you. Let us repent so that we may know you more. Let us repent with gratitude that you were the one who sacrificed yourself for us.

And let us repent with joy that in union with you, now we have all things. Lord, let us not trifle with the sins that killed our best friend. So Lord, help us, heal us, make us joyful, glad, and holy in Jesus' name, amen.

Loving God's Law Through Christ and the Spirit

Thank you for listening to this homily on the law of God from our Covenant Renewal worship this past Lord's Day. We publish these messages each week because we believe that God loves his law and far from throwing it away, we believe that the death and resurrection of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will actually help us learn to love and obey God's law.

And that's our prayer for you, that as you chew on these expositions each week, that you would both learn to love and come into alignment with the law of God. And we pray that you would do that by the Spirit's power, through the finished work of Christ and to the glory of God.

And with that, God bless you.