Worshiping Images

Have you ever wondered why God was so specific about worshiping images?

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Exodus 20:2-6)

J.I. Packer is helpful in explaining why God forbids our use of images in our worship of Him. He gives two reasons

1) Images dishonor God, for they obscure his glory. To illustrate: Aaron made a golden calf (that is, a bull-image). It was meant as a visible symbol of Jehovah, the mighty God who had brought Israel out of Egypt. Why was God insulted by this image? Aaron had the best intentions to show the great strength of God.

God was insulted because that bull-image speaks nothing of his moral character, his righteousness, goodness, and patience! Thus the image hid Jehovah’s glory!

What about a crucifix? One might say it helps me to worship Christ. Packer again answers, “the pathos of the crucifix obscures the glory of Christ, for it hides the fact of his deity, his victory on the cross, and his present kingdom. It displays human weakness, but it conceals his present strength, it depicts the reality of his pain, but keeps out of our sight the reality of his joy and his power.”

2) Images mislead us, for they convey false ideas about God. The very inadequacy with which they represent him perverts our thoughts of him and plants in our minds errors of all sorts about his character and will. Packer continues to explain with Aaron’s bull-image: Aaron by making an image of God in the form of a bull-calf, led the Israelites to think of him as a Being who could be worshiped acceptably by frenzied debauchery. Packer continues to say

It is certain that if you habitually focus your thoughts on an image or picture of the One to whom you are going to pray, you will come to think of him, and pray to him, as the image represents him. Thus you will in this sense “bow down” and “worship” your image; and to the extent to which the image fails to tell the truth about God, to that extent you will fail to worship Go din truth. That is why God forbids you and me to make use of images and pictures in our worship.

When I read Packer’s comments on this it appears the only conclusion we can make is that because of the immensity and eternality of God, we must confine our worship of Him to what He has revealed to us in His Word. The fullest revelation of God: his character, his morality, his power, his glory is through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. John 1:18 says that “no one has seen God at any time, the only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” Only Christ has fully explained God! If we turn to other means, we in essence make the mistake of Aaron that is looking to copies, shadows, and thus ultimately worshiping images of God.