The tower of Babel looms as one of the darker moments in human history, casting a long shadow over the succeeding millennia. That event explains why to this day humanity is divided among linguistic lines and struggles to communicate effectively with one another. That problem found its origins as the people in the land of Shinar indulged their desire for self-aggrandizement: “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4). Their hearts were, as John Calvin would help us see, factories of idols. The trouble was that they sought to preserve themselves by their own inventions. A deeply rooted idolatry motivated their longing to encounter glory through something that they built. They thought that they could fabricate something to give themselves stability and establish who they were.
The Christian life is full of trials, and western culture throws us an increasing number of challenges about identity and expression. Our easy impulse can be to think that we will be helped in these troubles by the soothing effect of having more of what we like, namely the things we enjoy. That assumption about coping, however, follows the same outlook prevailing in the culture that the best way to self-medicate is through indulging our desires. We think it is a helpful way to take the edge off the burdens that trouble us.
The second commandment provides pastoral help, especially in our personal trials, because it binds us to trust even when we cannot see.
The truth is, the idolaters at Babel thought that they could establish their identity and soothe their worries by their own inventions too. They were wrong, and it came with devastating effects. They should have listened to what God had to say about how to find satisfaction and safety.
The world is full of people trying to settle their distressed hearts by seeking to define themselves and build their own name in the way that they see fit. Identity politics has wreaked havoc through at least the western world as troubled people have sought to find respite through the processes of “expressive individualism.” The impulse to indulge whatever wells up from within us seems always to lead to a new idol, even when we think that idol will provide us with comfort.
When we are most troubled, the solution is never to indulge our idolatrous impulses to build something ourselves that might soothe our unsettled hearts. True comfort comes from finding our place before God through the means that he has given us to know him, to worship him, and to receive our identity from him in blessing. When we listen to God about how we should approach him, we can know the way to satisfaction and safety in his presence.
This article explores how the Reformed view of the second commandment is one of those truths that has tremendous value to help us face trials in life and challenges in culture. The second commandment is first explicitly revealed in Exodus 20:4–6, where God said:
You shall not make for yourself a carved 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. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
As our historic confessions express, the Reformed tradition has understood the second commandment to forbid not only the use of images in worship but also entirely forbids all attempts to make any image to depict God.
The spirit of idolatry since Babel has told us that the way to security is to build something that we think will give us comfort. The second commandment instructs us otherwise. When the spirit of the age says that we should soothe ourselves by indulging whatever desires well up in our hearts, God’s word tells us that we are at our best when we live within the paths that God has established for us. We pretend that we can find glory by listening to ourselves and by inventing our own means to obtain it. God says he will make true glory known to us through the means that he has appointed for us to encounter him. As we consider how the Reformed have understood the second commandment, we will see that locating ourselves in the structures of pursuing God that he has given to us through his word proves to be the true way to know satisfaction and safety.
This article argues that the second commandment, by prohibiting making images of God and using images in worship, has tremendous pastoral value for our Christian discipleship. More specifically, the Reformed understanding of the second commandment contains theological riches that equip us with strength in trial and to push back against troubling cultural assumptions. The main payoff is that the second commandment calls us to trust God by not going beyond our limits.
Truths about God
How is the second commandment grounded in God’s nature? What does it tell us about God? This section explores three ways that the second commandment relates to God himself, explaining why this (and every) commandment of the moral law always binds the creatures made in his image.
First, God is invisible. We cannot depict what cannot be seen. The second commandment forbids us from pretending that God looks like something when he does not look that way. It prevents us from exceeding our limits, at least in this life, in that we don’t know how God looks. Second Helvetic Confession 4.1 explains the relation to God’s invisibility:
And because God is an invisible Spirit, and an incomprehensible Essence, he cannot, therefore, by any art or image be expressed. For which cause we fear not, with the Scripture, to term the images of God mere lies.
The second commandment helps us avoid inventing God according to our own imagination, which cannot provide a true apprehension of God in a visible manner.
Sometimes, the objection rises that the second commandment’s wording in Exodus 20:4–6 seemingly forbids making any image absolutely. Nevertheless, Christians throughout the centuries have not understood it to forbid every image but the making of any image specifically to depict God or using any image for the purpose of worship. Heidelberg Catechism 97 explicitly addresses the issue of images that are not meant to depict God or to be used in worship: “God cannot and may not be visibly portrayed in any way. Creatures may be portrayed, but God forbids us to make or have any images of them in order to worship them or to serve God through them.” In other words, we can draw all the pictures of creaturely things that we want so long as they are not meant to represent God nor for use in worship.
The tragic episode in Exodus 32 concerning the golden calf relates directly to these concerns about the second commandment. We easily overlook that the Israelites did not make the idol of the golden calf as if it were some other god but as an image of their God. Although English translations do not always show it clearly, even from the outset, Israel calls Aaron to “make for us Elohim” (Exod. 32:1; my translation). As the people explained the calf’s identity, they declared it to be “your Elohim, O Israel, who caused you to go up from the land of Egypt” (Exod. 32:8; my translation). Throughout the Old Testament, “Elohim” refers readily to the true God (e.g., Gen. 1:1). Moreover, the people claim that the calf was Elohim, the God who had brought them through the Exodus. They intended this image to depict the true God as a way that they might relate to him.
In that situation, the people’s intention to depict the true God violated God’s law. Even if they had the best intentions—debatable at best—God did not take kindly to their choice as becomes obvious when he sends Moses down the mountain to grind the calf into powder to be drunk in their water, and those who would not repent were killed (Exod. 32:19–20, 25–29). Thus, the second commandment is not about if you should paint a picture of a tree to represent a tree. It is about how we may not make any likeness of any creaturely thing to represent God.
Second, the second commandment is grounded in God’s nature because God alone rightly generates his image. This reason concerns the doctrine of the Trinity. In the divine essence, the Father has eternally generated the Son, whom Hebrews 1:3 calls “the exact imprint of his [the Father’s] nature.” Further, Colossians 1:15 says that the Son “is the image of the invisible God.” As Christ says about himself in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Therefore, God has been generating his image as the Son comes forth from the Father.
On that note, the Reformed tradition has always understood that the prohibition against images of God includes images of the incarnate Christ. According to Westminster Larger Catechism 109, the second commandment forbids, “the making any representation of God, of all or any of the three persons.” Since Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, the second commandment forbids making any visual depiction of him at all, as well as of the Holy Spirit.
Furthering the point, the triune God created humanity after his image. God crafted his image into creation by making us. The best that can be done at representing God at the creaturely level has been done by God himself as he generated his image in making us to reflect his character into creation. We should not pretend that we can make better representations of him than he has done when he alone has the right to send forth his image.
Third, the second commandment is grounded in God’s nature because God alone has the right to determine how we know and worship him. Heidelberg Catechism 96 says that God’s will for us in the second commandment is that “we are not to make an image of God in any way, nor to worship him in any other manner than he has commanded in his Word.” Any time we attempt a visible representation of God, we impose creaturely form onto the uncreated, invisible God. Further, making an image to depict God is a way of imposing our way of knowing God onto him rather than submitting to the ways that he reveals himself.
We know God by general and special revelation. As Romans 1:20 says, his “invisible attributes” are revealed “in the things that have been made.” We have a knowledge of him through creation. Second Helvetic Confession 4.2 even says that seeing “the lively and true creatures of God…do much more effectually move the beholder than all the images or vain, unmovable, rotten, and dead pictures of all men whatsoever.” Creation teaches about God more fruitfully than our efforts to depict him. Further, God reveals himself in Scripture, in words, so that we know who he is and what he has done. God has not revealed any visible representation or image of himself by which we should know him. Second Helvetic Confession 4.2 connects this point to our Christian experience: “But that men might be instructed in religion, and put in mind of heavenly things and of their own salvation, the Lord commanded to preach the gospel—not to paint and instruct the laity by pictures; he also instituted sacraments, but he nowhere appointed images.” As God has made himself known to us, he has given us no visual media to use to represent him directly. Thus, truths about God and how we relate to him require that we do not make images of the Godhead.
Trust in God Whom We Cannot See
How does the second commandment apply today? Though we see that it is grounded in realities of who God is, explaining our ongoing need to submit to it, how does it help us in the Christian life? How does it provide that pastoral value? The second commandment provides pastoral help, especially in our personal trials, because it binds us to trust even when we cannot see. It enjoins us to have faith, to believe God, even when we cannot put eyes on the fulfillment of a promise.
That application begins to get us to the pastoral heart of this commandment. Potentially, application of the second commandment might be hard to accept, but a pastoral burden sits heavy on my heart concerning why the second commandment is good for us, directs us into greater holiness, and helps us in amazing ways. Although its grounding in God’s nature entails that the second commandment could not be otherwise, it also comes home to support and encourage us in particular aspects of life where we need great help.
We easily overlook that the Israelites did not make the idol of the golden calf as if it were some other god but as an image of their God.
A particular challenge to keeping the second commandment as the Reformed tradition has understood it is that we live in a highly visual age. Visual media is the most popular and predominant form of communication. People love television shows, movies, and children’s picture books that all depict God or at least the incarnate Christ. Thus, the Reformed tradition runs against the grain of twenty-first century methods as we stand against depicting the most fundamental aspects of our message: God himself. Nevertheless, the Reformed view of the second commandment that we should not make any visual representations of the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit is truly most profitable for our souls. It plays out in how we relate to God, in how we learn to trust God, and in how we learn to submit to God. The second commandment teaches us to trust God even when that trust must extend beyond what we can understand as certain from a human perspective.
First, pushback sometimes comes that it is acceptable to make an image of God so long as we do not worship that image or use it to worship. This attempt to explain an exemption wherein we can have images to use apart from worship causes me some great struggle, especially in defense of images of Christ. On inspection of the idea that we could see Jesus without worshipping, the reason for my struggle becomes obvious because the phrase, “Here’s Jesus, don’t worship,” makes no sense. What true Jesus might I see that I would not worship him? If I see God, I must worship. How could it be otherwise? How could you show me my Savior and not let me worship him? That someone would show Christ to me but forbid me to worship him is at least cruel if not implicitly blasphemous. Thus, Second Helvetic Confession 4.1 affirms that, “although Christ took upon him man’s nature, yet he did not therefore take it that he might set forth a pattern for carvers and painters.” The second commandment pertains because worship must follow upon seeing God. The Reformed view of the second commandment is most beneficial because we inevitably will drift into worship by an image and so ground our relationship with God on something we can see.
Second, if we tie our relationship to God to what we can see, our faith suffers. How often do the struggles in our life require us to trust God beyond what we can perceive with our eyes? As Hebrews 11:1 affirms, so much of the Christian life is about trusting God when we cannot see: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith must extend to realities that surpass what our human senses can apprehend. If we start to practice our faith in ways that rely upon what is seen, we move away from the posture that our faith must take in this age. Until Christ returns, the Christian life must be one of faith apart from what we can see.
That posture of faith is for our good. Paul drew this application in 2 Corinthians 5:6–7: “So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.” The critical conclusion is that we are of good courage because we walk by faith and not by sight. We trust even apart from what our eyes behold. If we depend on what we can see, we will falter and fade. We will lose courage if we try to walk in this age by sight. The second commandment helps us because it reminds us of the nature of faith, that God is at work and is for us even when we cannot see him. Christ is at work on our behalf, pleading our case in heaven, even though we cannot see him.
The challenge is that, in our experience, many people feel as though they have been helped by visual media that depicts Jesus. Even ages ago, medieval cathedrals were filled with images of God because people felt helped in knowing biblical stories and truths by visual representations. Although that practice was grounded in widespread illiteracy, the proliferating use of visual media in the modern age owes to a growing aversion to reading, even if illiteracy per se does not afflict the western world in the same way as it did in past centuries. With some similarity to that past situation, contemporary Christians often feel that they understand Scripture better, or that Scripture has come to life to them in new ways, because of visual media that depicts Jesus.
Concerning the pastoral value of the second commandment, those feelings all mislead us. God has given us the means that he ordains as adequate and suitable ways for us to know him. Our feelings to the contrary about images suggest that we know better than God about how we need to learn about him. Thus, Heidelberg Catechism 98 answers whether we may use images to teach people without using them to worship, saying, “No, for we should not be wiser than God. He wants his people to be taught not by means of dumb images but by the living preaching of his word.” Not only do our feelings that images help us deceive us to their helpfulness, they deceive us as to whether we are using images for worship. After all, as soon as we sense that an image helps us get closer to Jesus, is that not bringing us to worship? Is not closeness to Jesus on account of whatever medium we use the pathway of worship? Ultimately, it seems that we cannot get around that some use of images will lead to a violation of what the second commandment clearly forbids.
Third, the second commandment helps us by teaching us more fully how to submit throughout this life to the Lord in every way. Even if we might feel that an image helps us, God has said that we should not have them. We must, therefore, learn that the best way forward is always submission to what God has said, not in how we might feel. As we learn to submit to the Lord as he directs our piety in this matter of images, it trains us in submission to him more widely.
This matter of submission is where the Reformed view of the second commandment has particular value for today regarding many of our cultural challenges. We are taught, as is obvious throughout the western world, that we should submit to our own individualism. We are told that our desires govern reality. We are told the worst thing that we could do is to suppress our feelings.
The second commandment instructs us otherwise. It says that even though an image might feel good, the most fruitful and faithful way forward is through God’s appointed ways of relating to him. We cannot invent the ways that we approach God, because we must submit to how he has said we might know him. Westminster Shorter Catechism 51 brings the same idea to bear: “The second commandment forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in his Word.” This idea that worship must conform to the Scripture and must exclude any element not commanded in Scripture has significant profitability for discipling us, our children, and new Christians about how we relate to issues that cause our greatest cultural concerns.
A prevailing approach to worship in the contemporary church has been to shape services around what is enjoyable by human standards. Since worship and its means of grace are God’s primary way of discipling his people in truth, is it any wonder that younger generations believe that God is supposed to cater to their desires? Certain styles of worship have discipled countless people to think that God is supposed to submit to their every whim rather than that they must submit to the Lord. Although modern worship bourgeons with practices meant to fit what people like and what entertains, we must not think worship is about what is nice for us. It is about what truly honors and pleases God. We then listen to what he has revealed in Scripture to know what belongs to our worship. In this way, we train Christians in truths about God that forge a bulwark against the dominant cultural mindset.
Since worship trains us for the whole Christian life, as we learn the value of submitting to how God’s word tells us to worship, we are trained more widely for the whole Christian life to submit to God. The second commandment implies that we worship only as God’s word says because that submission will help us learn and practice how to live faithfully for God in every way. The second commandment inspires trust as we depend on what God has said rather than what we see. It shows us that even when we cannot see, God is at work to help and to shape his people.
Conclusion: The Coming Age for Sight
That we might close on a note of hope, how does the second commandment point to Christ? We are not left without a way to know him. Paul wrote in Galatians 3:1: “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” Still, this public portrayal was never in any picture, but in the preaching of the holy gospel. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the most visual displays we have to use in approaching the Lord and knowing Christ’s work.
When we struggle in so deeply wanting to see Christ, to see our God, let us rejoice in that struggle. We struggle because we are made to see him. The struggle is hard because life this side of glory is hard. We are not yet home. Nevertheless, Christ lived, died, and rose to bring us home. Our Savior took on flesh, so that even though we should not take it to ourselves to make images of him, we will put physical eyes upon God himself one day.
We should then embrace the difficulty of that struggle as good because this age is not the age of sight. As we submit to that reality, even as it is difficult, we learn of the beauty of the age to come. Because the age for sight is coming. Jesus promised: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). At the end of all things, “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face” (Rev. 22:3–4). We will see God in the future.
The second commandment presents us with gospel truth about timing. Absence ought to make the heart grow fonder. The longer we cannot see God, the more we should yearn to see him. We should not try to alleviate the difficulty in this life of not getting to see God because it is not yet right to see him. Just as it is not right for a man and woman to see and do certain things before they are married, so we await the marriage supper of the Lamb when it will be right and good that we see him. Just as that moment arrives in its course with blessed fulfillment, so too does Jesus have an appointed day to return. He will come. We will behold his glory. Faith will give way to sight.