To Portray the Image of God...

Portraying the Image of God

In the 2nd Commandment God forbids the making of any image and the worshipping of it. It is one of the eight "Thou shalt nots" - prohibitions against certain thoughts and actions because they are sins - in the Ten Commandments, violations of God's moral will for man. To focus on them, rather than instilling obedience, brings us crashing head on into a brick wall of our disobedience! (Romans 5:20). 

The 2nd Commandment:

 

“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."

Why the prohibition against the making and use of images of God? As we said, it is sin. And any image made by man can only misrepresent the invisible Almighty God. Additionally, to include images in our worship directs us away from God's picture of himself he intended for man. 

We use our eyes more than any other part of our bodies to understand how to relate to our world. And when it comes to relating to God we may underestimate the attraction of  physical "seeing" or what 1 John 2:16 calls the lust of the eyes! John Calvin sheds some light on why the desire for images and other adornments in worship are so strong even among believers.

- the words of Moses (Gen 31: 19), When he relates that Rachel stole her father's images, he speaks of the use of idols as a common vice. Hence we may infer, that the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols…

They [the Israelites] knew, indeed, that there was a God whose mighty power they had experienced in so many miracles, but they had no confidence of his being near to them, if they did not with their eyes behold a corporeal symbol of his presence, as an attestation to his actual government. They desired, therefore, to be assured by the image which went before them, that they were journeying under Divine guidance. (Institutes of Religion, Book 1.11.8)

Lacking the inherent confidence that God really is near to us and for us, we, like the Israelites (given our bent), often seek a prop, something we can behold or grasp to assist and assure us. Rather than trusting in his Word alone we augment it with what seem benign additions, e.g.  images and visual aids which, more or less, have become widespread standard fare in Christianity. Are images of Jesus/God really so bad? Well, yes... not only because they fall short of God’s mark, but these images, as well as many other outward visual "good idea" props (various adornments accompanying church worship), at a minimum distract from or undermine the means of imaging or portraying God revealed in his Word. Back to Calvin:

Paul declares, that by the true preaching of the gospel Christ is portrayed and in a manner crucified before our eyes, (Galatians 3:1.) Of what use, then, were the erection in churches of so many crosses of wood and stone, silver and gold, if this doctrine were faithfully and honestly preached, viz., Christ died that he might bear our curse upon the tree, that he might expiate our sins by the sacrifice of his body, wash them in his blood, and, in short, reconcile us to God the Father? From this one doctrine the people would learn more than from a thousand crosses of wood and stone. As for crosses of gold and silver, it may be true that the avaricious give their eyes and minds to them more eagerly than to any heavenly instructor. (Book 1.11.7)

And the apostle Paul adds that in his preaching to the Galatians that Christ crucified was pictured:

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

God images and portrays himself to us not in paintings or drawings, but in the gospel. God assures us of his love in the gospel. It is in the gospel that he shows himself in Christ to us. Rather than with physical eyes, we see him with the eyes of faith. And we are assured of his nearness to us through hearing and believing the word of Christ (Romans 10:17).

Philip *said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus *said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:8-9)

The gospel is God's means of showing Christ to us. Christ alone is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15a) and he is seen only through eyes of faith in the gospel.