Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Second Commandment

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Second Commandment

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 061

Dictation Name: RR171AG61

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. He also will hear their cry and save them. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, saith the Lord Jesus, there am I in the midst of them. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that thou art our God, that thou hast called us to be thy people and to serve thee, and hast given us such great promises in thy word. Make us joyful therefore, in our calling, make us instrumental in the furthering of thy kingdom, a help to all that need help, a strength to all those that need strength, and ever faithful servants of thy kingdom. Bless us now by thy word and by thy spirit, and grant that we may indeed behold wondrous things out of thy law. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture this morning is Exodus 20:4-6, and our subject: The Second Commandment. Exodus 20:4-6, The Second Commandment. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing 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.”

Over the centuries and into our time, there have been bitter disputes over the meaning of this the second commandment. For many, both in ancient Israel as well as in the church, it has been a prohibition of all sculpture, paintings, and representations of anything, whether religious in character or not. On the other hand, others have rejected this interpretation very strongly. Both sides have claimed orthodoxy. Both sides have sought to be faithful to scripture.

To look at the background of this, in the early church, in the post-apostolic era, there was a very strong hostility to all painting and sculpture. Art has always been essentially tied to religion, and very many converts, art meant paganism and occultism, because that is what it was associated with in the Greco/Roman world. For a time, artists who were converted either had to abandon their vocation or renounce the making of any image in any form. A little later in the post-apostolic era, images, paintings, and mosaics began to abound, began to be routine. There was a very extensive use of them and very often, a veneration of them. Those who used images were no less zealous in their faith than the non-users, and their theology was basically the same.

In assessing both these positions, it is important to understand the reason for their position, and why it is necessary for us to condemn both sides. As we have seen the great evil which the first commandment prohibits, among other things, this we went into last week, is the continuity between God and creation, the idea that all things are one being and everyone has a little bit of God in them, and all the objects around us; sticks, stones, trees, mountains, streams, all have a piece of God in them. The Greco/Roman world accepted the continuity of all being, so that there was an inner link between the ultimate power or powers of all the universe and the would of men and things.

Gordona Babbitt{?} has observed, and I quote, “Judging by legends and lives of the saints, it would seem that pictures of Christ and the saints were mostly regarded by the common people as objects themselves imbued with supernatural powers.” The logic in this position was if any painted image or a sculpture had a link with ultimate power, because there was a continuity of being, then that linkage meant that the more you made it resemble the ultimate power, the more it became a concentration of that power. In other words, if there was a little bit of God in you and a little bit of God in a piece of wood, or stone, or tree, or stream, if you did something to give a concentration, as it were, of that little bit of God in a rock by a sculpture, to indicate what the ultimate power was, then you were thereby concentrating on the power. You were giving it a visual image.

We often think of idolatry in naïve terms, and of course, Isaiah uses the naïve terms to ridicule the idolaters. But the sophisticated idolater, as in India, would tell you in showing a god with six hands, “This is to indicate the omnipotence, the power of God,” or that many eyes, that he is all seeing. Thus, the image both attempted to convey a message and to depict, in concentrated form, something of the ultimate power. No pagan idolater equated his image with the totality of the power represented. Rather, he saw it as a focus concentrating some of the power locally. Idolatry thus, had religious and philosophical roots. It always has had. It has always rested on an implicit pantheism, on an idea of the continuity of being. A man could have an image carved in the belief that, like a lightening rod, or even more consistently than a lightening rod, it would localize an ultimate power.

The problem was that those who were iconoclast shared this view and therefore, opposed all images, all pictures, all art. In Isaiah 44:9-20, the futility and absurdity of idols is bluntly stated. “They are nothing,” Isaiah says. The problem was that to many iconoclasts, as well as iconoduals, they were something. Both those against and for believed they were something, because they believed in a continuity of being, the logical end of which is pantheism.

Because of this belief, rulers such as the Roman emperors, as soon as they gained power sent their image throughout the Empire to indicate who the current deputy on earth of the gods was. Emperors’ portraits were venerated, candles were lit before them, and accused persons fled to a portrait of the emperor for sanctuary. In part, the rise of icons of Christ and the saints was a challenge to this Roman imperial faith, because those who advance the Christian icons thereby expressed their belief that the icons of Christ and the saints are the focus of power. Hence, candles were lit to the Christian images, but as I indicated, both sides were wrong, and no one can deal intelligently with this situation unless we recognize it rested on the continuity of being.

It was John Calvin who made the clearest and most dramatic break with the whole concept of the continuity of being, a concept also known as the great chain of being. It had a profound influence over the centuries, it still does. But Calvin’s writings clearly set forth God as the uncreated being, not to be confused or mixed with his creation, with created being. Calvin wrote, in the Institutes, and I quote, “As in the preceding commandment, the Lord has declared Himself to be the one God, besides whom no other deities ought to be imagined or worshiped. So in this, He more clearly reveals His nature and kind of worship with which He ought to be honored, that we may not dare to form any carnal conception of Him. The end therefore, of this precept is that He will not have His legitimate worship profaned with superstitious rites. Wherefore, in a word, He calls us out, and wholly abstracts us from carnal observances which our foolish minds are custom to devise, when they conceive of God according to the grossness of their own apprehensions, and thereby He calls us to the service which rightfully belongs o Him, that is, the spiritual worship which He has instituted. He marks what is the grossest transgression of this kind, that is, external idolatry. And this precept consists of two parts: The first restrains us from licentiously daring to make God, who is incomprehensible, the subject of our senses, or to represent Him under any visible form. The second prohibits us from paying religious adoration to any religious images.” It is very important to see that Calvin saw this commandment as related essentially to worship. It is about, he said, “the kind of worship with which He ought to be honored.”

The three verses of this second commandment are one sentence. This one sentence has to do with worship and our representation of God. If taken generally as some Hebrews did and some Christians have, it will then mean an abolition of all paintings, sculpture, and photography, but such an interpretation is observed. God Himself, in giving orders for the building of his sanctuary, required the making of the images of the cherubim, the brazen bull, carved pomegranates, and so on. They were not for worship but to adorn His sanctuary for beauty and for glory, we are told.

Keil and Delitzsch observed, and I quote, “It is not only evident from the context that the illusion is not to the making of images generally, but to the construction of figures of God as objects of religious reverence or worship.” But this is expressly stated in verse 5, so that even Calvin observes that “there is no necessity to refute what some have foolishly imagined, that sculpture and painting of every kind are condemned here. With the same aptness, Calvin has just before observed that, although Moses speaks of idols, there is no doubt that by implication He condemns all the forms of false worship which men have invented for themselves.” In other words, homemade gods of all kinds, material and intellectual, are forbidden, and all forms of false worship.

Disobedience to this commandment and the practice of false worship means judgment unto the “third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” Ellison has called attention to an important aspect of this phrase. Since the depression of the 1930’s which began among farmers in the 1920’s, changes have taken place in family life in the United States. Education has been diluted and prolonged. Of course, this began with Horace Mann in the 1930’s. In the 1930’s, the idea was to keep people off the job market by raising the age of mandatory schooling, and it went from 12 and 14 to 16 and 18 across the country. Many parents since, see only their grandchildren at best, not the fourth generation. We marry later, we have children later, and the result is very destructive. In Israel, the third and fourth generation were those who were usually close at hand. Judgment for false worship and false doctrines of God, we are thereby told, affect the entire family, therefore, an entire culture very quickly.

Then, as against this, we read in verse 6, “and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my generations, uh, my commandments.” Now this is a very important phrase which, in the English, we don’t fully grasp because the reference is to generations. Unto the thousandth generation of them that love me. This is an amazing statement. It tells us that a culture that has begun in terms of the faith, has consequences that will linger to the thousandth generation. In other words, godliness has enduring consequences, whereas ungodliness is very quickly destructive. We are still receiving the benefits from the early colonial era.

No image can comprehend the meaning of God. Therefore, it is false on this ground. But the reason God gives for His prohibition here is, “For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God,” he says in verse 5. The stress is on God’s exclusiveness. In Isaiah 42:8, we are told, “I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory I will not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” The Hebrew word “jealous” which is here used is very closely related, has the same root as “zealous.” There is no indecision nor any halfway measure in our God. The liberal conception of God is a wishy-washy one, but we are told by our Lord in Revelation that He will spew the Laodician church out of his mouth because he tells them, “You are neither hot nor cold,” and therefore for their lukewarmness, He despises them. This is the meaning implicit in what God says when He is, when He declares Himself to be a jealous God. No lukewarmness in Him.

Because of this fact, God’s order exacts penalties. Just as diseases can be transmitted in a family, so too can sin and its consequences be transmitted. A man who lays waste a family inheritance penalizes the succeeding generations. So, too, does a man who worships God falsely, and holds erroneous beliefs.

Josephus has an interesting comment on this commandment, and on the first and third as well. He says on the Antiquity of the Jews, and I quote, “The first commandment teaches us that there is but one God, and that we ought to worship Him only. The second commands us not to make the image of any living creature to worship it. The third, that we must not swear by God in a false matter.” Thus, Josephus saw the point of this. We were not to create any image or picture to worship. It did not mean a prohibition against any art.

George Rollinson, over a century ago, said that the Hebrew had this meaning also. “Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image so as to worship it.” Art is as we saw at the beginning, essentially tied to religion. Many Christians in the early church rejected art because they saw it as pagan. The issue has never been resolved since then. Although art has been in the church, very often it has also been out of it. The crying need is to formulate a Christian doctrine of art, and to see its implications for our faith. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that thy word is truth, and we pray that thou wouldst always increase our understanding of thy word so that we may grow, so that we may enable thy church and our culture to grow, that we might be mature in Jesus Christ. Grant us this, we beseech thee. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] How would you characterize the long history of what are called miracle experiences with works of art in the church where statues bleed and tears flow, and so forth?

[Rushdoony] I don’t know. Sometimes it seems to be fraudulent, other times there’s a question mark, and I really don’t know. There’s more in this world than we know how to explain, but we cannot assert the continuity of being. That, I believe, is very clear, and we have to recognize that this is what God says, and that we know. Beyond that, we go on learning. Yes?

[Audience] So when the reformers, at least a lot of the reformers in Switzerland and the British Isles went through busting up statues, that was because the statues happened to be used for worship, not because those statues happened to be of Christ and Mary and the rest {?}

[Rushdoony] No, Tim, that’s not altogether the case, because what happened was this: Both Calvin and Luther were against destroying the artwork in the church. Totally against it. But, for a moment now I can’t remember the name of the other Swiss reformer.

[Audience] Zwingli.

[Rushdoony] Zwingli. Zwingli was a real problem on the issue. He was a very talented musician, who had a hostility, once he was converted, to his art, as though it somehow rivaled his love of God, and it was Zwingli and others as well, but it’s Zwingli’s influence we feel most in our culture. Both the two leaders, Calvin and Luther, opposed Anabaptists and others who went around trying to smash everything in the churches. But Zwingli not only abolished all painting and all sculpture, all artwork of any kind in the church, but organs and music totally. For three centuries, there was no music in the Zwinglian-influenced churches throughout Switzerland. The consequence was that Zwingli’s influence which came into England among the Congregationalists primarily, and spread into other groups, Congregationalists were then known as Independents, led to the Independents to go about and destroy the artwork in the churches. The influence of Zwingli is still strong among many, many people, and it’s an irrational hatred of anything in the way of beauty. I know that Dr. Van Til said of the church across from the seminary which was built under the influence of one such theologian, who unhappily was Scottish, he said, “They seem to believe there is a virtue in ugliness,” and I’m afraid with some people, that’s true. Yes?

[Audience] Of course, the destruction of all physical imagery leaves mental imagery undisturbed.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] And words, of course, are images.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] And constructs, and constructs, and this had something to do with making God abstract and leaving the gate open to the Age of Reason.

[Rushdoony] Marvelous point, a superb point, and absolutely true, and the reason why the Jews turned against it was because they were influenced by Greco/Roman culture, they were very heavily influenced. Very few people realize that, at the time of our Lord, Jerusalem was a city that rivaled Rome, because Rome poured money into it. It was a key place, they wanted to keep Judea happy. It was a place of marble palaces, Greco/Roman baths, and more, and the people were heavily influenced and they began to reflect these ideas, and you’re very right. It turned God into an abstraction, which He is in Greco/Roman thought. As Van Til has said, “In Greek thinking, God is merely a limiting concept.” They needed Him because they had to have, philosophically, some origin, so they posited God as a limiting concept and then dropped him. He was simply the.

[Audience] First principle.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and this returned with the Enlightenment in some forms of deism. Yes? Another question? Yes?

[Audience] Do you suppose there’s a connection in our own time between the fact that we are, have department from the commandments and the fact that this is an image-making generation; politics, film.

[Rushdoony] Yes, good point. We no longer have a Christian faith, and a Christian view of images in any form, and as a result, we’re replacing God in reality with images and we live in terms in a world of images. Yes?

[Audience] At the same time, there’s a campaign against Christian imagery.

[Rushdoony] Yes. It’s being removed everywhere. You can see how, without an understanding of the basics, of what God is, this commandment has been routinely misunderstood, and when I’ve tried to explain its meaning to some people, their response is, “Well, brother, I don’t need to know philosophy and theology. All I need is the plain word of God,” as though God blesses ignorance. Any other questions or comments?

[Audience] The early popes were supporting the arts{?}

[Rushdoony] The late Medieval popes{?}

[Audience] Yes.

[Rushdoony] Yes, they’re very supportive of the arts.

[Audience] Question is, the Catholic religion itself seems to get very close to idolatry in their religion. Is this a misinterpretation on my part?

[Rushdoony] No, they do perpetuate, what as I pointed out, were Roman practices, ancient Roman practices, and it rested on the belief in the continuity of being, and in some segments of the Catholic church, theologically there still is a belief in the continuity of being. In others, there is not. I recall very vividly a friend telling me of being in Paris when this Monsignor came in and into this Catholic shop, and the woman who was managing it showed him some of the little images they had just gotten in, and “Aren’t they marvelous, and all of them blessed,” and he took his cane and struck them all off the table and shouted, “Idolatry!” So, you had both strands there, and you have both strands within Protestantism, not as vocal with regard to painting and sculpture and seeking that kind of expression, but having other images, verbal or mental, and sometimes pictorial. But the continuity of being is the key idea, and most of them don’t know what it means, or the idea of the great chain of being. They only had one book ever written that dealt with the doctrine of the great chain of being by Lovejoy, who was favorable to it, and traced it in art, especially literary art throughout the modern era.

Well, if there are no further questions or comments, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee for thy word. We thank thee that thy word is truth, and by thy truth we are made whole. Grant that we move in faithfulness to thee, to bring every area of life into captivity to Jesus Christ, our Lord. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.