II

 

The Idols We Keep

Do not make an idol for yourself—no form whatsoever—of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow down to them or worship them.

—Exodus 20:4–5

By way of reminder, the Jewish tradition, along with Catholics and Lutherans, considers the commandment above to be part of the first commandment. Most other Christians view it as the second. There clearly is a sense in which this commandment forbids devotion and prayer to gods other than Yahweh. But those who consider it its own commandment believe it is not merely prohibiting the worship of images and idols of false gods but also prohibiting the making, praying to, and worshipping of idols that were intended to represent Yahweh himself.

In the second commandment, God emphasized something that was, and still is, central to Israel’s faith: that Yahweh is not to be portrayed by means of images or statues, for Israel’s God is the creator of all things. He transcends the created world, and nothing made by our hands or his (with two exceptions, as we will see) could adequately represent him. Hence Israel’s religion, alone among the religions of the ancient Near East, would not make images or idols of her God.1 With this in mind, let’s explore the second commandment.

The Purpose of Idols—Gods You Can See

The temples of ancient Egypt, after which the Israelites’ tabernacle and later Solomon’s temple were loosely patterned, were believed to be the palaces of the gods. Walk through the large outer courts today, and you eventually will come to the house of the deity. Keep going through this house, and you will come to another inner room, representing the deity’s throne room. This is the holy of holies. There, on a stand, or seated on a throne or bench with other deities,2 is the god whose house you’ve entered.

The magnificent temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel is a perfect example from the time of Moses (if one assumes a thirteenth-century B.C. date for the Exodus, as most mainline scholars do). In the holy of holies, four larger-than-life statues—idols of Ptah, Amun, Ramesses II, and Re—sit enthroned, awaiting the offerings and prayers of worshippers. The presence of the pharaoh among the other three deities is a reminder that the pharaohs were considered semidivine in their lifetimes and were deified in their deaths.

The holy of holies inside the Great Temple at Abu Simbel. Pharaoh Ramesses II is the second figure from the right, surrounded by other Egyptian gods to whom sacrifices were brought and prayers offered.

Though made of stone or wood, the idols in the throne rooms of temples were thought, in some mystical sense, to actually embody the deities. A ceremony called “the opening of the mouth” appears to have been the means by which the priests brought the idol to life. This ritual included acts of purification, followed by some form of literal opening of the idol’s mouth (a chisel was used to further carve or open the mouths of stone idols), clothing the idol, and feeding it. After the ritual, the idol was no longer merely a piece of wood or stone. It was an extension or embodiment of the deity. At this point, the idol would have been placed on its throne in the holy of holies (though at Abu Simbel the deities were carved into place in stone). Rituals were performed and offerings were made to the idol to procure the blessings of the god.

Idols made the invisible gods visible and the intangible gods tangible. At times, the Egyptians took these gods of stone or wood to visit other gods in their temples. These visits were occasions for great festivals. Small boats were built to transport the gods from one part of the Nile to another. The images carved or painted on the temple and burial chamber walls often depict the gods sailing in such boats.

In addition to the temple deities, small statues representing the gods of Egypt or Canaan were crafted, sold, and kept as representations of the deities in the homes of common people. These “household gods” are mentioned at least ten times throughout the Hebrew Bible, and the practice was common throughout the ancient world.

All of this points to the religious life the Israelites knew in Egypt and the context God spoke within when he gave the second commandment. It is for this reason the story in Exodus 32, the making of the golden calf, is not surprising.

The Golden Calf

After God spoke the Ten Words to Moses and the Israelites, Moses remained on the mountaintop for forty days with God—a period that is paralleled by Jesus’s forty days in the wilderness during which he fasted, prayed, and was tempted (the pattern for the forty days Christians fast and pray during Lent).3 Exodus 32 tells us the Israelites became antsy during their own forty-day wait:

The people saw that Moses was taking a long time to come down from the mountain. They gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come on! Make us gods who can lead us. As for this man Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t have a clue what has happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1)

When they ask Aaron to make them “gods,” the Hebrew word is elohim, which, while a plural word for gods, is also used of Israel’s God in what is known as the “majestic” or “divine” plural. Perhaps a better translation (and one often found in a footnote on this passage) is “Come on! Make us a God who can lead us.” They wanted Aaron to make them an idol of Yahweh like the idols that the Egyptians had of their gods.

So what did Aaron do?

Aaron said to them, “All right, take out the gold rings from the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took out the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. He collected them and tied them up in a cloth. Then he made a metal image of a bull calf, and the people declared, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:2–4)

Once again, the word translated here as “gods” is elohim, the standard word for God throughout the Hebrew Bible. Many scholars believe that the better translation is “This is your God, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Note that Aaron did not make multiple images or idols; there was only one metal calf. (Nehemiah 9:18, in recounting this story, makes it clear that the people made the golden calf to represent their God, not multiple gods.)

After hearing the people proclaim that the golden calf was their God, we read in Exodus 32:5, “When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf. Then Aaron announced, ‘Tomorrow will be a festival to the LORD!’ ” (Remember, when you see “LORD” in all capital letters in the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew word is “Yahweh.”) The altar in front of the calf would be used at a festival for Yahweh, indicating that the golden calf was meant to represent him.

But this act angered God, who sent Moses back down the mountain carrying the two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written. When Moses arrived at the camp, he found the people singing and dancing. In his anger, Moses threw the stone tablets to the ground, breaking them apart, and then he seized the calf and destroyed it in the fire. When he questioned Aaron, his brother, about the making of this calf, Aaron said he was just doing what the people asked for, forging a God that would go before them to the Promised Land. They could trust in Yahweh, Aaron seemed to believe, provided they could see him.

Two things are clear in this episode: First, humans prefer to worship gods they can see—for most of us, seeing is believing. And second, God rejected idols or images made to represent him; nothing created either by God or by humans can adequately express the glory of God. For God, believing is seeing.

I’m writing this chapter in the midst of a fierce Kansas thunderstorm. It’s dark outside and the lightning is glorious and terrifying. The thunder is giving my dog a panic attack. The hailstones make a tympanic wall of sound as they strike the furniture on my back porch. And the wind and downpour of rain round out the symphony. These naturally occurring phenomena have always been considered reflections of the glory of God. The countless stars in a clear night sky too. The beauty of all creation was the handiwork of a God whose glory transcended it all.

In 1954, Graham Sutherland was commissioned to paint a portrait of Winston Churchill. Originally intended to hang in Parliament, it would be presented to Britain’s prime minister for his eightieth birthday as he was nearing the end of his second term. Sutherland was a gifted artist, and while his portrait of Churchill was hailed by some, it was considered “disgusting” by others. When Churchill saw it, he was deeply disappointed. A year after the portrait’s presentation, it was later reported, Lady Churchill cut the painting into pieces and burned it.

Sutherland was one of Britain’s finest artists, but even he could not convey the person Churchill believed himself to be. It’s a lesson in ego and art, perhaps, but when it comes to God, what artist and what medium could possibly capture the glory and majesty of the one who spoke the universe into existence? This is why God commands the Israelites not to create idols to represent him.

Be that as it may, the Israelites continued to struggle, as humans have throughout time, with the tendency to create and worship physical gods. Isaiah 40, written centuries after the time of Moses, addresses this phenomenon in one of the most oft-cited passages in the Bible. Permit me to offer a slightly lengthier excerpt from this chapter, as it conveys so powerfully Isaiah’s argument against making images or idols of God:

To whom then will you liken God,

or what likeness compare with him?

An idol?—A workman casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,

and casts for it silver chains….

It is [God] who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

and spreads them like a tent to live in;

who brings princes to naught,

and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing….

To whom then will you compare me,

or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and see:

Who created these?

He who brings out [the stars] and numbers them,

calling them all by name…

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary,

and the young will fall exhausted;

but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:25–26b,28–31, NRSV)

While God’s glory was not meant to be represented by idols, in his mercy, he did allow for material things to be crafted to represent his presence among his people. The tabernacle and later the temple were examples of this provision, as was the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant: An Empty Throne?

During those forty days when Moses was on the mountaintop and the Israelites were fretting down below, Exodus 25 and 26 record that God gave instructions for Moses to make a special box called the Ark of the Covenant. This box was to be made of acacia wood covered in gold and measure about four feet wide, twenty-seven inches deep, and twenty-seven inches tall—about the size of what used to be called “hope chests.” On either end were carvings of cherubim, winged creatures. These creatures show up frequently in a variety of places in Egyptian art and sometimes constituted the arms of Pharaoh’s throne. The box could be opened, and its purpose was to store the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments. Some have seen the ark as God’s footstool, but it seems more likely that it was meant to represent God’s symbolic throne.

The top of the ark was called the “mercy seat.” But unlike other thrones of gods we know of from the ancient Near East, the throne for Israel’s God had no image of God, no idol enthroned upon it. The throne was not vacant. No, the Israelites believed that wherever the ark was, God was present there. But the empty space atop the throne, between the two cherubim, was intended to remind Israel that Yahweh’s appearance is inconceivable and his glory incomprehensible. In fact, God told Moses, no one could see the fullness of his glory and survive the experience (Exodus 33:20).

Listen again to the second commandment, Do not make an idol for yourself—no form whatsoever—of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow down to them or worship them. In its historical and religious context, we see just how revolutionary this commandment was, and what it was seeking to convey about the glory of God.

In a sense the Ark of the Covenant, the tabernacle (the tent of meeting, Israel’s portable shrine), and later the temple may have been God’s nod to our need for something tangible that might represent, if not God himself, at least his presence in the midst of his people. In a sense, that is what church buildings, Bibles, crosses, candles, and even the bread and the wine of Eucharist are for Christians today. They are not idols meant to be worshipped. They are not meant to be wholly adequate representations of the glory of God. But they can be, like the ark and the tabernacle, powerful reminders that God is with us.

Of all the commandments, we might be tempted to think that this one is the least relevant for us. But let’s consider a few of the ways that Christians violate this commandment today.

When Faith Becomes an Idol

In the introduction to this chapter, I mentioned the two senses in which we might read this commandment. The first sense is closely linked to the first commandment and involves worshipping false gods in the form of material objects. The second is making material things representing God and treating them as though they were God.

Regarding the latter, allow me to name some things that are meant to remind us of God, or in some way represent God, but that we can come to put in the place of God. We would never intentionally do this. To even say it sounds absurd. But I’ve known many people who have done just this.

I’ve known people who came to worship their church buildings more than the God for whose worship they were built. I recall a community where a quaint Methodist church had stood for over one hundred years. It was old enough that it still had outhouses out back. Then an amazing thing happened—the little community became a suburb of a larger city. Thousands of new people moved into town. New neighborhoods sprang up, and new schools were built.

The bishop of that area suggested that if the church wanted to reach the new residents, it should relocate three miles east and create a space with indoor plumbing and room for children. The congregation said no. The bishop pleaded with them, concerned that there was no church of any denomination in this community, and people needed what the church could offer. He even offered grants to relocate. But the people refused. Why? Because they loved that old building. They had so many wonderful memories inside its walls. And they rather liked the congregation the size it was, with all their closest friends sitting in their favorite pews. Perhaps it’s too harsh to say that these people had made an idol of their building and their community, but I think it helps us see a modern idol Christians sometimes worship.

Even the Bible has served as an idol to some Christians I’ve met. God speaks through scripture, but the Bible is not God. It is intended to be not worshipped but read, studied, interpreted, and lived. The Bible was written by human beings living in particular times and places, reflecting upon their experiences of God and their sense of God’s word to them and their communities. Though inspired by the Spirit, the text was also shaped in response to the world in which its human authors lived and in the light of their life experiences. God spoke to, and through, the authors of scripture. Through them, and by the Spirit, he continues to use their words to speak to us today. But too often, Christians come to love their Bible more than the God to whom it bears witness. Other times they ascribe to the Bible attributes that belong to God alone.

Some Christians I know idolize their pastors or youth ministers or choir directors or Sunday-school teachers or favorite Christian writers. Often these persons have played such an important role in our lives; from them we have felt God’s love and through them we have heard God speak. If we’re not careful, we can come to love God’s human instruments more than the God who speaks through them.

I’ve seen this happen with people who don’t read the Bible, only their favorite Christian author. I’ve also observed it when Christians stay home from church when their beloved preacher has the Sunday off. If that preacher fails or falls short or otherwise disappoints, their faith might be dashed, because their faith was in the preacher, or the youth director, or the Sunday-school teacher, more than in God.

Missions, music, social justice, the fight for inclusion, environmental ministry, teaching children, and a hundred other good things that we might do for God can easily take the place of God in our lives. In the same way, I’ve known Christians who made politics and politicians an idol. As we noted in chapter 1, there is no shortage of other idols, inanimate objects—cars, retirement portfolios, material possessions—to which we can give our highest devotion in place of God.

Jesus speaks frequently of one idol in particular: money. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matthew 6:24). Jesus was speaking to first-century peasants who struggled with making their wealth their god. How much more do we wrestle with this as people living in twenty-first-century America?

That is why God has given us the gift of the second commandment. Do not make idols for yourselves.

The Image of the Invisible God

The second commandment prohibits us, as humans, from making idols or forms that represent God, or things that take the place of God. Yet the Bible tells us of two ways in which God has made his image visible.

Consider Colossians 1, verses 15 and 19: “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the one who is first over all creation….[A]ll the fullness of God was pleased to live in him.” John’s majestic prologue to his Gospel refers to Jesus as “the Word,” God’s self-disclosure or revelation, and then notes, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Later in that same Gospel text, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and “If you have really known me, you will also know the Father” (John 14:7). He is the incarnation of God—not an idol made of stone or wood or precious metal but God enfleshed. The glory of God, come to us in person. He is not an idol we have made but a reflection of the image of God that God himself gave to us that we might see, we might know, and we might believe.

The second form in which God has placed his image is you and me. We read this in the opening words of scripture: “God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them” (Genesis 1:27). We were made in God’s image. We are meant to reflect God’s glory. Our capacity to do that is marred by our propensity to turn away from God’s path. But when we walk with Christ, when we seek to do his will, when we love God with our whole heart and we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we actually reflect the image of God.

Debbie is a member of the church I serve and a cashier at a nearby grocery store. Not long ago, she told me that she’d witnessed a miracle that week. A woman came to her register with a shopping cart full of food, her monthly grocery run. But as Debbie was ringing things up, she noticed the woman began setting items back in her cart to return to the shelves. When Debbie hit “total,” the bill came to about $250.

The woman handed Debbie her EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) card, provided by the state of Kansas to assist low-income people. The card indicated she had only $188 on her account. She stood in line and began to weep, apologizing and pulling things back to put away. Just then the woman behind her spoke up and said, “Please let me buy your groceries this time.” She gave her credit card and bought $250 worth of groceries for the other woman. When Debbie had finished charging the credit card, all three of them were crying.

I don’t know if the woman who paid the grocery bill was Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or an atheist. What I do know is that in that moment she reflected the image of God. She didn’t know the woman she was helping. But she showed compassion for her and did an act of pure grace.

Don’t make for yourself an image that you will bow down to. But if you want to see God, look to Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God. And don’t forget, you were created in the image of God as well. When you love your neighbor as yourself, others can see God in you.

What Jesus Might Say to You

 

You were made in the image of the invisible God. And I came to reflect his presence, power, and love to you, that you, in turn, might reflect his image to others. You most clearly reveal his image in you when you demonstrate selfless love. Don’t put anything you can see on a pedestal, allowing it to replace the God from whom all blessings flow; not your political leaders, your heroes, your family, or even your preacher. Don’t worship the things that you can see and feel and touch. And don’t let your career, your dreams, your possessions, or your aspirations replace God on the throne of your life. No one can serve two masters. Instead, worship him alone, and you will have found the life you were created to live.