Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
God's first word from Sinai is not a rule about behaviour but a claim on allegiance. It follows straight after He names Himself as the One who brought Israel out of Egypt, and it asks who holds first place in a heart.
The order matters: God announces the rescue before He makes any demand.
Before God gives the ten commandments, He makes it clear that Israel's obedience to law had nothing to do with God's earlier grace toward them in delivering them from the bondage of Egypt. It is the same today: obedience to law has no part in the salvation of souls out from the bondage of sin.
This first word is God asserting what belongs to Him by two titles — He made them, and He rescued them.
In the first three commandments God demanded that His rights as Creator, and their Redeemer from bondage, should be respected. He alone is God, so they were in the first place to recognize no other "god."
One short sentence answers two questions at once.
The first commandment plainly affirms the unity of God: it also affirms His exclusive sovereignty.
People often argue that an image is only a help, a reminder of the true God. One writer refuses that defence.
The first commandment is absolutely basic, "You shall have no other gods before Me." For as soon as another god is introduced, whatever people say about it, it is not merely added as an object alongside of God, but it is always put before God. Some may claim it is only intended as a reminder of God, but this is Satan's deception, for such things will always give a wrong conception of God.
The wording itself leaves no room to negotiate.
The language of these laws is absolute and allows no argument. It is "You shall" or "you shall not." It makes no room for exceptions. First, no other god may take God's place.
Israel had just left a country crowded with gods, and the command struck at the whole system.
The first commandment struck at the root of idolatry… Egypt had many "other gods": likenesses of things in heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, the Sun and the Moon, Osiris and Isis. People also worshipped animals out of superstition — the ox, the dog, the cat, the hawk, the crocodile and others. They did not stop at animals. They even treated the vegetables in their gardens as gods.
The break came quickly, and one writer sees the same pattern repeating ever since.
The people of Israel, awe-struck by the majesty of God, had heard the solemn words, "You shall have no other gods before Me." They had answered, "All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do." Yet only a few days later they turn aside out of the way and make gods for themselves. Does this surprise us? Is it not too true a picture of those who pass as the people of God in every age?
An idol need not be carved. The test is what occupies the heart's affection.
An idol is not always an actual image worshipped in place of the true God. It is anything we let come between the soul and God as an object of the heart's affections. So even to believers the Apostle can write, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." … It has been said that an innocent man had no object; he simply had to enjoy God's goodness. A fallen man has many objects which separate the heart from God. But the new man has one Object: "For to me to live is Christ."
One writer turns the command on his reader, and names money as the rival.
People have never chased money more widely in the Christian world than now. How is it with your own soul?… A divided heart is a disloyal one. No one can serve two masters.
Israel failed here. One writer sees the command answered in Christ's own life.
"You shall have no other gods before Me." Every act of the lowly Man showed this. He displayed God's thought in that command; God was in all His thoughts.
- Rescue first. God introduces Himself as the Deliverer before He asks anything. The command rests on grace already given, not on obedience that earns it.
- Rights first. As Creator and Redeemer He claims first place. The command affirms that God is one and that His rule is exclusive.
- Place first. A second god is never just added beside Him. Whatever comes in takes the place before Him, and calling it a "reminder" only misrepresents Him.
- Heart first. An idol may have no statue. Anything that comes between the soul and God — money most often — has already taken the place He claims.
- Christ first. Israel broke the command within days. Christ kept it, and God filled all His thoughts.
Thou shalt not make thyself any graven image, or any form of what is in the heavens above, or what is in the earth beneath, or what is in the waters under the earth
The second commandment bans images. It rules out every carved or moulded likeness taken from any part of creation — sky, land or sea. It raises a question every generation has tried to dodge: if an image is only a reminder, is it still forbidden?
The command names heaven, earth and sea. One writer notes how absolute the wording is:
The language of these laws is absolute and firm. "You shall" or "you shall not." God allows no deviation. First, He allowed no other god to take His place. Nothing may be used even to represent God. No image, no likeness of anything in creation may hold any place of spiritual honour in people's minds. This is idolatry. Even pictures of this kind were forbidden (Num. 33:52).
The reach goes beyond images of God Himself to every other power, seen or unseen:
Second, they were not to try to have an image or material representation of any unseen power. God is "in heaven above," and He forbids anything claiming to be an image of Him. Many other powers exist, both invisible and visible, and they were to make no representations of these either.
At Sinai the people heard words. They saw no shape. That silence is itself the argument against images:
They saw nothing. God did not show Himself to them. He did not take any bodily shape from which they might form an image. He gave them His word, His holy commandments, so plain that a child could understand them... They were called to hear God's voice, not to see His shape — to obey His commandments, not to make an image of Him. Superstition vainly tries to honour God by forming and worshipping an image. Faith, on the other hand, lovingly receives and reverently obeys His holy commandments.
The excuse offered for images is old, and it is still in use:
They likely excused their idolatry, as many do today, by saying this was only an image made to represent God, but God forbade any such images (Ex. 20:4). In fact, though such things are claimed to be only representations, very soon the thing itself becomes the god that people worship.
Another writer answers the same excuse and names what it costs:
It is useless to say that the objects adored are only images for memory, not idols. The old heathen philosophers used exactly this excuse. They tried to excuse their superstition. They claimed that nobody thought the idols were the gods. The idols were only visible tokens that reminded them of beings above and behind them... The truth is that such visible tokens or signs deny faith. They destroy the very principle and power the Christian is told to walk in. He is called to "walk by faith and not by sight."
An idol need not be carved to exist. The shape is not the point:
Idolatry takes various shapes. So it is not a question of the shape of the thing, but of the thing itself; not the outward form, but the root or principle of it. We read that "covetousness is idolatry," and that a covetous man is an idolater. That is, a man wanting to get more than God has given him is an idolater — actually guilty of Israel's sin when they made the golden calf and worshipped it. Whatever commands the heart is the heart's idol, whatever it may be — money, pleasure, power or anything else.
Shutting out every image man makes cleared the ground for the one likeness God would give:
We cannot help seeing what the second commandment does. It clears away everything that would confuse the issue when our blessed Lord Jesus appeared as "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). In Him, and in Him alone, we find the true and perfect representation of all that God is.
The jealousy attached to this command is therefore read as jealousy for the Son:
God is jealous over His glory and will not give it to another. That only underlines the truth that the Son is one with the Father. All images that man might make can only provoke that jealousy. But here is "the image of the invisible God." He is jealous for His Son, "that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father."
- Likeness forbidden — the command sweeps through heaven, earth and sea. No part of creation may picture God or any unseen power.
- Likeness withheld — Israel heard a voice and saw no shape. God gave His word, not His form, so they were to obey Him, not imagine Him.
- Likeness excused — the plea that an image is "only a reminder" is as old as the heathen philosophers. The reminder soon becomes the god.
- Likeness hidden — an idol needs no carving. Whatever commands the heart is an idol. That is why covetousness is idolatry.
- Likeness given — God shut out every image man makes because He had one of His own to send. Christ is the image of the invisible God, and in Him alone we see God.