What is a graven image according to the Bible?

Images were of two descriptions: they were cut or hewn out of a block of stone, and fashioned into some likeness. Dagon, the god of the Philistines, had face, head, and hands, being, as is supposed, half fish and half man. 1 Sam. 5:3-4. The gods made of a tree were also doubtless wrought, at least rudely, in the form of some living or imaginary creature. But there were also MOLTEN IMAGES, as the golden calf, which was first cast and then shaped more exactly with the graving tool. Ex. 32:4: cf. Acts 17:29. Yet Israel had been expressly forbidden to make 'any graven image' to bow down to or to worship. Ex. 20:4-5. The Gentile also, led on by Satan, made his own god, and worshipped it, turning his eyes away from God's 'eternal power and divinity' which are manifest in His works. Rom. 1:20-23.

The language of these laws is absolute and peremptory. “You shall” or “you shall not.” No allowance is made for any deviation. First, no other god could be allowed to take God's place. Nothing must in any way be used even to represent God, no image, no likeness of anything in creation must have any place of spiritual honor in people's minds. This is idolatry. Even pictures of this kind were forbidden (Num. 33:52)

In the second place they were to make no attempt to have an image or material representation of any unseen power. God is "in heaven above," and anything purporting to be an image of Him is forbidden. Many other powers there are both invisible and visible, and no representations of such are to be made. All the idols of the heathen are strictly forbidden, and in this connection the warning is issued as to the sins of the fathers descending in retribution on the children. God knew how terribly infectious such idolatrous practices are; and, that if the fathers start them the epidemic rages with tenfold virulence in the children, and brings down the judgment upon their heads.

The second commandment is related to the first, forbidding the making of images of any created thing, whether in heaven or earth or in the waters (v.8). Bowing down to such things or worshiping them is an insult to God. Israel did this in the case of the golden calf (Ex.32:1-8), but God is rightly jealous of His own glory, and if the fathers are guilty of such iniquity, God will visit the results of this upon the children to the third and fourth generation (v.9). It is always true that our children will suffer because of our disobedience to God. This does not affect the question of eternal salvation, for any one of the children may still call on the Lord and be saved, but their lives on earth will be affected by their parents' wrongdoing. If a man is a robber, his children will suffer on earth because of this, but they can still be saved eternally by receiving Christ as Savior.

Again Moses insists that Israel saw no form when the Lord spoke to them at Horeb, for the danger was present that they might corrupt themselves by making a carved image, whether in the form of a male or female or any animal, bird, reptile or fish (vs.16-18). Israel's history had illustrated the need for such a warning, for immediately after the law had been given they made the golden calf, breaking the first law they had promised to keep (Ex.32:1-4).

But alas, how far he had got! Was man indeed the offspring of God? and did he think that gold and silver and stone, — dead matter, graven by human skill into some resemblance of himself, could be a worthy representation of the divine? Could the eyes and ears and bodies of men, — things of which God could have no possible need for seeing or hearing — represent that in which they were "in His image"? The spiritual they could not represent! they could only degrade it by such similitudes.

What are we to understand by the words, "image" and "likeness"? Certainly neither term has reference to man's physical frame. Putting it briefly, "image" represents; "likeness" resembles. An image is not necessarily like the thing or person it is intended to represent. The coin that was shown to the Lord Jesus in Matt. 22:20 may not have borne a "likeness" of Caesar, but it certainly bore an "image" of him. As made in the "image" of God, man is set in this world to represent Him to the lower creatures in rule and blessing; this term has thus to do with man's position. "Likeness" has reference to his moral being, as one capable of entering into relationships and bearing responsibilities. Neither God's "image" nor "likeness" has been lost by the fall (Gen. 9:6; James 3:9). It is because of God's image in man that the sin of murder is so serious. To kill one who represents God is high treason against Him whom he represents.

A frequent question is raised as to the force of the terms and their precise shade of difference; for those are not to be heard who hide their ignorance under the assumption that both mean the same thing. The usage throughout the O. and N. Testaments seems to indicate that "image" represents, and "likeness" resembles. Thus the "image" of the world-power in Nebuchadnezzar's dream represented the succession of Gentile empires from first to last: likeness could not be the point. So it is "image" in the plain of Dura (Dan. 3), the proportions of which exclude a human figure, or the resemblance of any living creature. Whatever it might not be like, it definitely represented what the monarch commanded to be an object of worship. Again, in the N. T. the denarius our Lord asked for had on its face the image and superscription of Caesar. It might have been a faulty likeness, but was an indisputable image of the Roman imperator. It expressed his authority and represented his claim over the Jews because of their departure from God, ill as they liked to own either.

What were they, these idol-images? Matter simply — silver and gold — shaped by men's hands! Mouth and eyes there all right: both things that are said to "speak," and are in different ways "witness" for the man himself, an index of what is in the heart. But the idol gives no response to his worshiper by word or look. Nay, he realizes nothing: the voice that cries to him he hears not, the odor of incense or of sacrifice he perceives not. No hand can tie stretch out to help, no foot of his will stir to bring relief, no murmur of sound even is in the idle throat. What can these senseless deities do but degrade the men who bow before them into beings as senseless? And this is the just penalty upon those who can forsake God, to follow palpably their own inventions.

Here we learn, in the plainest manner, that there is no depth of sin and folly, no form of moral pravity into which we are not capable of plunging, at any moment, if not kept by the mighty power of God. There is no security for us save in the moral shelter of the divine presence. We know that the Spirit of God does not warn us against things to which we are not liable. He would not say to us, "Neither be ye idolaters," if we were not capable of being such. Idolatry takes various shapes. It is not therefore a question of the shape of the thing, but of the thing itself; not the outward form, but the root or principle of the thing. We read that, "covetousness is idolatry;" and that a covetous man is an idolater. That is, a man desiring to possess himself of more than God has given him is an idolater — is actually guilty of the sin of Israel when they made the golden calf and worshipped it. Well might the blessed apostle say to the Corinthians — say to us, "Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." Why be warned to flee from a thing to which we are not liable? Are there any idle words in the volume of God? What mean those closing words of the first epistle of John, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols"? Do they not tell us that we are in danger of worshipping idols? Assuredly they do. Our treacherous hearts are capable of departing from the living God, and setting up, some other object beside Him; and what is this but idolatry? Whatever commands the heart is the heart's idol, be it what it may, money, pleasure, power or ought else; so that we may well see the urgent need for the many warnings given us by the Holy Ghost against the sin of idolatry.