What is the true meaning of the second commandment?

The second forbids idolatry, — the abasing Him to some creature-conception. (See Rom. 1:23.)

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)

Secondly, such things, wherever they existed, were not to be bowed down to or served, for the Lord God is rightly a jealous God (the only One who has a right to be jealous). This is so serious that people's iniquity would inflict suffering on their children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate God, those who despise His commandments. On the other hand, His character is such as to show mercy to those who love Him and keep His commandments. Thus, though God is perfectly holy and righteous, yet He is not harsh and cruel, but compassionate.

The first commandment is absolutely basic, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (v.7). For immediately 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 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.

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.

Here lies the solid ground of the appeal against idolatry. They saw nothing. God did not show Himself to them. He did not assume any bodily shape of which they might form an image. He gave them His word, His holy commandments, so plain that a child could understand them, and the wayfaring men though fools need not err therein. There was no need for them therefore to set about imagining what God was like; nay, this was the very sin against which they were so faithfully warned. 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 seeks to do honour to God by forming and worshipping an image. Faith, on the contrary, lovingly receives and reverently obeys His holy commandments. "If a man love me," says our blessed Lord, "he will" — what? make an image of me, and worship it? Nay, but "he will keep my words." This makes it so simple, so safe, so certain. We are not called to work up our minds to form any conception of God. We have simply to hear His word and keep His commandments. We can have no idea whatever of God, but as He has been pleased to reveal Himself. "No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him." "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

It is remarkable that the commandments given with the object of asserting and safeguarding the glory and the rights of God should be three, and this long before the reality of the three Persons in the Godhead was brought to light. We cannot but see in the second the clearing away of all that would be calculated to 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, is found the true and perfect representation of all that God is.

But upon the mercy-seat was no representation of God. "God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24). How divinely in accord with all His truth it is that, in those days of partial revelation, of type and shadow, God should have most jealously guarded the conception of His infinitely glorious being from any semblance of representation so universal among the heathen.

1912 127 God's detestation of idols, so early marked in His dealings with Israel long after the call of Abraham to be a witness to the one living and true God, is clearly in view of His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus. The injunction, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 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: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them: for I Jehovah thy God am a jealous God" (Exodus 20:3-5), becomes luminous in the light of The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only begotten with a Father) full of grace and truth." "No one hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John 1:14-15, 18).

The image of jealousy presents, first, the general thought which underlies all that follows here. God will not give His glory to another. Hence any self-devised image of Him, which must of necessity be man's imagination, must be a challenge of the One only to be known by revelation, otherwise unsearchable. It is impossible indeed for man's thoughts to get beyond himself. Thus the image of God which he devises must be only in some way a reflection of himself; but this is the debasement of God to man's own likeness. The question is asked in Job as an unanswerable one: "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" Whatever the witness of creation therefore (true witness as it is), God never really left man to that. He declared Himself, as Scripture assures us, at the beginning; and it was man who voluntarily got away from this, banished himself into the darkness and distortion of his own thoughts.

And still this image of jealousy is that which threatens us all. It stands, as it were, at the very entrance when we would approach God Himself. And it need not be a visible or open image to do this. What admonition there is for us in this endeavor, as it really is, to have a god after our own thoughts, which is always in opposition to the true God? Thus "covetousness," the apostle tells us, "is idolatry;" and this, as we know, may be amongst those who are in all other respects most orthodox. But the heart after its own object, seeking that which gratifies itself (although it never satisfies), will have a god according to its own thought; while in name He may abide just what He was, and all the points of orthodoxy be preserved.

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.