The Second Commandment goes to the heart of our relationship with our
Creator. What is the proper way to worship
the only true God?
"You shall not make for yourself a carved 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; you shall not bow down to them
nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth
generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to
those who love Me and keep My commandments" (Exodus 20:4-6).
The Second Commandment goes to the heart of our relationship with our
Creator. It deals with several crucial questions: How do we perceive
God? How do we explain Him to ourselves and to others? Idols are representations
of false, nonexistent gods, but may we use pictures or other images
that represent the true God? Above all, what is the proper way to worship
the only true God?
In the First Commandment we learned that it is wrong to allow any created
thing, including a human being, to become more important to us than
our Creator. The Second Commandment differs from the First in that it
explains that, in our worship, we must not reduce God to a likeness
of a physical object. Doing so is unquestionably unacceptable to God.
This Second Commandment explicitly forbids the use of any type of inanimate
or lifeless imagery-"any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in the earth beneath," in the worship of the living
God.
Yet God did create on earth a likeness of Himself-in humans.
He specifically tells us that He "created man in His own image; in the
image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27).
