Let's open up our Bibles this morning to the book of Exodus, chapter 20, verses four and five. It's on page 61 in the blue Bibles that are provided there for you. We continue through the 10 commandments. Last week we saw that the first commandment says who to worship, which is God alone, This week, how to worship. Exodus chapter 20, verses four through six. And this is God's word. 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 or serve them, for I, the Lord, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the instruction of your word. And we pray now that by your Holy Spirit, you would open our hearts and minds to what you are here teaching us. And we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. We enjoy having control over photographs of ourselves. In the photos that are in your phone, you have that control. And if there's a picture of you in there that you think is unflattering or even, appalling, you can get rid of it. Tap it, hit the trash can or however your phone works and away it goes. Bye bye. You know, it's a simple matter. We don't really think about it. We control those images of ourselves. Our Lord God, He hates it when people make images of Him. Because who He is goes far beyond our ability to ever capture. and we come to know him positively, not through representations of him that we make, but through representations of him that he makes and shows to us in his word and in the work of his son, Jesus Christ. So today we explore images of God. First of all, false images, which is what the second commandment is warning us about, and then the true image of God, Jesus Christ. False images of God. In the second commandment, God follows up saying who we should worship with how we should worship, and in, to be specific, God forbids images or pictures of deity. So here's verse four. 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 might wonder here whether God is forbidding art. And some religious traditions have taken it that way. But that's not the case. God is not forbidding art, nor is God forbidding even art used in his worship. Later in Exodus, in the instructions for making the tabernacle, the Israelites are told to make images of lilies and pomegranates and cherubim. So those kind of images are drawn in to, are part of God's worship. It is pictures of divinity. that God doesn't allow. Like verse five says, it is the things that people are bowing down to and serving. And then it lists various types of these images, things in heaven above. Later on in history, the Roman legions would march with a standard of an eagle held aloft, and that eagle represented Jupiter. That is a kind of graven image of things above, drawn from the heavens, from the skies. The Phoenicians and the Philistines worshiped a fish god, Dagon. And they bowed down before that fish man image. But God's, God forbids all of that pagan idol worship. It has to be said, though, that pagan idol worship understands something that is true. The truth it understands is that there is a God, there is divinity, and they're seeking to worship that divine nature somehow. Romans 1.20 says that all people at some level can see from the creation, from the things that have been made, God's power, and so forth. So pagan worship is kind of grasping toward that. But it's false. God, the true God, has not revealed his name as Jupiter or Dagon. He's not set his image, his emblem up as an eagle or a fish. Idols, like this, images are springing, well, as Paul said, to the idol-crazy Athenians in Acts chapter 17. These are the product of the art and imagination of people. And so here, God is forbidding that in the second commandment. The second commandment, though, in addition to forbidding pagan worship, probably is really aimed more at God's people in order to discourage them from worshiping the Lord with an image. Because a person can say, I believe in the Lord, which is right, but then say, and we worship him with this, in Exodus chapter 32, I believe, this golden calf. You might remember the story of Aaron making the golden calf, and in Exodus chapter 32, verse five, after he makes the calf, he then proclaims the feast to the Lord. So that calf, or maybe better translated young bull, was supposed to emblemize the Lord. God then comments to Moses in Exodus 32 verse eight, that people have quickly turned aside from the way I commanded them. God there referring to the second commandment and the fact that the people have already put forward an image by which he is to be worshiped. And we can see just in that example how images distort God. We could say that a young bull pictures strength. It's nothing though like the power of God. A young bull certainly says nothing about the wisdom of God or the grace of God or anything like that. It is a huge distortion of who God is. Extremely misleading, not to mention unauthorized. Every picture of God lies. God, in Deuteronomy chapter four, gave Israel the reason they're not supposed to make carved images. He says, you didn't see a form when I appeared to you on Mount Sinai. You saw no form, God says, therefore, make no image. He hasn't shown us a form. We're not to make an image. One church father commented, to give form to the deity is the height of folly and impiety. And that's surely what the second commandment is saying. Images distort God in another way too. In terms of the theory of idols, what idols are supposed to be accomplishing is they are, in the mind of the worshiper, they open up a portal to the divine or a kind of channel to the world of the spirits. The thought is that this idol consecrated to the deity then becomes a sort of microphone by which you can reach that deity. If you offer food to the idol, then the deity in a sense has to show up and pay attention to you and listen to you. It's a kind of technology for manipulating God, in quotes. And so it distorts God in that way too because God is not manipulatable by us. He can't be controlled like that. In that idle economy as well, theologian Gerhard as Foss points out, that it would often be the case that as idol worshipers focus on that image, that tangible image would even in their minds eclipse the deity it was supposed to represent. I mean, they ended up really putting a lot of stock in these wood and stone or gold and silver idols, investing them with great importance and great meaning. The prophets then speak about this and they compare the intelligence of the worshipers to the very idols they're worshiping. They're dead images and to worship them is to be like them. As we look at God's response to images of the divine, God gives a warning in verse five. Look at verse five, it says, you shall not bow down to them or 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 generation of those who hate me. God says, he says, images stir up my jealousy. And he doesn't, again, he doesn't just mean images of pagan gods like Baal. but even supposed images of himself like the golden calf. because they're false. You could say, you could put it this way, God has already shown himself to Israel. He showed himself to Israel in sending the plagues on Egypt. He showed himself to Israel in providing a Passover lamb. He showed himself to Israel by dividing the sea and enabling them to pass from death into life. He has shown himself already. And to have them say, yeah, yeah, but what we would really like is a nice golden calf. is, it's really a slap in the face to God. It's a rejection that stirs up his jealousy. Like a spouse who is rightly jealous of the attention and the affection of the person they married, so God is rightly jealous for the attention and affection of all humans made in his image, but especially those he has redeemed. And to distort God by worshiping through images is, in the words of verse five, functionally to hate him. And we can see how that's so. If you think about a relationship in which one person is distorting another, when one person doesn't allow the other person to speak or whatever they say, they twist around, and they won't let that person be known, and they're always trying to keep them down. That kind of refusal to know someone and the distortion of that person really amounts to a kind of functional hatred. But to represent God by an idol does the very same thing. It twists who he is and doesn't let God, it tries not to let God speak for himself. We see here that God says he will visit iniquity on the following generations. That doesn't mean that God will punish children for what their parents did. God says in Deuteronomy chapter 24, 16, that it's wrong to punish children for what their parents do. But what God is indicating here is that as parents lead their family in a pathway of idolatry, most of the time they're going to lead their children and grandchildren into that same practice and into the same consequences of that. And so, as we all know all too well, the sins of the fathers ricochet down through the generations. And that's what God is saying here. That this idolatry can be a sort of family disease then. We'll come back to that in a second. But looking at the positive side in verse six, the Lord says, I show steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. In other words, if we will not distort God, but actually receive him as he is, and let me put that in a New Testament frame for us, if we will receive God as he comes to us in his son, Jesus Christ, the Savior, if we will respond to that graciousness by embracing Christ in faith, and then becoming his disciples and walking after him in a grateful, repentant obedience, in devotion to Jesus, then that is to walk forward in the love of God. Christ said in John 15.10, he said, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. So this is talking about the fellowship of God with his people in love. And we should notice here the great zeal that God has to love his people. Did you notice how verse five says that in the case of idol worship, God visits iniquities to the third and fourth generation? But then, by the way, in Hebrew, the word generation isn't there, it's implied. He visits iniquity to the third and fourth. We supply a generation, that's what it must mean. The next verse, which is parallel, says, but, he shows steadfast love to thousands, We should again supply generations, thousands of generations to those who love him and keep my commandments, God says. In other words, God is, he is in there telling us something about himself. In verse five, he is talking about how he upholds his own justice and his righteousness, and he does it most firmly, and the expression three to four generations captures that. But then he moves on to talk about his steadfast love and he talks about a thousand generations. He's telling us something about how while he is committed to his justice, God delights in steadfast love. It is God's absolute delight to lavish love on his people. As the prophet Micah, God says in Micah, I delight in steadfast love. That's good news for us, is it not? Do we not depend on the steadfast love of God? Do we not rejoice in the fact that God is so very eager to pour out his grace on his people? So he's saying something to us here about his tendencies and his love of showing love to us, which is really amazing and it's precious. And it reinforces what God is saying about images because how on earth would you know that by looking at a golden calf, right? You can't know about God by looking at that sort of an image. You have to pay attention to his word and refuse to worship God via images. A further implication there is that in all ways that we seek to know God, parentheses, public worship is the high point which we gather and in worship God know him through the singing of his praise, the preaching of his word, celebrating the sacrament, that to conduct ourselves in the public worship of God according to his word is so very important because that way we can be sure that we are coming to know God really and also that what we do pleases him. What I'm just articulating here is called the regulative principle of worship, that all worship should be conducted in accordance with God's word, and in some way mandated in God's word. So that's another very important thing that's implied in our passage. So that far in false images, let's turn and moving to the New Testament, Think about the true image of God. When we get to the New Testament, we come to understand a little bit more why God prohibits images. The reason, among the reasons God prohibits images is because he's reserving that category for Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the image of God. Colossians 1.15 calls Jesus the image of the invisible God. God himself comes in human form, in the flesh, to show us God in a way we can take in. Jesus says famously in John 14, nine, if you have seen me, you've seen the Father. And in the ministry of Jesus, revealed in the pages of the New Testament, God shows us himself in a fulsome way that we can process and take in. In other words, as we wonder, God is love, but what is God's love like? What is God's wisdom like? What does it look like when God gives wisdom? How does God provide forgiveness? All these things are addressed in the ministry of Jesus Christ as we look at his teaching, as we look at his interactions with people, as we look at what he is doing, especially as we see his great sacrifice and then his resurrection with power. In all these ways, God is showing his character to us, his great favor, and his determination to save us and bring us home. And he shows it so clearly in his son, his image, Jesus. We might ask the question, if Jesus is the image of God, and clearly in Christ, God comes in the flesh, are we then allowed to make pictures of Jesus? And Christians are all over the map on that question. But in our church, we believe that we should not make pictures of Jesus based on the second commandment and the principle that making pictures of Jesus will lead to distortion. I mean, for one thing, at just a basic level, we don't know what Jesus looked like. Other than he was a Jewish man, we know nothing. So whatever picture we make is pure imagination. So there's that. But then beyond that, if we go past a representation of Jesus that's beyond a sort of schematic representation, I say schematic because I think if you drew a stick figure of a person and put a J next to it or something, I don't think that breaks the spirit of the second commandment. That's a sort of illustration that Jesus is a man. But any sort of portrait of Christ, like a study of him, like a painting of his face and so forth, as J.I. Packer pointed out, it is unavoidable in such a portrait that the artist is, of course, trying to convey something about God. And that's just what God warned about in Deuteronomy. He said, you saw no form, therefore make no image. And so we shouldn't try to represent things about God in that way. In that way, we're in danger of falling back into that same mistake. It is Christ, not as portrayed by an artist, but portrayed in the scripture, who's really telling us the truth without distortion. So all your questions about the Father, And I think we all have questions about the Father. Is He kind? Is He fair? You know, we wonder these things, because there's so much we don't understand. We look at the ministry of Jesus, Was he kind? Was he fair? Did he love people? And usually the answer is clearly yes. That doesn't clear up every question we'd ever have about God, but it gives us such a clear and encouraging beat on who God is. That's his image. Jesus is a gracious, approachable, saving savior. And he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, the Father's the same. So, I mean, that is very encouraging. I didn't mean to get all choked up. You know, just turning a corner here, when it comes to knowing God, The second commandment also reminds us that the knowledge of God is not static. When somebody makes an image of God, really they're making God static. But our knowledge of God should not be static, it should not be simplistic, and it should not be reductionistic. And what is an image but reductionistic? It's a sort of take on something that might even be carved in stone. And we could call it a caricature in stone, if it's of God, or a caricature in fresco. Or we could call it a kind of frozen mistake, or a permanent distortion. This is what an image is. But a true knowledge of God is not static like that. And our knowledge of God ought to always be growing. And this is the kind of last thing I want to dwell on here for a couple more minutes. In other words, although God never changes, God's knowledge of himself is not growing or changing in any way. Nevertheless, God reveals himself to us bit by bit. So in the second commandment, you see, don't make any images. But then when you get to Jesus, you find out why God said that. It's again, it's to reserve the category of image for Jesus. Even in the scripture, then you see the knowledge of God being more and more clear and more and more developed by God for us. And it's the same way in our understanding. We start out knowing some things about God, but then it is natural and normal as Christians for this knowledge to build and to grow. Because God is immense, and what it means to understand God in some measure and to experience Him, what it means to be the subject or recipient of His steadfast love and learn to respond to Him in love, that's huge. I mean, the topic of the knowledge of God is bottomless, and at the same time, so important. And just as it's wrong to make an image of God because that's a sort of frozen conception that's distorting, I want to challenge us in this way, that if our conception of God is static, that's a problem. I'm not saying if it's incomplete, that's a problem. because none of us have any kind of, I think the rest of forever we'll be getting toward, you know, we'll be learning more about God. We'll never get to the bottom of that. He's infinite. Yes, our knowledge is incomplete, and that's of course, but for our knowledge to be static in any sense, that is something for us to watch out about. like an object frozen in stone. In other words, it can be a temptation to sort of boil God down to a word or a slogan, like God is love, or God is good, or even God is a mystery, or God is in control, and to kind of say that, but not really think about the other aspects of who God is in order to get the full and well-rounded picture. In other ways, being rigid about who God is or kind of undeveloping, as in God's disposition toward a certain person or group is this. Well, actually, we can't read God's mind, and we shouldn't have super rigid ideas about what he's thinking about something that's kind of beyond what his word says. Or God wants me to do this in a very sort of rigid way that's not open to being instructed otherwise. What I'm saying positively is that the great project of all God's people is to know Him. And this knowledge of God is something that is building and growing in us. And think about this as a kind of collection. If you are collecting something, and so I collect books, of course. So I use the illustration of books. If you're building a nice little library for yourself, the prime part of your collection is going to be those things you really, really prize and value, super helpful. In the knowledge of God, that's like the person and work of Christ, His great ministry, to focus in on his character and his death for us and his resurrection. So that's like prime place in the knowledge of God. And to explore that is a great adventure. We could say right next to that, of course, is everything scripture teaches about God, which none of us fully know, and so we're always adding to that category as well. But then there's all kinds of stuff God paints in the world about himself, ways we know about God and everything from, you know, mountains to lizards and bats and everything. Like there's messages about God all around us if we will just open up our eyes. Also in the course of your life and what God brings you through and things you thought weren't gonna happen that did or vice versa, you know, in ways that God orders your life, it shows you also things about Him that are new to you. Our great calling as believers is to have this ever-growing collection of knowledge of God. like Mary, who pondered all those things and treasured them up in her heart for us to, as we learn more about God, to, as it were, put it in our collection and rejoice all the more in who God is. Never be content with a sort of static knowledge of God that's simplistic and reductionistic, but to always seek to heed his word and to know God more and more. Always a collector. When you read the Bible, ask, what does this teach me about God? Again, as you look around you, what does this show me about my heavenly Father in God's work in your life? What am I learning about God here? And as we pay attention to God in his word and his works, then we come more and more to truly know him, and as we do, to also treasure him. Let me pray for us. Dear Father, we thank you for revealing yourself to us in your Word, and especially by your Son, Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, that in our understanding of you, we would seek always to be guided by Christ and by your Word and by your works. And we pray, Father, that as we engage in this ongoing discovery of who you are, you would give us also the joy of knowing that God is as good and as great as you. Father, help us to engage in this project of discovery with great joy and fill our hearts with praise as we learn more and more about who you are. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.