Image Is Everything

Irwyn Ince

Exodus • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

Exodus 20:4–6

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The fullest expression of our dignity and value is seen when our lives are given to the worship of Jesus Christ.

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Introduction

Exodus 20:4–6 ESV

4 “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. 5 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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

In January 2015 Ghanaian English journalist Afua Hirsch gave a TED talk in Tottenham, England. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. When their conferences began in 1984 they were focused on the convergence of those three things. However, today TED talks cover almost any conceivable topic. They’re intended to be short powerful talks no longer than 18 minutes…Afua’s TED talk was titled, “Our Identity.”

Her father is English and her mother is Ghanaian. In her talk, she relayed two personal encounters where people perceived her in different ways. One encounter was with a former colleague. The former colleague was attempting to flatter her with compliments on her professional qualifications. But at some point in the conversation, he nervously said to her in a quiet tone, “And you’re…you’re Black.” Afua said,

“I couldn’t help but laugh. I tried not to let him see me laughing at that. And I wondered why it is so awkward for him to say something to me that was so obvious?...I think on the one hand, he was unsure of whether that was an insulting thing to say. And on the other hand, maybe he was unsure as to whether that was how I see myself.”

Then, she describes a separate encounter in another part of town where the image someone has of her is completely different. This time, she’s with her boyfriend and his young nephew at a restaurant. Her boyfriend decided to play a little trick on his nephew. When the check came the boy asked if he could see it. His uncle said, “It’s very expensive,” and told him it was some outrageously high amount. The boy’s eyes got big and he said, “How are we ever going to pay it?” The uncle said, “Let’s make a dash for the door!” The boy says, “We can’t do that.” Then his uncle replies, “I suppose you’re right. It would be pretty conspicuous – the only three Black people in the restaurant making a dash for the door without paying.” But then the boy said, “There’re not three Black people! There’re two Black people! She’s White!” Pointing at Afua. Sometimes children have no filter. They just call it like they see it. She didn’t fit the image he had in his head of a Black person.

Image. How do others see us? How do we see ourselves? Who gets to determine what the image is? In some respects, image is everything. Sprite had a commercial a few years back. The tagline was, “Image is nothing. Thirst is everything. Obey your thirst.” But the fact of the matter is image matters. “We don’t know what to think of ourselves,” says theologian Richard Pratt. “Some of us feel so worthless that we can hardly stand to live another minute. Others are so full of self-importance that they lift hands in praise to their own divinity. One says, ‘I am nothing.’ Another says, ‘I am God.’”

Let me tell you something. Our text today, the 2nd commandment, , confirms the fact that image is everything. Not in the sense that you need to improve your public image. You might. But that isn’t what I’m talking about. Image is everything where God is concerned, which means that image is everything where we’re concerned to. You’ll see what I’m talking about as we work through this message.

Le have three L’s today, Liberty, Life, and Likeness.

Liberty

There are a couple of things that I mean when I use the word liberty here in reference to the second commandment. The first thing is this. We need to have this indelible impression in our minds when it comes to God’s Law. The Law of God is given particularly to people who are free. These folk have been liberated from bondage. The Law applies to everybody. Nobody is able to say, “I’m exempt from God’s Law.”

If I travel to another country and do something to violate their laws, I can’t just say, “We don’t have that law where I come from. You should give me a pass.” Ignorance of their laws might not keep my behind out of jail. I’m in their land, so I’m subject to their law.

Well, if God is God, then this is his world. And his commandments are binding for every person. There’s no escape clause. But it’s so important to remember that when God gives it, he gives it to people whom he has liberated. This is why we find James telling his hearers in ch. 2:12 of his NT letter to speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.

To belong to the Lord is to be set free from bondage. The question now is how shall we live? What are we to do? How are we to govern our lives as his people. These are questions that the children of Israel needed answered. The Lord didn’t free them from slavery and say, “Now go figure it out for yourself.” No. When they were set free, the point of God setting them free was so that he could bring them to himself. “Let my people go,” was the message to Pharaoh. Why? “So that they may worship me.” The Lord brings us out to bring us in. He brings us out of our enslavement to sin, out of our enslavement to thinking that we’re running the show, that we’re the masters even of our own lives. And he brings us to himself, showing us his beauty, his power, his glory, saying, “You’re mine. I’m your God, and you’re my people. Here’s how my people live.”

The second thing I mean by liberty flows out of the first. The commandments are connected. The Lord kicks the commandments off by saying to his people, “You shall have no other gods before me.” As newly liberated people, let’s be clear on where your allegiance lies. Let’s be clear on who always, at every point of the day, throughout every day of the year, must be your first love. We get that. Whether you’re married right now, have been married in the past, or hope to be married in the future, you know that it’s not OK for one spouse to start loving somebody else more than they love their spouse. It’s not OK for a husband or a wife to start to be more devoted to another person than they are to their own spouse. That’s a problem. That part of the wedding vow when you say, “forsaking all others, and keeping myself only to you as long as we both shall live,” that ain’t no joke. That’s a commitment to exclusive devotion, and that’s the commitment in the first commandment.

Where the first commandment demands exclusive loyalty, the second commandment says you’re liberated, but you’re not free to do things in regard this relationship however you want to do them.

Exodus 20:4 ESV

4 “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.

The second commandment is about idolatry. It forbids the making of idols. Idolatry is a manifestation of our sin problem throughout the Bible. In the last words of the NT letter 1 John, John says that Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life. Then he says, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” Idolatry isn’t somehow only a problem of the past.

Here in the 2nd commandment, the particular word used for image refers directly to a carved image; something carved out of wood or chiseled out of stone. In the ancient world the statement, image is everything was true. In the ancient world, the image and the god were inseparable. The image was not understood only to be a representation of the god, but image contained the presence and power of the god itself. The image was everything. We consider this in our contemporary society, with all of our advancements and think, “How primitive is that?” Who would believe that something crafted by human hands would have supernatural power? Who would believe that people can make a god with their own hands? I’ll tell you who would believe it. We would.

The Lord is saying, “Do not make me in your image.” Do not make me into what or who you think I ought be. I am who I am. I am the one who has all the liberty to reveal myself as I choose. You have no liberty to make me into your image. He’s revealed himself in his word. Every time we make up stuff about how God is based on how we want him to be, we’re right in line with the ancients and their idolatry.

The problem isn’t simply a matter of images. Image is everything in one sense, and like the Sprite commercial said, image is nothing, in another sense. The tabernacle and later the temple in Israel are full of images. There are all kinds of images used in the context of Israel’s worship. The ark of the covenant is going to have two cherubim of gold on top of it. The image of the cherubim are going to be next to another image, the mercy seat. There’s going to be a lampstand with six branches like a tree, and cups like almond blossoms. The priest is going to have a breastplate with twelve stones on it representing the twelve tribes of Israel. In fact, we find out in the NT, in that the whole tabernacle was an image. It was copy, the Bible says, and a shadow of the heavenly things. Who commanded this image to be made? The Lord did.

So image itself isn’t the heart of the issue. The heart of the issue is worship. That’s why the Lord says in v. 5, “You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I am a jealous God.” The issue is a worship issue. You have liberty, but you don’t have liberty to make something into an object of worship. Sometimes folks say, the 2nd commandment forbids images. You can’t have art inside of a church building. You can’t have any expression of creativity within a Christian worship service. Our God isn’t a bland God. He’s not vanilla. He’s the greatest creative there is in existence. He desires us to worship him with everything, with all our mind, with all our heart, with all our strength. What he says is that you don’t have the liberty to make something that substitutes for me. You don’t have that right.

He says to Israel in , “Watch yourselves carefully. You didn't see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire. Be careful that you don’t act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves…watch out that you don’t even raise your eyes to sky and see the sun and the moon and the stars and you bow down to them and serve them.” The Lord gives this commandment because he understands that we have a worship problem. We find ourselves continually drawn to fix our hearts and our affections on something or someone to worship that’s not the true and living God.

Living

That’s our second L, “living.” The second reason we’re not free to make or use anything in all creation as a substitute for the Lord is because idols are nothing. Idols are dead. They don’t have life, and they can’t give life. The Lord says, listen, I’m a jealous God. I’m not willing to share you with anyone. This is that covenantal marriage jealousy. The word translated as jealous combines the concept of passion and jealousy. It means that the Lord is passionately protective of his relationship with his people. Get this. He is passionately protective of his relationship with his people. Jesus is passionately protective of his relationship with those who belong to him. He isn’t ho-hum about the relationship.

How often do relationships end because people get tired of each other? How often is it that the fire dims, and the relationship devolves from enjoyment and excitement to co-existence for the sake of the kids, or because this is all we’ve known for so long, we’re afraid to do anything else. When the Lord Jesus brings us into this committed, eternal relationship with him, from his perspective the passion and commitment never dies. Somebody needs to hear that this morning. No matter how we feel, if we belong to him, he is passionately protective of his relationship with us, and that will never diminish. That truth isn’t based on whether or not you actually feel that way all the time. It’s based on whether or not you’ve been liberated by him. Whether you’ve turned to him in confession and repentance and put your life in his hands.

You see, we find even in the warning of the second commandment that the Lord’s mercy and grace is greater than his judgment. He says for those who hate him, he visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. The key word is, “for those who hate me.” It’s not saying that God somehow punishes the children for their parents’ sins. It’s saying that when you’re actively committed to idolatry, you’re actively committed to hating God. And that creates an atmosphere in the household to also love idols and hate God. Notice that it’s not only the first generation, but the third and the fourth generations who hate him. A commitment to idolatry—that is a commitment to living a life with our primary devotion being given to anything else other than the Triune God of the Bible, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is the same thing as hating God. Do not be confused about this. Do not be deceived about this. Be clear on it.

And also be clear on the fact that his mercy is broader, as Professor John Frame says, than his wrath. Steadfast love to the thousands for those who love him, doesn’t mean steadfast love thousands of people. It means steadfast love to a thousand generations.

Deuteronomy 7:9 ESV

9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

This blessing speaks of God’s grace because there’s no one who doesn’t sin. Indeed, this blessing points us to Jesus Christ. This blessing comes to us through Jesus Christ. He is the one who refused to commit even the least idolatry. He is the only one who was ever completely innocent, and who was as faithful to God as God was to him. He has won, through his sacrificial death on the cross and through his resurrection from the dead, he has won the blessing of steadfast love for the thousands of generations of his children.

To quote Frame again, “Since there is no one who does not sin, this blessing speaks of God’s grace.” Indeed, this blessing points us to Jesus Christ. This blessing comes to us through Jesus Christ. He is the one who refused to commit even the least idolatry. He is the one who was ever completely innocent, and who was as faithful to God as God was to him. He has won, through his sacrificial death on the cross and through his resurrection from the dead, he has won the blessing of steadfast love for the thousands of generations of his children.

Do you see how much more wonderful that is compared to worshipping a dead idol instead of the living God? You’re going to worship.You’re going to worship every day. You cannot help yourself. You have to love something more than anything else. There’s no way around it.

The Lord chastises the people in because they take a block of wood, half of it they use for firewood to warm themselves and to cook, the other half they make into a god to worship. Just like that block of wood is nothing—it has no knowledge, it’s deaf, it’s mute, it’s blind—that’s precisely what those who are committed to it become. G. K. Beale puts it well when he says this, “We resemble what we revere, either for ruin or restoration.” Did you get that? The saying goes, “you are what you eat.” “Garbage in, garbage out.” We just came through the month of January, and you know what happens every January. Gym memberships go up because people say, “I’m turning over a new leaf!” “I'm going to eat better this year. I’m going to exercise more.” Why? Because you know that you’re ruining yourself with your poor eating. At some point it’s going to come back to bite you.

It’s just like that with idolatry. Idols can’t give life; they can only destroy life. That’s what they do. That’s their jam. They promise life, but they kill. They promise joy, but they devastate. They promise peace, but they bring disruption. “Greed devours us,” says Richard Pratt, “intellectual pursuits lead to arrogance; lovers disappoint us; national leaders fail. But God will never abuse those who serve him.” The only one who can promise life and give life is the living God.

Likeness

The living God liberates his people to worship him rightly, and there is one more amazing reason why God forbids making an image of him for worship. What is the first thing that the Bible says about humanity? What is the first declaration about what it means to be human? , “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Nobody gets to declare any created thing to be the image of God except him. Here is why image is everything. Humanity doesn’t bear or have the image of God. Humanity is the image of God. We’re not God, we’re only image, but there’s only one thing that God has said is his likeness in the earth. That’s us. This should be making your head explode right about now when you think about how jacked up we are, and how much dignity is wrapped up in that declaration. Richard Pratt says God “determined to make us creatures of incomparable value and dignity.” He says you need to find another person and shake his or her hand, saying in sincerity, “Hello, your Majesty!” I’m not going to press all the way in on this because I want to keep moving. But what God declares in the Bible about humanity is why we can say Black Lives Matter. It’s the very basis upon which we can say that from the moment of conception this new person has inherent value, dignity, and a right to life. What the Bible says about us is why we can declare life to be precious from the womb to the tomb; from the country club to the prison courtyard; from the White House to the outhouse God has declared humanity to be his image! Image is everything!

Why do we even have Black History Month in this country? It’s a 2nd Commandment issue! Why do we have HBCUs in this country? It’s a 2nd Commandment issue! It’s because the church wasn’t being the church! When the society was saying that black and brown people were devalued, less than human, and worthy of enslavement, the church as a whole wasn’t pressing against that tide and saying, “No! Black and brown people are royalty!” Sin is so corrupting and corrosive that groups of humans will look at other groups of humans en mass and assign value to them based on how different they are. This is why racism is idolatry. It’s a sinful devaluation of some of God’s image bearers and a sinful overvaluation of other image bearers. My friend and co-laborer, Rev. Duke Kwon puts it well when he says this about racism,

Racism is an idolatrous ecosystem of beliefs, behaviors, and social structures that assigns values or advantage based on ethnicity, culture, or race. It’s individual and systemic, behavioral and attitudinal, conscious and subconscious, explicit and implicit, active and passive.

When we can see with gospel lenses that have the second commandment in mind our eyes will be keen to the systems and structures, the behaviors and practices that still overvalue some and undervalue others on the basis of ethnicity, culture, or race.

So, when we see with second commandment eyes we realize that when we worship anything other than the true God, including an inordinate self-love of our own group of people, when we worship idols we’re not only taking away from the dignity of God, we’re taking away from the dignity of his true image, humanity. As Frame says, “For man to bow down to an idol is to worship something less than himself. It’s an affront to God’s dignity and also an affront to man’s.” Last quote from a theologian for today. “God is the true image-maker—humans are his image, and as his image they are to worship him and reflect his authentic image and not worship and reflect false images made by human hands.”

Do you get that the second commandment was intended to protect our identity as image bearers? Every time you worship something that was created by people, you’re diminishing the dignity of people. Every time your life is all about getting paid, you’re diminishing your own value. Idols lie. They say, “you need me. You can’t live without me. If you don’t have me, you’ll just die.” What’s saying that to you? Whatever it is, it is diminishing your dignity. You don’t realize who’s image you are.

The answer to self-defeating, self-destroying, self-diminishing idolatry problem is where it always is. The answer is in Jesus Christ.

Colossians 1:15–20 ESV

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

He is the one who is fully God and fully man. Thus he is the only one who fulfills the criteria as an image of God to whom we ought to bow in worship and adoration. The good news is that when we do bow down in worship and adoration to Jesus he renews us into the image bearers we are created and called to be. This is what we heard in our Scripture reading from that same letter to the Colossians. We’re told in ch. 3, “If then…” Then we’re told, “Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you’ve put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”

Image is everything. And God is committed to renewing his image. Not his image as in his rep, but his image meaning “us.” As white, black, Latino, Korean, Indian, Egyptian, Palestinian, rich, poor, young, old, when we are in Christ the old self has been put off. It’s a done deal. The new self has been put on. It’s a done deal. Then there is a process, and the process is described as being renewed in knowledge after the image of our creator. Our new selves are being renewed together into the image of our creator. This is what Jesus is doing. This is why the commandment still stands. Keep yourselves from idols. You have far too much value and dignity to diminish yourself by worshipping something less than you.

This is why Jesus’ church can sing these words:

In Christ there is no East or West, in Him no North or South; but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.

In Him shall true hearts everywhere their high communion find; His service is the golden cord, close binding humankind

In Him those walls shall tumble down, that bear hostility, and the whole family of God shall dwell in unity.

Join hands, then, members of the faith, whate'er your race may be; who serves my Father as His child is surely kin to me.

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