May 28, 2025
The Second Commandment - Deuteronomy 5:8-11
The Second Commandment (Deuteronomy 5:8-11) prohibits both the making of images to represent God and the worship of those images — two distinct but related offenses against the infinitely simple, spiritual, and incomprehensible God. Because God cannot be captured in creaturely form, any visible representation of Him, including pictures or films of the Lord Jesus Christ, violates the commandment: the hypostatic union cannot be depicted by an artist's rendering, and Christ is to be set forth through preaching, not imagery. The positive demand of the commandment is worship regulated strictly by divine command — the regulative principle — which restricts the church to the elements God has prescribed in Scripture, excluding both the inventions of men and the traditions of Rome.
