The Second Commandment

In its commonly condensed form the second commandment, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” sounds almost like an expansion upon the first but, while there is some overlap between the two (you’ll find that all ten commandments daisy chain beautifully from one to the next), there is a difference that is important enough to necessitate the giving of a separate command. To appreciate this difference let’s take a quick look at the first command and make sure we understand its meaning.

Command #1 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. We understand that there are no other God options (capital “G”) to choose from. Jehovah Himself is not aware of any—Isaiah 44:8-B “Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any.” But the number of gods (little “g”) to be had is only as limited as human desiring. The first commandment is therefore dealing with idols. Idols are anything that takes the place of God in your life or robs God of “your” time, strength, resources, energy or simply assets. You could underline the “before” in “no other gods before me”. It is important to understand that idols can even be Christian service if it is not the service that the Holy Spirit has led you to. Christian service without the Holy Spirit is fruitless, and therefore robs God of whatever you have invested into it.

So we see that God is jealous over “our” resources. Not envious, as though they were something He wished He could own too, but jealous because they really do belong to Him. So what about things that don’t rob God of our talents, energy, or time? Well that brings us to the second command.

To understand the second commandment it is helpful to unabbreviate it by not just reading Exodus 20:4 but also reading verses 5-6. If you do that, you see that God is jealous over our worship and love, or our hearts. When we give God’s reverence to things that are not God, then He is justly offended to be so robbed. But how do we do this? Well, I can think of several ways: when Christians celebrate Halloween they are hallowing a day or keeping a holy day to the father of lies. If this is worship, it is done in foreign currency that God cannot accept; and if we think that we can clean it up by various “trunk or treat” methods, are we not then fools to think that God would accept counterfeit foreign currency? When Christians wear anything as a good luck charm, that does not rob God of our assets, but worse it signifies our belief that God is not as able, or at least as willing, to aid us as our charm is. The flip side of the coin (no pun intended) is when Christians do things such as refusing to pick up a tails up coin believing it to be bad luck. Is anything more powerful than God in whose hand we rest? “Christian” rock is another example of the making of a graven image or strange fire. Even if the words are pure Scripture it cannot be used to worship God when the vehicle by which they travel belongs to the devil. The fact that you stole a car in order to get to church does not justify auto theft.