The second commandment. The spirituality of Divine worship.
It is sometimes said that there is a reason attached to this second commandment. It is scarcely accurate to affirm that. There is a double sanction attached to it to enforce it, but there is no mention made here of a reason, strictly so called. We will, however, incorporate in this Homily the true reason which underlies this precept. But we shall have to go to the New Testament for the clearest statement of that. Let us then, in connection with the above, ask the reader to turn to John 4:24, in which he will find a deep reason for the second commandment. We will first of all, as briefly as we can consistently with clearness, open up the contents of this command, and will then endeavor to unfold the double sanction by which it is guarded.
I. ITS CONTENTS. The first commandment claims for Jehovah alone the love and worship of the people. The second warns off from any mode of worship which would bear a resemblance to or which would be a compromise with idolatry. While Israel was in Egypt, there had been a general worship on the part of the Egyptians, of bird, beast, and reptile, not for their own sake, but as representing some attribute of the invisible God. The forms of Egyptian worship, the names of Pasht, Osiris, etc; must be done away with. No representation of the object of worship was to be allowed. However much men might have pleaded that sense was an aid to faith, the stern "Thou shalt not" peremptorily barred the way. We know the reason why, as they in their childhood did not. God is spirit. Being spirit, it is only by spirit that he can be approached. No merely bodily act can possibly be worship. Further, neither God nor any one of his attributes can be represented by any physical form. Whatever idea of Jehovah may be gained or retained through impressions derived from beholding a sensible object with the bodily eye, will be an idea representing it, not him. It will be a thought of God formed by the image and limited by it—not the true thought given by revelation. Obviously, however, this command did not forbid decorative designs in the tabernacle or the temple (cf. Exodus 25:18, Exodus 25:20, Exodus 25:34; Exodus 26:32; Numbers 21:8, Numbers 21:9; 1 Kings 7:25; 1 Kings 10:20). But never were any creature-forms allowed, either as objects of worship or as aids to it. Nor can we read through Hebrew history without seeing how much need there was of such a command. Ere long, the people were dancing round the golden calf! And in the days of Jeroboam two calves were set up—one in Bethel, another in Dan. But surely the history of Christendom is even a sadder one than that of the Hebrews. Ere four centuries of the Christian era had passed away, how did the Christian Church lapse into repeated breaches of this law? "An enormous train of different superstitions was gradually substituted in the place of true religion and genuine piety …. Images were not as yet very common. But it is certain that the worship of the martyrs was modeled by degrees according to the religious services that were paid to the gods before the coming of Christ." £ It is true, indeed, that in 726 A.D. Leo III. issued an ordinance forbidding the use of images in churches, as heathenish and heretical, and a Council of Constantinople, in 754 A.D sanctioned that condemnation. Another Council, which met at Nice in 789 A.D declared the previous Council heretical, and ordained the worship of pictures in churches. The decisions of this Council were rejected at a Council in Frankfort, in 794 A.D. Also at another in Constantinople, in 815 A.D all worshipping of pictures and images was forbidden. In 869 A.D. the iconoclasts were condemned. Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, affirmed a threefold use of images, and declared that like homage is due to the image or Christ as to Christ himself! And we know but too well what the later history of Rome has been, how pagan rites have become more and more mingled with Christian service. The Savior is approached through the crucifix, and fed upon through the bread; and, as if blind to the warnings of history, ritualism openly proclaims that the best exposition of doctrine is that which meets the eye rather than the ear. Perhaps it is not to be wondered at, that in Roman Catholic catechisms the second commandment is left out; and not even Luther was sufficient of a reformer to restore the missing law in his catechism—an easy way, indeed, of blinding the people to the evil of a mistaken ritual, to leave out the authoritative command, obedience to which would render such evil impossible!
II. THE DOUBLE SANCTION ATTACHED TO THIS LAW. The first is drawn from the Divine nature, the second from the Divine administration.
1. From the Divine nature. "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." "They that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." God is jealous:
(a) An object which at first represents the Being who is worshipped, comes at length to be worshipped. £
(b) Worship paid through the body will sink to merely bodily worship.
(c) When the lofty platform of spiritual worship is quitted, religious service will inevitably lose its meaning. Sense first comes as "an aid to faith," and then is put in the place of it!
(d) When this is the case, the vitalizing force of religion is gone, and man, sinking in religious vitality, sinks also in morality (see Jeremiah 7:1-34. for an illustration of this in the Hebrew people; see Romans 1:1-32. for illustrations of it in the Gentile world).
2. From the Divine administration. "Visiting the iniquities," etc. It would not have seemed wonderful to have found this second sanction appended to such sins as murder, adultery, etc.; but how is it that it follows on so apparently slight an offense as the use of graven images? Because of the sure and inevitable quadruple transition already referred to. He who comes to lose the life of religion will, so far, be undermining the foundations of morality, not only for himself, but for those who come after him.
Learn, in conclusion:
1. We receive an influence from the generations which preceded us; we shall transmit one to the generations that will follow. (We do not think this latter consideration is sufficiently pressed on the people, either on its physiological or on its spiritual side.)
2. Whoever wishes to ensure a prolonged influence that shall blessedly affect generations to come, let him bend all his force to the upholding of the worship of God in purity, in spirit, in truth. So much depends on this. The weal of the land in which we dwell is dependent thereon. Oh! for our own sakes, for our country's sake, for our children's sakes, let us contend earnestly for the maintenance of the worship of God in simplicity and in truth!