The Second Commandment – A Kingdom Catechism

The Second Commandment

A Kingdom Catechism

The second commandment forbids all made expressions of God or gods.

Q 55: What is the second commandment of the Law of God?

A 55: The second commandment is, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image.” (Exod. 20:4; Deut. 5:8)

Carved images serve a variety of purposes. They localize an unseen deity and thus serve as a reminder of its supposed existence and presence. They provide a focal point and context for worship, as it is common in pagan religions to practice rituals in or upon material expressions of unseen deities. Those practices thus accomplished, a worshiper may come away with a sense of having satisfied what the deity most requires by paying homage to it in some prescribed manner.

Carved images not only minimize God, and thus falsely represent Him Who alone is truth; they also minimize and falsely represent the life of faith. For all these reasons, it is not difficult to see why God forbids the use of carved images of any kind, whether of false deities or of the one true God.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.