Introduction
The first and second commandment are closely related. So closely that in the past they were considered a single commandment together; the Roman Catholic church still calls it the “first commandment”, and they make up for it by splitting the tenth commandment into two parts.
The first and second commandments belong so closely together, because there is a grey area between worshipping a false God, or worshipping the true God in a false way. For instance, when the Israelites in the wilderness bowed down to a golden calf, were they merely worshipping the LORD, in the wrong way? Or had they replaced him with some other god?
Where exactly we draw the line is not super important, because we are clearly told to avoid both: we should not worship other gods, but we also should not worship the Lord in the wrong way. Or, to state it positively, it is our calling to know and worship the one, true God, but then also to know him as he is and to worship him in the way he wants to be worshipped.
Freedom to worship God as he is.
1. We worship an invisible God
2. We worship through his living Word
3. We worship him in Jesus Christ
We worship an invisible God
The act of worship comes easy to people. Famous thinkers have described people as “incorrigibly religious”. Visit any foreign culture in the world, and you will find religious ritual, activities designed to connect with a higher, spiritual reality. Humans will worship something, and in some way; that is a given.
When the Israelites left Egypt, it was therefore natural for them to worship YHWH, the LORD who had set them free. But they had to learn to worship him in the proper way. That was no easy lesson, because worshipping the LORD was so different from any of the rituals they were used to. In fact, in Deut. 12:30, the Lord says very explicitly that they should not copy the worship practices from any nations they encounter. “You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods.”
When people invent worship, they locate things in the universe that seem to be divine, or at least able to connect us to the higher spiritual reality. The moon and planets in their constant, fascinating orbits in the sky quickly become the object of worship. Sun, rain, and earth as the sources of fertility and life are venerated in pagan religions. Mountain tops, vast lakes, ancient groves are often supposed to be places close to the divine reality. Animals become sacred symbols of God’s qualities, such as strength. The mystery of male and female and the mystique of sexuality has always fascinated people, and thought to bring us close to a transcendent reality. In short, people tend to worship by declaring earthly things sacred, and considering them the way to reach God. All of this is an attempt to make an image of God, in the broader sense of the word.
None of this, says the Lord. You shall not make for yourself an image … to bow down to. Nothing in the whole universe can give you special access to God. “In heaven above, on the earth beneath, in the waters below.” None of these things are divine in any sense; because God the Creator and his creation are of a completely different nature. This Creator-creature distinction is one of the great differences between our understanding of God and almost any other religion in the world. And therefore our way of worship is essentially different from what others do.
If you direct your worship to images, you will quickly go off the rails, not only in your understanding of God, but in your understanding of the world. The Apostle Paul makes this point in his description of pagan worship in Romans 1:22. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” He continues to explain how this leads to perverse views of nature, of sexuality, of life, or relationships, and so on. This is not only true for pagan worship, but also for Christians who try to serve the Lord through things here on earth. One example are believers who equate a pristine state of nature with true Paradise, and do more to promote an environmentalist agenda than true Christian love and justice.
The fact of the matter is that God is invisible. He is spirit, and cannot be captured in earthly form. The catechism teaches: God cannot and may not be visibly portrayed in any way. You may not make or use earthly things to worship the Lord, because he is not like them at all. Nothing in the whole universe looks like God, not in the slightest.
There is much beauty in the world, and God created us with eyes to look and hands to touch. We may enjoy things and be creative. When an artist makes a painting, when a sculptor carves a statue, when a game developer builds a digital 3D world, we reflect on a small scale what our heavenly Father did on a large scale. Christians are not against imagery in general. Creatures may be portrayed, the catechism admits. But problems begin when we make or have any images in order to worship them or to serve God through them. Nothing on earth is good and divine enough to channel our worship to God.
If you look for God in the things of this world, they will enslave you but not bring you any closer to God. The second commandment warns us to be free from that kind of attachment. We do not need to worship God indirectly through things on earth. We are set free to worship him directly, as he is.
We worship through his living Word
In Deuteronomy 4:12, Moses reminded the Israelites that they never saw the Lord. “The LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.” This simple description brings out the profound truth of how we can know God and worship him. We don’t get to know him by seeing things in this world, but we know him intimately through what he says.“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” said Jesus in John 20:29, and “Faith comes from hearing,” says Rom. 10:17.
Instead of leaving it up to us to try to find him in this world, our God graciously comes to us and speaks to us. He explains who he is, and how he wants to be served. Therefore we do not creatively invent ways of worship, but we listen to the Lord and learn from him what true worship is like.
The Israelites were taught this explicitly in Deut. 12:4-5. “You must not worship the LORD your God in their way [through images]. But you are to seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling.” Go to wherever the Lord reveals himself and worship him there; bring the offerings he wants, listen to him, and then do what he commands.
The temple with all its rituals no longer exists. In the New Testament era, there is no one physical place where the Lord “put his Name for a dwelling”. But the principle has not changed. If we are going to worship, it should begin by listening to God as he speaks to us. Based our lives on the words he reveals. The Lord spoke through the prophets and through the apostles. Those divine words, recorded in the Bible, teach us who he is. They are the guide to proper religion, to true worship.
In the course of time, God’s people often forgot this. Image worship was a recurrent sin among the Israelites. But the Christian church, too, has often fallen in the trap of worshipping God through images and other earthly things. This was one of the key concerns in the Protestant Reformation; our catechism echoes this when it says that we may not worship God in any other manner than he has commanded in his Word. That Word is enough. That Word should be taught clearly to all believers. Sadly, there was a time when church leaders thought it would be better to give simple church member visuals rather than the words of the Bible. Instead of preaching from the Scripture, they worked with painting and statues to teach and evoke worship. The catechism strongly objects to these so-called “books for the laity”, calling them dumb images—images that cannot tell much. Instead, says the catechism, people must be taught by the living preaching of God’s Word.
This is why in our worship services, we are small on visuals and big on words. We use only two visible “things” to depict the Christian truth, and only because Jesus consecrated them as sacraments for his church: the water of baptism, depicting the washing off of sin, and the bread and wine of communion, depicting the broken body and shed blood of our Savior. We should not underestimate how powerful the use of these sacraments is. Even so, the way in which they bring us close to the Lord is no different from the way his Word does. They proclaim the same message, and the Holy Spirit applies it to our lives just as he does with the preached Word.
Apart from the sacraments, it’s all about the Word. We read the Bible, we proclaim and apply its message in the sermon, we sing God’s Word back to him, and we pray on the basis of that Word. God has spoken—and that is the only reason we know him and can come to him. People may find the Protestant worship services dull, because it’s all about the Word. But it’s precisely the focus on the Word that keeps us from idolatry and self-willed worship.
We worship him in Jesus Christ
The Word of God is the only basis of our worship. In the New Testament, this principle took a surprising turn with the coming of Jesus Christ. As Hebrews 1 says, “in these last days God has spoken in his Son,” and John 1 calls Jesus “the Word” who was with God but now “became flesh and dwelled among us.”
While no one has the right to make an image of the invisible God, the Lord himself provided Jesus as the Image of God, the perfect imprint of his glory. When the disciples walked alongside Jesus, they “saw his glory”, they saw and heard and touched the word of life. God’s people found it so hard to trust in a God they could not see; in his mercy, he gave them his Word in tangible and visible form.
On one hand, we see how little that helped. Thousands of Jewish people saw the Son of God in the flesh, heard his words, and witnessed the miracles he did—and yet they did not believe. On the other hand, for those who believe, it is a marvellous fact that the Son of God really became one of us and in that way redeemed our lives.
Even so, the Lord Jesus is no longer visible with us. In a way we are back to hearing instead of seeing. But in four ways we have a much greater blessing than the Old Testament people of God when it comes to knowing and worshiping the Lord.
First, he has poured out his Holy Spirit to bring the Word directly to our hearts. God writes his instructions no longer on stone but on hearts, as the prophecy of Jeremiah says. That doesn’t mean that worship has become purely individual and subjective; the message still comes through the preached word. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, it reaches more easily from our ears to our hearts.
Second, he has given us the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper. Not that water, bread, and wine are now portals to a divine dimension. But they are God-sanctioned images of Jesus’ work for us, and as we faithfully use them, the Spirit gives us fellowship with Christ.
Third, we are no longer tied to one particular place where the Lord made his Name dwell. In John 4, the Samaritan woman asked Jesus about the long-standing conflict between Jews and Samaritans: should worship be in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerasim? But Jesus announces that this question is no longer relevant: from now on, true worshippers will worship in Spirit and in truth. Wherever the Holy Spirit brings believers together, wherever the name of Jesus is proclaimed and celebrated, there the Lord will receive their worship, and there he will bestow his blessing. Our worship is not tied to any place or building.
Fourth, Jesus’ apostles teach us to think of the church as the body of Christ. He is in heaven, but his church is on earth, doing his work, living out his love, administering his grace, and proclaiming his Kingdom. In the New Testament church, the Word of God is and ought to be clearly visible. God has an address and a shape: he is present where his people meet, and his love and grace are reflected in the love of the church.
So how do we worship the Lord properly? It starts by getting to know him as he is. Through his Word, through the proclamation of the church, through the instruction of the Holy Spirit. When the truth of the gospel and the power of God’s kingdom take hold in our hearts, there will be a worshipful response.
That response is natural, simple, yet profound. It will be a response of love to our Lord, who so loved us first. A response of humble thanksgiving. A response of songs of praise. A response in which we bring our whole lives as an offering of thanksgiving. A response of love toward others. That simple, heartfelt response is the worship the Lord gladly receives. The New Testament does not give detailed rules for worship services, because if we know the Lord well enough, our Spirit-given response will be pleasing to him. It is that simple, heartfelt response that we should foster in our private meditations, our family devotions, and our worship services.
The Lord has spoken. He has shown himself in Jesus Christ, his ultimate Word. Let us then worship him, not distracted by things and rituals, but keeping our focus on our Lord and Savior.