The second commandment: worship as God appoints

The second commandment teaches how God is to be worshipped: as he appoints in his Word, not by images or ways of our own devising, for he is our sovereign and owner and zealous for his worship.

Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem, 1631 · Source

This week's questions

Which is the second commandment? The second commandment is, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thy self to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Question 49

What is required in the second commandment? The second commandment requireth the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his Word.
Question 50

What is forbidden in the second commandment? The second commandment forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in his Word.
Question 51

What are the reasons annexed to the second commandment? The reasons annexed to the second commandment are, God's sovereignty over us, his propriety in us, and the zeal he hath to his own worship.
Question 52

Last week the first commandment named the only One to be worshipped; the second asks what his worship must be. For Catholics and Lutherans (week 22) these words belong to the first commandment.

The God who was heard, not seen

Before a golden calf on a high garlanded pedestal the people dance hand in hand, while far off on the hillside at the left Moses comes down with the tablets. — Nicolas Poussin, The Adoration of the Golden Calf, 1633–1637 (National Gallery, London) · Source

Question 51's first proof text looks back to Sinai:

So since you saw no form of any kind on the day the LORD spoke to you out of the fire at Horeb, be careful that you do not act corruptly and make an idol for yourselves of any form or shape
Deuteronomy 4:15-16

Israel heard a voice but saw no shape. Yet Aaron built an altar before the golden calf and proclaimed, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD" (Exodus 32:5), and the calf was hailed as what brought them out of Egypt (Exodus 32:8): they meant to worship the LORD himself as a calf. So the commandment forbids not only images of false gods but the worship of the true God by images. God requires, says the Heidelberg Catechism, "That we in nowise make any image of God" Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 96.

God shows himself not in images of our making but in his Word, and at last in his Son:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Colossians 1:15

The Son has made him known (John 1:18); so Question 50 asks for worship "as God hath appointed in his Word", whose ordinances the Larger Catechism lists Q. 108. Jesus sent his apostles out "teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:20); the first believers in Jerusalem held fast to the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread and prayer (Acts 2:42); and Moses warned, "do not add to it or subtract from it" (Deuteronomy 12:32). The Reformed call this the regulative principle WCF 21.1, and the Reformed Baptists' Second London Confession (1689) has the same words 22.1.

Sovereignty, ownership and zeal

Question 52's reasons come from the Psalms and Exodus. "The LORD is a great God, a great King above all gods" (Psalm 95:3) and "the LORD our Maker" (Psalm 95:6); the royal psalm tells the bride, "he is your lord" (Psalm 45:11). And he is "the LORD, whose name is Jealous" (Exodus 34:14). His jealousy is a faithful husband's zeal for his bride; that is why the Larger Catechism calls false worship "a spiritual whoredom" Larger Catechism, Q. 110.

‘Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children’ does not mean that innocent children are punished in their parents' place. It falls on "them that hate me", those who go on in their fathers' way of hating God; Ezekiel says plainly that "A son will not bear the iniquity of his father" (Ezekiel 18:20). Against three or four generations the commandment sets "thousands": God's mercy reaches far beyond his wrath.

How the churches hold images

The churches differ on images. The Orthodox, with the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, confess that the incarnation makes icons possible: the God whom no one had seen took flesh and could be looked upon, and so may be pictured. John of Damascus, in the eighth century, insisted that his honour went not to wood and paint but to the Creator who took a body for his sake, and, with Basil of Caesarea, that honour paid to an image passes to its original John of Damascus, On the Divine Images. The Catholic Church likewise teaches that the incarnation opened a new order of images, and that honouring them differs from the worship that belongs to God alone Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2129–2132. Lutherans and Anglicans keep pictures and crosses that are not worshipped, by what is called the normative principle: in worship, what Scripture does not forbid is permitted.

The Reformed make no image of God or of Christ for worship Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 97–98, and the Larger Catechism forbids representing God even "inwardly in our mind" Q. 109. They differ among themselves over pictures of Christ in teaching children: some, following Question 109, use none; others allow them for teaching, never for worship. So too over psalms, hymns and instruments (see Worship centred on the Word). The iconoclast controversy is told in Icons and the mission to the Slavs; see also Worship and prayer and What is worship?

To ponder this week

At a table by a window, a girl in a white cap reads aloud from an open Bible, following the lines with her finger, while an old man and a woman beside her listen with folded hands. — Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann, A Young Girl Reading Aloud from the Bible, 1854 · Source

Do I worship God as I imagine him, or as he has shown himself in his Word and in his Son? Without carving a statue we can keep a picture of God drawn to suit ourselves. Read a Gospel chapter each day, and note where God shown in Jesus differs from what you had pictured.

Practice

Practice 1 of 6
According to Question 50, what does the second commandment require?
Practice 2 of 6
What did Aaron proclaim before the golden calf?
Practice 3 of 6
What reasons does Question 52 give for the second commandment?
Practice 4 of 6
What do the commandment's ‘third and fourth generation’ and ‘thousands’ teach?
Practice 5 of 6
Which pairing of a church with its teaching on images is accurate?
Practice 6 of 6
Which question does this lesson say the Reformed answer differently among themselves?

Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.

Source

John of Damascus, On the Divine Images 1.16 — Late 720s–730s. Three treatises against the emperors' removal of icons: the invisible God cannot be pictured, but God seen in the flesh can; John venerates not matter but the Creator of matter, who became matter for his sake. He distinguishes the worship (latreia) owed to God alone from veneration, and cites more than once Basil's saying that the honour given to an image passes to its prototype.
Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church 2129–2132 — 1992. On the commandment against graven images (part of the first in the Catholic numbering): by becoming flesh the Son of God began a new order of images; the veneration of sacred images is not the adoration due to God alone, for the honour given to an image passes to the one it shows.

Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds, the Westminster Shorter Catechism and the Reformed confessions, the Fathers and classic commentary. They teach the Catechism as the Reformed churches' own, a week at a time, and present both sides where the Reformed differ, and other traditions' views, fairly. Scripture quotations: BSB.