Originally Posted by Contra_Mundum

The strictness of the second commandment has nothing whatever to do with pictures or representations in general of creation, of imagination, etc. If there is no intent to represent God, then a misuse of some depiction, or of God's creation itself (Rom. 1:23-25), is solely the sin of the abuser. God had animal and vegetable and angelic depictions right in his tabernacle and temple! So the point of the commandment is the making of representations of God--DON'T, EVER. It's a flat prohibition.

Of course, the 2nd commandment is given regarding worship. The commandments are intercontextual, and need to be read, comprehended, and interpreted as a unit. (1) There is One God; (2) you start to understand him in the way that you think about him and worship him. Man was created to have uninterrupted God-consciousness. Sin starts in the mind, the second God departs our consciousness. Who would ever sin unless he had persuaded (deluded) himself God was not watching, and would not call him to account? Scripture calls it "forgetting God" (e.g. Dt. 6:12; Ps. 9:17; 50:22; Jer. 23:27).

Here's the grand question: How can anyone think non-worshipful thoughts of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not sin?

Every single thought of God is a religious thought, an act of worship, or else it is sinful since it fails to give him the honor that is his due. How can a believer have a non-reverent thought about God? That concept is an oxymoron if ever there was.

The whole point of idolatry is representation. The golden calf is an ideal test-case. None of the people there at the foot of the mountain thought that the calf was Jehovah, but represented him (Aaron ordered a feast to Jehovah--Ex. 32:4-5). Likewise, the prophets of Baal on Carmel (1 Ki. 18) were after the attention of their god, who had his own temple in Samaria (2 Ki. 10).

So, representations exist to put a person in mind of his God. But here (Ex. 20:4-5; Dt. 4:15-19) God forbids exactly that! Only at the furthest end of stupidity inflicted by the practice of idolatry does the god and the wood or stone become absolutely localized. Animism is one terminus of religious devolution. We are to guard ourselves against idolatry by rejecting it in it's germinal state, not merely in its grosser forms.



So, if you agree with this understanding of the 2nd Commandment, when you see an "alledged" picture of Jesus, an obvious icon of a dove, bearded old deity, or other representation of any person of the Trinity, how should you respond? You ought to flee. You ought to respond in some similar denying fashion:

"That is not God. I refuse to let that thing put me positively in mind of my God who has forbidden any representation of his person. I refuse to think of him under that or any representation, for I must not be put into the least frame of worship by such thoughts; and any thought of God is automatically a religious or irreligious thought. Therefore, in this moment I will think of him negatively and verbally ONLY as The God Who by His Word Forbade Such Depictions. In those thoughts can I escape (1 Cor. 10:13) the sin of idolatry."