IMAGE WORSHIP FORBIDDEN BY GOD IN BIBLE?
Many religions use images in worship. They say they do not pray to the images
which they add neither see or hear them. They say that when you touch a sacred
image as an act of veneration the veneration is not intended for the image but
for the person or saint who is depicted. It is presumed that the person depicted
really knows about the honour and receives it.
The Ten Commandments teach the evil notion that we must be motivated to help
others for God's sake and not their own.
The first commandment says God is the Lord and there must be no other god
worshipped besides him. The commandment does not say there are no other gods. It
says only that no other god must be worshipped.
The second commandment says that the people must not bow down before images.
It is said that this commandment is not a ban on worshipping other gods because
the first commandment already dealt with that.
In fact the commandment does not mention worshipping other gods.
It is merely saying that images must not be used in the worship of God. It
forbids the religious honouring of relics and images. The images, as understood
by the commandment, are not worshipped as God but used to help people worship
God. The commandment is not merely a ban on idolatry. It does ban idolatry but
it also bans the non-idolatrous use of images in religious worship.
It is said that the pagans used images to trick their gods into giving them
favours. But not all did that. The majority believed that the god freely helped
anybody who used an image to worship him. There is no reason to say that the
commandment only forbids the use of images when it is hoped to use them to
manipulate God or supernatural beings.
The commandment talks about not what to worship but how to worship. It condemns
the Catholic form of image veneration that honours images not as living beings
but as representations of the saints and Jesus. The honour is not given to the
image but to the person the image stands for.
There were two angels cast in metal on top of the Ark of the Covenant - some say that contradicts images not being used in worship for the ark was about worship. This would be proof that there was no way Israel was tempted to honour angels. It was either Gods or pagan gods. God was sure that the veneration of angels as servants of God was too ridiculous to countenance. There could have been an explicit ban that we do not know of.
Is the Bible against using images to help you to worship in the Catholic
sense?
The Bible says that we are forbidden to bow down before images of anything in
Heaven or earth or to worship them or serve them for God is jealous (Exodus
20:2-6). Anything in Heaven includes himself and the angels and the saints. He
did not merely mean, “You shall not make images of other gods”. If he had, we
would be finding the word god or gods in it which is vitally important for
interpreting the passage right if that is what its import is. God said anything,
so even images of the sun or moon were forbidden. The gods of the pagans were
not very powerful. They fought with man and they fought with one another and
they didn't always use their godlike powers effectively or sensibly. They were
more like saints than gods. God refused to tolerate even those who said, "Such
and such is a nice god. We can use her like a saint. We can use her as a way of
praying to God. When we pray to a saint it is really a way of honouring the
presence of God in the saint. It is a way of praying to God who wants to be
honoured in his creatures." That is how the Catholic reasons and answers those
who say that praying to saints takes away from praying to and honouring God. If
we are Catholic and we call our saints gods does it make any difference? It is
just a word. We notice too that God forbids the images to be used in worship of
beings that do exist in Heaven or earth. How much more will he forbid the images
of beings that do not exist! He speaks almost as if he feared the people wanted
to use images of saints and angels that were in Heaven!
Exodus says first you shall not make the images and then that you shall not bow
down before them and serve them. This is significant. The ban on making images
is separate from the ban on bowing down before them and serving them. Then do
not think he only bans images that are made for serving and bowing down before.
He says you shall not make images of other gods. He doesn’t say do not make
other gods which he would have said had the Catholic interpretation been right
that he didn’t forbid images but only images that were treated as gods. Jews
could have adopted pagan idols and images of the sun and moon but imposed a new
interpretation on them. They could have used them as symbols of God. This is
forbidden too as reading the commandment can show. When that is banned all
images to be used in worship are banned.
God didn’t say what he meant by bowing down so we should take him to mean just
bowing down. Catholics say bowing down meant to give them the worship due only
to God. Catholics believe in other types of bowing down in worship such as that
before saints. They consider that acceptable. So worship and bowing down are
made very vague by them. God didn’t make Catholic distinctions and they should
not be read back into the Bible. Bowing down meant any kind of worship or
reverence whatsoever. End of.
Later we read that God had images of angels put on the Ark of the Covenant. God
did not forbid images but only images for worship or religious images. The
images on the ark were images of angels but were not religious images. They were
for decoration and not to be given any religious significance just like a
picture of Jesus in a Bible printed by anti-image Protestants. And the ark was
rarely seen and was kept covered which shows that God considered revealing such
images to be dangerous.
God told us not to lift up our eyes to the sun and the moon in adoration and did
not tell us not to look at them. So when these beautiful things which are
treated as idols by many may be looked at it shows that he was not against all
images.
It is very important to notice that the majority of the attacks on idolatry in
the Bible never speak in terms of an image taking the place of God who is shut
out entirely. Most scholars agree that it is most plausible that when Israel
adored the golden calf that it was regarded an image of Yahweh that represented
him but was not Yahweh or indwelt by him in any significant sense. They had seen
too much of their God and his power and owed him too much to dare abandon him
altogether. Even Aaron had a large part to play in setting up the worship of the
calf and he told them that it was the God who delivered them from Egypt meaning
it was the one that did all the miracles and was meant to picture the true God.
The severity with which God treated Israel for their sin shows that he regards
this as an intolerable sin. If God could not stomach an image of himself then
how could he stomach the image of a saint which would be worse? If they thought
the calf was a god below God then God was still supreme and the ultimate focus
of worship but perhaps they wanted to approach him through other gods and
believe that these gods were his subjects for there is no reason to think they
thought that evil gods could be worshippable so they would have considered them
to be nice gods for Yahweh was good. This automatically condemns Catholic
saint-worship for the gods would, like the saints, have no power of their own
but just have God’s power meaning God was still in control of everything. Israel
was adoring God by using the calf to represent him the same way that Catholics
use statues of the Sacred Heart to adore Jesus. God’s reaction to their calf
worship proves that Catholic worship is not Christian.
Dave Armstrong states that the Israelites asked Aaron to make them gods and they
knew you cannot make a God like God. The worship of the calf was about them
wanting to control what they worship and so it was not a mere representation of
God. The people bowed before what they said were the gods who brought them up
out of Egypt. Psalm 106:19,21 states that they forgot God at that point. But we
must remember that the people were trying to turn the worship of the God who
saved them from Egypt into the worship of statues and divide him up into many
gods. They were not merely inventing gods but trying to use the rescue from
Egypt as proof that these gods were real.
God said that no image of God should be made and explained that that was why
nobody was ever shown a likeness when he appeared. This indicates that they were
most likely to create idols based on him rather than actually adore other Gods.
God was supposed to be everywhere and so to honour an image that he is inside
for he is there is condemned. How much worse would it be to honour a saint’s
image when the saint is in Heaven and not in a statue? How much worse it would
be to honour an image of God as representing him ignoring the fact that he is
present inside the image. The Catholic Church then practices the form of
idolatry that offends the Bible God the most.
It would be worse to honour a statue of a saint which is also to honour the
saint than it would be to honour a statue of God for the latter activity is
closer to approaching God.
Images of God and by implication of the rest are banned in Deuteronomy 4:15, 16
by Moses God’s mouthpiece. He does not say if he forbids the notion of statues
becoming God, being tabernacles of God or simply things that represent God which
are used to help you worship him. This lack of specification is important for it
proves that he was opposed to all three approaches. The Catholic practice is
idolatry for God states that he ignores worship that is given to him through a
statue. He makes it idolatry by not accepting it.
Catholics say that it is easy to forget that God was complaining about
worshipping the statues as statues.
It is certain that nobody would worship an image just because it is an image so
it is simplistic to think that it is this that is forbidden. The condemnation
was written against real concerns.
To honour the statue believing that God is inside it would not be idolatry as
long as you focused on God, who is everywhere, being within it and used the
image to help you be conscious of that. (The Hebrews honoured God in nature and
in themselves.) But when God rejected this worship it implies he would reject
the theory: “It is God that is meant to be worshipped therefore he would accept
it. The error is not in who the worship is given or why to but in how it is
given.”
If the statue was thought to have become God what then? Some would say that then
they would not be honouring the image but the person of God that has taken the
image’s place. But if God is not the statue then you are practicing extreme
idolatry unless these people think that intending the worship for God is enough
for God to get it which would be tantamount to denying that idolatry is
possible.
The nearest one can get to adoring the statue as a statue is by treating it as
that through which the god is honoured. To teach that the statue houses the god
or the god is turned into the statue is further away from worshipping the statue
as a statue than the theory that it is simply a representation of the god is.
Worshipping the representation is so close to worshipping nothing that it might
be called worshipping the statue for it is as close as you can get to adoring a
piece of metal or wood or stone. That must be what is being condemned in
Deuteronomy.
But those who use images in worship believing that the worship pleases God are
indeed honouring the image. They are treating it well even if it is not for its
own sake. The ban on idolatry forbids the Catholic practice of venerating
images.
When the Bible never authorises image worship before Isaiah 42:8 which has God
saying that he will not give his glory to anybody else or his praise to graven
images the verse can only be taken literally. It means that God will not allow
images to be used in the worship of himself. To honour a statue of Jesus is to
give it some of the glory that God gets. Take the ban literally. That is the
principle of proper interpretation. These images would be used to worship God
with so he is saying he will not be worshipped through them.
Idolatry would not exist if sincere worship of an image went to God because it
was meant for him or would be if the person knew any better. Condemning idolatry
is saying that sincerity is not enough with God. This alone condemns Catholicism
for having a Word of God and a Man-God that make this mistake.
If there is no problem with images, why is it that the Church can't venerate
statues of Jesus with an erection? Even old people with no libido wouldn't be
allowed to do it. If the Church really believes sex is good and that Jesus as a
man would have had involuntary erections then there should be no problem with
old people venerating the statues!