How does the first commandment (“Have no other gods”) differ from the second commandment (“Do not make images for yourselves to worship”)? They look like two ways of saying the same thing. There is, however, a subtle but important difference. The first commandment prohibits making something that is not God into God. The second commandment prohibits making God into something he is not. The Israelites would be tempted to represent God in ways they could grasp and relate to. This is what all the pagan nations did. They made physical representations of their many gods that they could touch and see and even carry around. This brought their gods down to their level and made them easier to relate to. The stories about their gods, moreover, cast their gods very much in the image of their human creators: subject to passions of rage, jealousy, lust and often being in enmity with each other. This human inclination to reduce God to something we can grasp and relate to is all too common. We do this when we treat God like a genie whose job it is to bless our life-agendas. We do this when we make God distant and uncaring or when we cast him in the image of a bad parent who expects us to win his love. God has revealed himself to us in Scripture and in Jesus Christ and we should get to know him for who he is. God will not submit to our expectations. Do not make God into something he is not.
Think about how you regard God in your heart and mind. Have you formed a false image of God?
Reflect on Exodus 20:4-6
