Have No Graven Image

8 “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. 9 You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. 10 But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

What is God like, how are we to know Him? It’s a fundamental question that has been asked down the ages and still is. When Moses went up the mountain, it is what the people waited to discover – Moses was going to meet with God and find out what He was like on their behalf. When it looked like he had died in the process, they had Aaron make an image of God. One way or another, they wanted something tangible to see – either creedal statements written on stone or a sculpted image, they didn’t much care, they just wanted to know.

In some way, of course, we all have a mental picture of what God is like – not necessarily in graphic form (old, white beard, sitting on a cloud etc) but an image nonetheless. Moses, the recipient and writer of the Ten Commandments, had grown up in the palace of the richest, most powerful man on earth. He understood authority and power, he had seen it exercised, often brutally, day by day. His image of God was derived from this experience, God, in Moses mind, must simply be a bigger version of Pharaoh.

In turn, our image of God affects how we behave, so, when Moses saw his fellow Hebrew being oppressed, he intervened with an act of violent power. Because this was his image of God, he expected God to approve and support the revolution. When he didn’t, Moses ran for his life, bewildered, ending up working as a shepherd for Jethro.

Yet, after forty years leading sheep, he still hadn’t understood what his descendant David, would – that the Lord is ‘my shepherd’. Yes, God is powerful, yes, He is all knowing and everywhere. But all God’s power, His wisdom, His reach, are bent, not to dominate and control, but to shepherd us into His care. The lesson was there to be learned: just because God can, doesn’t mean that He must.
God is always seeking to correct our image of Himself – He wants relationship between us and Him, not us and a false image of Him. And so, God tries again to teach Moses this truth. He causes a bush to catch fire and Moses sees it. He sees a burning bush and expects the bush to be consumed by the fire, because that is the nature of fire. It’s the same reasoning he has applied to his understanding of God: He can intervene in power therefore He must intervene in power, just as a flame, by nature, must burn. But it doesn’t. And this is what confounds Moses and causes him to draw close. That which should burn, doesn’t.

And as he approaches the bush, God commands him to take off his shoes because he is about to stand on holy ground. At its root, holy has the sense of ‘different’, the ground on which Moses must now stand is different. Previously he had stood on the ground of power and might, the outward attributes of God. Now he must learn that ‘not by power, not by might, but by my spirit, says the Lord.’ But if Moses had been bewildered in Egypt, he is utterly thrown by this bush that doesn’t burn, by this God who doesn’t fit his box, this God who could dominate and control, but who chooses not to. So, he asks God to tell him who he is. “Label yourself, define yourself, codify who you are. Give me some rules, some black and white answers. Who are you?”

But God refuses – not because He doesn’t want to be known, but precisely because He does. He wants to be known through relationship, through a journey of discovery, not through some cold, objective statement of facts. What Moses is asking for is the same temptation that Adam and Eve fell to back in Eden. It is the temptation to know God outside of relationship, knowledge independent of that relationship. It was the fruit that led to death in Eden – and Moses isn’t immune.

So, God responds with elegant simplicity. “I am who I am. I am who I will be. I am who I have been. Discover me, find out, I’m willing to reveal myself as we adventure together.” And in that context, God commissions Moses to be His representative – to tell the people what He is like.

Sadly, for the majority of his life, Moses would continue to operate out of his original worldview. Even at the bush he demands symbols of authority and power. When he encounters Pharaoh, it will be to engage in a power struggle with his magicians. Later, in the desert, when the people are thirsty, it will be with the drama of striking a rock that the water comes. At each stage, God, graciously accommodating Himself to where Moses is at. Finally, when the people are again thirsty, God invites Moses to be what He called him to be – a spokesperson, one who represents God. “Speak to the rock”, He commands. But Moses still hasn’t learned and once more, defaults to shows of power, striking the rock. And whilst God once again supplies their needs by providing water, now He confronts Moses and tells him that his persistent refusal to ‘get it’ means that he has disqualified himself from leading the people into the land He had promised them.

In truth, it is a metaphor: What we believe about God is what we will model to others – and if we are in a place of authority, what we model will shape what those who follow us believe.

And this is why in the preamble to the command, God speaks about the impact continuing to the third and fourth generation. It isn’t a punishment of future generations for the sin of their parents – that would be self-evidently unjust. It is that leaders who misrepresent God, impact future generations, and God, in His grace, limits that impact to just three or four generations. Of course, the wonderful character of God is revealed in the opposite – that when we do represent God, the impact of that is amplified so that the ripples extend a thousand generations.

This then is the context for this command: “Don’t make any representation of me, discover me for yourselves as we adventure together.” It isn’t a prohibition on art, it’s a plea not to try and box, not to presume, not to think we have God pinned down. God is a person, not a set of precepts. God is revealed in Jesus, not in creedal statements.

Ironically, the very parts of the church that rail against icons the most, are often those with the most precise statements of faith. Yet it is precisely this attempt to box God, to represent Him other than by pointing to Jesus, that is at the heart of this command.

What is God like? Not just in terms of His attributes, His power, His knowledge, His immanence. But crucially, in terms of His character – how He exercises those attributes.
This command tells us how to discover that – through dynamic, living, personal relationship with Him. Not a relationship, however worthy, with documents or books about Him. Not with denominational creeds that create pivot points for dispute. But with Him, the great ‘I AM’.

As we saw in the introduction, the context for the commandments is love. A graven image means that you miss out on a loving relationship with God as He actually is.

Make no graven image.

Location: Luton, UK

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