QUESTION 51. What is forbidden in the Second Commandment?
ANSWER: The Second Commandment forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in his word.
Observations.
(1) The making and prohibition against images of God is explicit and has long been recognized as a prohibition in Jewish and Christian traditions.
(2) An image is any attempted representation of the Triune God.
(3) This does not militate against historical, memorialistic, and educational tools such as art and music. The Reformed have typically ruled out any attempted representation of Christ, although pictorials of apostles have been allowed in some Scots Presbyterian Churches. We have seen the Memorial to the Reformers while in Geneva, Switzerland. I saw one representation of Christ and the Apostles in an ancient (Presbyterian) Church in Fife, Scotland, today by way of a memorial to that historic church. Further, this scribe has observed "pictorials" in some Reformed Bible materials for children. The argument runs this way: although Christ had a true body and soul, a representation of Christ can only capture the physical dimension and not the God-man, or Theanthrops, or “Immanuel, God with us.” 1 Tim.3.16. Matt.1.23. Ergo, a representation of Christ is unlawful.
This scribe does not buy this since an attempted pictorial does not deny the divine nature, nore does it misrepresent our Saviour, just because it is not seen in a piece of art.
By this kind of reasoning, seeing a visible Jesus but not his divine nature, would, by parity of reasoning...it would have required Jesus to have been invisible, a phantom, while on earth during His days of humiliation.
(4) Worshipping by, through, or before any permissible images, like the Romans and Greek Orthodox, is unlawful. See (3) above.
(5) Isaiah 2.8-9 identifies humanity’s historic propensity to this, as do the Anglo-Romanists. This is acknowledged affirmatively by Calvinistic Anglicans and Presbyterians. “Their land is full of idols: they worship the work of their own hands. The mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself.”
(6) What does the golden calf teach us? Exodus 32.5, “When Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it.” Then, he said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.” They are charge in 32.8: “They have made them a golden calf, and have worshipped it.”
(7) Intercession for sinners on earth is founded on none but Christ, the only Mediator, Priest, and Intercessor, the Propitiation for our sins. 1 Jn..2.2. Invoking saints is imputing to these departed saints qualities of divinity and, hence, any use of images or invocation of saints is will-worship...the worship of the fictions of the mind, a “thing vainly and fondly created and which is repugnant” to Holy Scripture.
(8) This scribe rejects the Scots and Puritanical interpretation that disallows pictures or statutes of saints in churches. At many points, they do not uphold this themselves, putting photographs, etc., in their varied publications.
(9) Given the false Gospel of Rome, it was correct for the English Reformers to remove the “altars” and replace them with simple, but appropriately adorned Tables (with fair linen cloths). Bread and Wine worship was idolatrous. However, the wholesale desecration of the churches at the time of the Reformation was excessive as per (3) above.
(10) The ordering of liturgies, according to the Scriptures, is not ordered directly by the Scriptures, but it is permissible if done for good and decent reasons and order. It is a foolish Presbyterian argument that precludes kneeling at the reception of the Lord’s Supper, crossing oneself variously if desired, or the wearing of various vestments. These are matters of adiaphora and are not, as Presbyterians allege, matters of will worship. If we are to err, we will err in the direction of the Presbyterians, but not necessarily so.
(11) The directive of 1 Cor.14.40 says, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” This surely applies to the reading, hearing and preaching of God’s Word, liturgical music, liturgical prayers, Confessions and other set forms of prayer. The Presbyterian arguments that these things are excluded is extremism.The Presbyterian directive to oppose Anglicans in the past--e.g. in Scotland--is unfortunate and foolish.
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