The Second Commandment

WHEREIN does the second commandment differ from the first? And why are not the Romanists correct who teach that it is only an appendix to that precept, and not another commandment?

The first commandment forbids men to have other gods before the Lord. This precept cuts off the worship of any other being besides the one living and true God. It cuts off the worship of every false god, whether Baal, or Moloch, or Dagon, or Jupiter, or the sun, the fire, the ocean, the river Nile, the river Ganges, or any being or thing which men have worshiped. Now if the second commandment, instead of being a prohibition of the making of images to worship, is (1) a prohibition of all acts of copying existing objects though done without any reference to worship, and (2) is a prohibition of the worship of the things copied, rather than of the copies or images that are made, the second of the two is only a repetition of the first commandment; while the first of the two prohibits no moral wrong which our minds are capable of discerning, and certainly has not the slightest connection with the other things embodied in the first table of the law.

The case then stands thus: The first commandment forbids all false gods. The second commandment forbids the making of any representations or copies of any thing; and also forbids the worship of false gods. So that all there is to the second commandment not found in the first is this prohibition of making anything like any other already existing object. Such an interpretation of the law of God will never do.

But it may be asked, If we concede that the two parts of the second commandment are inseparably connected, and that they constitute but one precept, the substance of which is that we should not make an image, or representation of any object in Heaven or earth for adoration, is not this the proper relation of the two commandments: The first commandment forbids all false gods; and the second one forbids such gods as men make with their own hands? But if this be the true view of the case, we should be compelled to say that the second commandment was wholly included in the first precept, and was in no wise to be considered as a separate commandment. For the prohibition of a certain kind of false gods, viz., such as are made with men's hands, must come under the first precept which has no limitation and which forbids all false gods whatsoever.

What then is the proper distinction between the first commandment and the second? for we have no doubt that they are two distinct precepts, each having its own field and each holding that field in its own right, and in undisputed possession. The following statements present, as we think, the proper distinction between the two commandments:—

The first commandment forbids the worship of every false god of every kind in the universe.

The second commandment forbids all representations of that God which we are commanded alone to worship in the first precept.

These two fields are wholly distinct from each other; and each is in the highest degree necessary to be guarded. The first commandment sweeps away all false gods.

But if there were no second commandment, what could hinder any one who chose to do so from making a representation of the one living and true God, and showing it respect out of regard to the God of Heaven who was represented by it? We could not clearly convict such a man under the first commandment. He could say in his defense: "I have no God but the great Creator. But out of respect to him I have formed a statue to represent him, the most fitting in its kind of which I can conceive, and, though I show it some degree of adoration, it is only out of respect to the one true God which it was made to represent."

That this is the true sense of the second commandment, is manifest from Deut. 4:12,15,16: "And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. . . Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female," etc.

What does the man of God assign as a reason why the people did not see any manner of similitude on the occasion that the ten commandments were spoken? It was lest they should do the very thing which the second commandment forbids; that is, lest they should under some kind of figure make a representation of the One who spoke this law to them.

If we refer to the events of Jewish history, we shall find the distinction between the sins forbidden in the first and second commandments, very plainly marked. We read in 1 Kings 11 and 12 how that the ten tribes were sent out of the house of Solomon's son and given to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. And the prophet told him that if he would walk before God as did David, that the Lord would do for him as he had promised to do for David. But Jeroboam, when he had taken the throne of Israel, said that if the people continued to go up to the temple at Jerusalem, they would slay him and return to their allegiance to the house of David. "Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan." 1 Kings 12:28-30.

Jeroboam was a believer in the true God. The use of the term, "thy gods," is no proof that he believed in more gods than one; for the Hebrew word for God is often plural in form, and, as in Gen. 1:1; 3:5, is sometimes rendered God and sometimes gods. Jeroboam did not design to turn away Israel from the true God; but he did mean to obviate the necessity of their going up to Jerusalem to the temple to worship. And so he formed a representation of the true God, and bade the people worship before that. This was the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that is so many times mentioned in the books of Kings. It was of the same kind as that of Aaron and the people who made the golden calf in the wilderness. Ex. 32:4, 5, 8. All the subsequent kings of Israel cleaved to this sin of Jeroboam for the very same reasons that caused him to enter upon this course of transgression at the first. He did not mean to turn Israel away from that God which brought them up out of Egypt, and to introduce another god. Far from this; but he did mean that they should not go up to Jerusalem to worship, and so he called their attention to a very costly representation of the true God.

But when Ahab came to the throne, he thought the sin of Jeroboam a small matter. And instead of merely violating the second commandment by professing to worship the true God under the representation of a graven image, he boldly set the first commandment at defiance, by substituting Baal for Jehovah. 1 Kings 16:31-33.

When the time came that God's indignation could no longer withhold the merited punishment, he raised up Jehu to destroy the house of Ahab. 2 Kings 9. And when he had done this, he proceeded to root out the worship of Baal from the nation. 1 Kings 10. Yet he did not depart from the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. But because of what he had done respecting Baal, the Lord promised that his family should hold the throne for four generations. It is manifest, therefore, that while the sin of Ahab did openly set aside the true God by giving his place to Baal in contemptuous defiance of the first commandment, the sin of Jeroboam was that of breaking the second by introducing images to represent the true God.

In the cases of Jeroboam and of Ahab, we may see how that the violation of the second commandment prepares the way for that of the first. Such was undoubtedly the origin of false gods: first, representations of the true God, which of itself was an insult to his majesty; and then these representations were taken for gods themselves, so that Jehovah was in the end wholly forsaken. Such is the teaching of Paul in Rom. 1:21-25, respecting the origin of heathenism, and such the purport of the solemn warning in the second commandment respecting the sins of the parents being visited upon the children. The nations now worshiping as real gods their idols of wood and stone, do it because that many generations in the past their ancestors willfully departed from God in making representations of his form as something to be used in his worship.