The Second Commandment is closely related to the first in the sense that it still deals directly with honoring God as God by refraining from creating idols and then bowing before them in obeisance.
God wrote (Dt 5:22),
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
There is nothing comparable to God, in other words, and to make a comparison is an affront to God.
God is the eternal, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Creator of all things that have existed, exist, or ever will exist.
“In him we live and move and have our being,” wrote the Apostle Paul (Acts 17:28).
Hence, man is commanded to cease from even trying to create something that might represent God, because it is not only impossible to accomplish, it is blasphemous, as well.
This would include the attempt to create an image after the likeness of man, who has been created in God’s likeness.
Man is a finite being, and the attributes that consist of God’s image in man will be finite, if not limited, too.
Those who ignore or violate God’s command to refrain from creating idols from wood or stone that misrepresent God not only provoke his wrath, they put themselves in eternal peril: no idolater will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9).
Such judgment also extends for multiple generations. Why?
Because the sin of idolatry generally does not remain exclusively with one individual; it spreads regularly throughout a family or nation, much like a wildfire, once it gets going.
Then after it is out of control, it cannot be contained.
Impending judgment awaits; it is just a matter of time.
It is why God warns that the judgment for idolatry extends to the third and fourth generations, the “hatred” toward God is that deep.
Conversely, those who obey God and refrain from blasphemous equations of God made of wood and stone, there is a steady flow of God’s love.
Oh, it is not that there will not be chastisement for those who are God’s own, “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb 12:6).
It is that chastisement is not the same as judgment, whereby in the former instance, restoration and reconciliation are byproducts of God’s love, and in the latter instance, judgment leading to destruction and abandonment by the byproduct’s of God’s wrath.
Of course, idolatry does not only come in the form of carved images, but every time a person places him- or herself in the place of God, whether in thought or deed, and then steals glory and honor from God, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
This particular commandment is violated every time a person sins, which is often.
It is the sinner’s way of saying, “I am a god,” without ever actually letting the words pass through his lips.
Therefore, it is imperative for the believer to keep his idolatry account short by constantly, reverently, and humbly confessing the sin, rather than subjecting himself to God’s wrath.
Although the nation of Israel initially committed to obeying the Second Commandment, it would not be long until it had become calloused toward it, and subsequently ended up being led away into captivity.
It is something that fewer and fewer of God’s people are aware, even though they are headed down a similar path, given the amount of biblical illiteracy taking place in so many places of “Christian worship.”
