The Law of God by E. J. Hibbard

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 4, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 49.

The Law of God

By E. J. Hibbard

The Second Commandment.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 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; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments.

No heathen of ordinary intelligence will admit that he worships an image. In fact, the very name signifies the likeness of something, and not the thing itself. The image, says the heathen, assists me in concentrating my mind upon, and brings to me a more accurate knowledge of, the attributes of the deity I worship. In fact, he oft-times claims that the god of his adoration is incarnated, either temporarily or permanently, in the image before him. But never will he admit that the lifeless form there present is the god himself, or that it is other than a reminder of the same.

Now there was a time—yes, there have been two periods—in which all mankind understood, acknowledged, and obeyed the Maker of heaven and earth: The early days of Adam, and the period in which Noah and his family were enclosed in the ark. After each of these periods, there must have been a beginning in image-making; for we find the records or the traces of idols which occupied the impure groves of antiquity, both antediluvian and postdiluvian. What and how was that beginning?

Here is the record: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory [character] of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself,” said our God on another occasion.

These are the steps taken by each soul who has once known God, before he can become a transgressor of the second commandment. Note particularly, It was the glory, or character, of the Uncorruptible, which was, in their minds, changed into an image of the corruptible. First of man, then of beasts, and birds, and reptiles,—creeping things. If God’s ways were like the ways of these, then an image resembling one of them, or a combination of several in one, would aid the mind in comprehending God. Hence the origin of Moloch and of Dagon. But “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” “To whom then will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.” “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” And thus will it ever be with the man who, on earth, lives in the presence of God. Such a man will never liken God unto himself; and how much less to beasts and birds and creeping things.

From the giving of the law in awful majesty, scarce forty days had passed ere Israel clamored for some visible likeness of Him who was to go before them. That they intended this to be an image of the true and living God, may be seen in the expression, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” They had not exchanged their God for another. O no; they had simply gotten a likeness of Him—a molten calf.

But what was the service rendered to that god whose image they had formed? “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” But what was the “play”? Was it innocent pleasure? Hardly. “The people were naked; for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies.” How destitute of the light of truth must have been those minds and hearts which asked for an image of the Invisible One. But how intensified that darkness when, with the image before them, they thought to behold the character of the uncorruptible God in the likeness of a bull. This image did not elevate the mind to behold the heavenly, but degraded it to the level of the beast. The actions followed.

“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, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, the likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth; and lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” “Take . . . heed . . . lest ye corrupt yourselves and”—do these things. The corrupting precedes the doing. No one, therefore, can think of making or having any visible likeness of the invisible God, until the mind and character are first corrupted by error and sin. An attempt to bring the true God more perfectly to the minds of men through the medium of an image of anything ever seen in earth or heaven, only conceals Him, and finally excludes Him from the character and habits of any one so doing.

But there is One “Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature;” yet He is not a graven image; “for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible.” “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” And He says, “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” Here is the only perfect revelation of God to man; here is the only image of the HOLY ONE. Therefore the second commandment forbids anything to take the place of Christ. It is a safeguard to the Gospel; and the keeper of it is the Gospel itself.

God’s purpose has always been that man himself should be a perfect image of his Maker. And the first suggestion of man is thus recorded: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.” Then follows the record of transgression: the darkening of man’s mind; the effacing of the nature of the Infinite, until men became “earthly, sensual, devilish.”

Once more the promise is given, that, “as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” The earthly nature is called “the old man;” the heavenly nature, “the new.” Now, “our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” To the man with this experience, it can be truthfully said, “Ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.” “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” This is the positive side of the second commandment. The prohibitory part is the negative.

Thus again, as in the first commandment, it takes the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, the gift of the Holy Ghost, which comes thereby; and through this, the indwelling “of all the fulness of God,” in order that the second commandment may be kept inviolate. And he who has that “fulness” can never transgress this holy requirement, not even in thought. E. J. Hibbard.