Warped Images

II. FALSE IMAGES

The word "image" is used extensively throughout the Bible, first in the book of Genesis, where humans are created in the "image of God." (Genesis 1:26-27) But, we also see this term used to refer to molten images (Numbers 33:52), wall paintings (Ezekiel 23:14). These are all fairly simple to understand, an image is a likeness or rendering of something, but is not the thing in itself.  

We all know the importance that the Bible places on the supremacy of the Most-High God, it was important enough become the first and the second Commandments that were given to Moses at Sinai.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] 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 (Exodus 20:3-5)

This was extremely important to God, because the Israelites lived in a world which worshipped a multitude of gods. God made a specific point to not only show that he was real, and favored Israel, but that he was more powerful than any other gods. Think of when Moses and Aaron first approached Pharaoh, they showed that their God had power by throwing Aaron's staff on the ground, where it became a serpent. Well, the Egyptians weren't impressed, because they had magical power as well, so they did the same with their staves. But, Aaron's serpent consumed all the other serpents (Ezekiel 7:10-12). This was one of the first times that God displayed his power, but let's pause here and examine what the implication here is.

There is no denial made by the Bible that other powers do exist, there's no claim that worshippers of other gods won't have magical power. What is claimed is that by whatever means power is being obtained, whether it's from spiritual beings or some other means, it's less than God. This is an important distinction, because it tells us that a miracle is not necessarily an indication of God's power. Jesus also warns us that false Christs and false prophets will be able to perform miracles (Matthew 24:24).

That being said, it's also worth noting that there's no reason to assume that our idols can give us any power at all. Think of the Prophet Elijah, when he squared off with the Priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:20-40). He challenges them to a test where each will sacrifice a bull, chop it up, place it on wood, but not set the wood on fire. The test is to see who can have their god summon fire. The 450 Priests of Baal were completely unable to make anything happen, but Elijah called on the God of Abraham, and "the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice." God showed that they were worshipping a false god, whether that means that there's no demon named "Baal" or if there is one and God rendered it powerless, I don't know, but what's certainly expressed is God's supremacy over any other thing we might call a god.

Consider what the practice of constructing idols of wood or metal for these gods would mean from God's perspective, and why it would be so egregious. We have some other gods in mind, who are either non-existent, or so much less than our God that they're completely powerless, and we're creating images of them to worship. In my opinion, there's a two-fold error being made here, and the first is obviously having false gods, but the second is us bowing down before the images we've crafted. God has created humans in his image, so we're already the ultimate image, and we're not even allowed to worship other humans. Imagine the strangeness of the idea that we could revere a false god, and then craft an image of it, and worship the image in the false god's honor.

If God is the source of all truth,to do something like this must be almost as close hitting complete falsehood aswe could get. God has called us to a sacred duty: to be fruitful and multiply,to replenish and have dominion over the Earth. He's created the Earth and allits creatures, and declared them "good", but when he had created humans towatch over the Earth on his behalf, he then declared the whole of his creation"very good." This is what it meant to be an image of God, because God hasdominion over all things, it meant that we are being delegated authority overthe Earth. (Genesis 1:26).