Deuteronomy 5:7-9; Isaiah 2:18
Thou shalt have none other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make 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 waters beneath the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them.
The idols he shall utterly abolish.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me,” is against mental or theoretic idolatry. The Second Commandment is against making and worshipping images, or practical idolatry.
J.H.M. d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): All portraitures, shapes, images of God, whether by effigies or pictures, are here forbidden. “Take heed lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make the similitude of any figure,” Deuteronomy 4:15,16. God is to be adored in the heart, not painted to the eye. “Thou shalt not bow down to them.” The intent of making images and pictures is to worship them. No sooner was Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image set up, but all the people fell down and worshipped it, Daniel 3:7. God forbids such prostrating ourselves before an idol. The thing prohibited in this commandment is image-worship. To set up an image to represent God, is debasing Him.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): And there are two parts in the Second Commandment—the first forbids the erection of a graven image, or any likeness; the second prohibits the transferring of the worship which God claims for Himself alone, to any of these phantoms. Therefore, to devise any image of God, is in itself impious; because by this corruption His Majesty is adulterated, and He is figured to be other than He is.
THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): It is idolatry, not only to worship a false god, but the true God in a false manner.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): As for the church of Rome, if there is not an enormous quantity of systematic organized idolatry, I frankly confess that I do know not what idolatry is. To my mind, idolatry is to have images and pictures of saints in churches, and to give them a reverence to which there is no warrant or precedence in Scripture.
THOMAS WATSON: Roman Catholics make images of God the Father, painting Him in their church windows as an old man; and an image of Christ on the crucifix…They say they do not worship the image, but only use it as a medium through which to worship God. Where has God bidden them worship Him by an effigy or image? “Who has required this at your hands?” Isaiah 1:12. The Papists cannot say so much as the devil, “It is written.” The heathen may bring the same argument for their gross idolatry, as the Papists do for their image-worship. What heathen has been so simple as to think gold or silver, or the figure of an ox or elephant, was God? These were emblems and hieroglyphics only to represent him. They worshipped an invisible God by such visible things. To worship God by an image, God takes as done to the image itself.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): I would not hesitate to assert that this system known as Roman Catholicism, is the devil’s greatest masterpiece!
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The idea was to Christianize heathenism. They virtually said to idolaters, “Now, good people, you may keep on with your worship, and yet you can be Christians at the same time. This image of the Queen of heaven at your door need not be moved. Light the lamp still; only call the image ‘our Lady,’ and ‘the Blessed Virgin.’ Here is another image; don’t pull it down, but change its name from Jupiter to Peter.” Thus with a mere change of names they perpetuated idolatry: they set up their altars in the groves, and upon every high hill, and the people were converted without knowing it, to a baser heathenism than their own. They wanted priests, and, lo, there they were, robed like those who served at the altars of Jove. The people saw the same altars and sniffed the same incense, kept the same holy days and observed the same carnivals as aforetime, and called everything by Christian names. Hence came what is now called the Roman Catholic religion, which is simply fearing God and serving other gods, 2 Kings 17:32,33,41. Every village has its own peculiar saint, and often its own particular black or white image of the Virgin, with miracles and wonders to sanctify the shrine.
J. C. RYLE: It is idolatry to invoke the Virgin Mary and the saints in glory, and to address them in language never addressed in the Scripture except to the Holy Trinity.
THOMAS WATSON: To pray to saints is idolatry advanced to blasphemy.
C. H. SPURGEON: With what indignation then, must the Lord look down upon that apostate harlot called the Roman Catholic Church, when in all her sanctuaries, there are pictures and images, relics, and poor infatuated beings are even taught to bow before a piece of bread.
J. C. RYLE: It is idolatry to adore that which man’s hands have made―to call it God, and to adore it when lifted up before our eyes.
C. H. SPURGEON: I have seen thousands adore the wafer, hundreds bow before the image of the Virgin, scores at prayer before a crucifix, and companies of men and women adoring a rotten bone or a rusty nail, because it is said to be the relic of a saint. It is vain for the Romanist to assert that he worships not the things themselves, but only the Lord through them, for this the second commandment expressly forbids.
J. C. RYLE: Whether in the adoration of the Hindu idol of Juggernaut,* or in the adoration of the host in St. Peter’s Basilica at Rome, the idolatrous principle is in reality the same. Whenever this is done, whether in heathen temples, or professedly Christian churches, there is an act of idolatry…Roman Catholicism is a gigantic system of Mary-worship, saint-worship, image-worship, relic-worship, and priest-worship—a huge organized idolatry.
THOMAS WATSON: The Church of Rome is reproved and condemned, which, from the Alpha of its religion to the Omega, is wholly idolatrous.
J. C. RYLE: The desolation which reigns where Cyprian and Augustine once preached―the living death in which the churches of Asia Minor and Syria are buried―all are attributable to this sin. All testify to the same great truth which the Lord proclaims in Isaiah, “My glory I will not give to another,” Isaiah 42:8…The end of idolatry shall one day come. Its doom is fixed. Its overthrow is certain. Whether in heathen temples, or in so-called “Christian” churches, idolatry shall be destroyed at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then shall be fulfilled the prophecy, “The idols he shall utterly abolish.”
C. H. SPURGEON: Wait but a little while and you shall see them fall! Cruel Juggernaut, whose car still crushes in its motion the foolish ones who throw themselves before it,* shall yet be the object of derision. And the most noted idols, such as Buddha and Brahma and Vishnu, shall yet stoop themselves to the earth and men shall tread them down as mire in the streets, for God will teach all men that He is God and that there is none else!
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*Editor’s Note: Juggernaut is a title of the Hindu idol-god Krishnu, meaning “the Lord of the world.” Visitors to India in the 19th Century reported that worshippers of Juggernaut sometimes threw themselves beneath the wheels of the car carrying the idol-god to be crushed as sacrifices. A drawing (1851) and a photo (1870) of these idol cars may be seen at this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggernaut
