We can't do that. . .

Living in the Bible belt, if you can still call it that, the numbering of the Ten Commandments is different from Rome or Wittenberg.  There is a part of the explanation of the first three commandments on who to worship that ends up being its own commandment.  "You shall not make any graven images." (Hebrew: לֹא-תַעֲשֶׂה לְךָ פֶסֶל, וְכָל-תְּמוּנָה, Exodus 20:6).  This is part of the fuller explanation of the command not to worship idols but Baptists and others have made it it's own separate law.  So what does this mean?  Is God somehow against art?  Is God jealous of His image or the image of His creation?  Or, is this what it claims to be -- part of the prohibition against having and worshiping any other gods?

I will admit that it is a strange business.  God violated His own rules then by commanding images for the Temple.  It was these that got the Temple looted and sacked by others.  Nobody was interested in the scrolls or the incense but the golden images that adorned the walls of the Temple were tempting to anyone in search of a quick buck against what had become a toothless nation.  Lets not even begin to talk about the ark of the covenant with its golden cherubim and wings covering the mercy seat. Then there is the business of the bronze serpent.  This was certainly a graven image that appears to directly contradict the command not to make any graven images except that this was an image commanded by God and to which a promise had been attached.  Perhaps this is the better example.  The command was never about making no sacred art but about those images which became idols and stole the worship of God away from Him and attached it to something else. It was always about worshiping an image not simply as a depiction of God but in place of Him.  The commandment explains this.  “You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” (Deuteronomy 5:7)

Lutherans seem to have gotten sucked into this even though our history clearly says different.  Of course, we are against the worship of any one or any thing or any practice or any idea that replaces what is due to God alone.  But neither are we iconoclasts who refuse the use of art that gives form to the Word of God.  In fact, we love art that speaks the Word of God.  The crucifix is a perfect example.  It is never an attempt to realistically portray what Jesus looked like but to give form to the words that speak of His suffering and death for you and for me -- all out of His perfect love for us sinners.  There is probably no more Lutheran a Lutheran than Franz Pieper and yet he reminds us that a crucifix is not simply permitted but can be a means of grace:  the Gospel is such a means of grace in every form in which it reams men, whether it be preached or printed or expressed as formal absolution or pictured in symbols or types or pondered in the heart... (Vol. 3 of Christian Dogmatics, p. 106). Pieper, of course, does not venture far from Luther:  by a crucifix or some picture... Luther often recalls that in the Papacy many, when in the throes of death, were reminded of Christ's substitutionary satisfaction by means of a crucifix held before their eyes and thus died a blessed death. 

Of course, the oddity is that no one thinks of this commandment as a command when purchasing a nativity set or buying the holiest of statues with Santa kneeling at the manger of the baby Jesus.  We are selective in our application of the command but often end up missing what is commanded.  Idolatry.   Not art or image but idols.  In our age, we seem to have made our peace with most images but have made an idol out of our own.  We must be comfortable, enjoy it, and find it meaningful before we will worship anything but most especially the Triune God.  In so doing, we have violated the commandment with nary a form or shape to show for it.  Oh, well.