The Vanity of Image Worship

Jehovah's challenge to the false gods brings to mind the second of the Ten Commandments.  That commandment clearly stated: "You must not make for yourself a carved image or a form like anything that is in the heavens above or that is on the earth underneath or that is in the waters under the earth.  You must not bow down to them nor be induced  to serve them." (this means saluting the flag,  putting your hand over your heart and singing or saying anything pertaining to a country or US. or flag, also not crossing your heart when in a catholic church, etc., no honoring imperfect sinful humans)  (Exodus 20:4, 5)  Of course, this prohibition did not mean that the Israelites were not to make decorative representations of things.  Jehovah himself directed that representations of  plants, animals and cherubs be placed in a tabernacle.  (Exodus 25:18; 26:31) However, these were  not to be venerated, or worshiped.  No one was to pray or to offer sacrifices to those representations.  The divinely inspired commandment prohibited the making of any kind of image to be used as an  object of worship.  (such as the picture of the virgin Mary, pictures of Jesus Christ and God, statutes of Buddha, necklaces with crosses etc.) Worshiping images or bowing down to them in reverence constitutes idolatry.  -1 John 5:21.

Isaiah now describes the uselessness of lifeless images and the shame awaiting those who make them:  "The formers of the carved image are all of them an unreality, and their darlings themselves will be of no benefit; and as their witnesses they see nothing and know nothing, in order that they may be ashamed.  Who has formed a god or cast a mere molten image?  Of not benefit at all has it been.  Look! All his partners themselves will be ashamed, and the craftsmen  are from earthling men.  They will all of them collect themselves together.  They will stand still.  They will be in dread.  They will be ashamed at the same time." -Isaiah 44:9-11.

Whey does God regard these images as so shameful?  First, it is impossible to represent  the Almighty accurately with material things.  (Acts 17:29) Moreover, to worship  a created thing rather than the Creator is an affront to Jehovah's Godship.  And is it not really beneath the dignity of man, who was created  "in God's image"? -Genesis 1:27; Romans 1:23, 25.

Can physical matter somehow acquire holiness because it has been crafted to become something to be worshiped?  Isaiah reminds us that making an image is just a human endeavor.  The tools and techniques of an image maker are the same as those used by any other artisan:  "As for  the carver of iron with the billhook, he has been busy at it with the coals; and with the hammers he proceeds to form it, and he keeps busy at it with his powerful arm. Also, he has become hungry, and so without power. He has not drunk water, so he gets tired. as for the wood carver, he has stretched out the measuring line; he traces it out with red chalk; he works it up with a wood scraper; and with a compass he keeps tracking it out, and gradually he makes it like the representation of a man, like the beauty of mankind, to sit in a house." -Isaiah 44:12, 13.

Next time: Conclusion of The Vanity of Image Worship

From the Book Isaiah's Prophecy Light for all Mankind, Volume II, 2001