10C's: no. 2 no idols, part b

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman in John 4:23 -24

"the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of woshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth." (NIV)

the first commandment hits the truth aspect. the second commandment hits the spirit aspect. it is impossible to sculpt the non-physical. how do you sculpt wind? wind can be described by words and sensation but not by vision, not by personification.
in the previous chapter of John, Jesus tells the religious leader, Nicodemus,

“3:5 I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 3:6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 3:7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ 3:8 The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (NET)

the Creator of the universe can't be represented in one object. the Israelites tried a couple times to represent God as a golden calf. Moses's brother, Aaron, made a calf and told the crowd, here is your god, the one who delivered you from Egypt, Exodus 32:4. He does this while Moses is receiving this law. he made the idol in response to the people's impatience. Moses had been on top of this volcano for 40 days. they wanted to worship something. worship is part of how He made us. we are made to worship. and i don't think the people believed the golden calf had power in itself, but that it was a correct representation of their deliverer. later on when the northern tribes seceded from the Davidic kingdom of the South, they made two calf idols for the people to worship Jehovah, so they wouldn't go down to Jerusalem anymore. of course they knew the idols weren't God, just visual representations to stimulate their worship. but i think God's point is that he isn't perceived with our eyes, but with our spirits.
Philip asks Jesus in John 14 to show them the Father. Jesus replies,

“14:9 Have I been with you for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?" (NET)

yet, we have no image of Jesus to adore from the Bible. we have a negative image. Isaiah tells us he was unattractive.

53:2 He sprouted up like a twig before God,
like a root out of parched soil;
he had no stately form or majesty that might catch our attention,
no special appearance that we should want to follow him.
53:3 He was despised and rejected by people,
one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;
people hid their faces from him;
he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. (NET)

he didn't stand out, yet seeing him was seeing God. his image is the only image of God that is acceptable to worship. and we don't have that image now, not the physical one. but we do know alot about God by the record of his life among us. we are prohibited from worshiping a thing of creation, but we are called to worship a creator, a who, or three who's. what do we know about Jesus? as Gayle Erwin summarizes Him,
formed from the Gospels and Philippians 2:5-11, as well as some other lists that have come out of the understanding of the Nature of Jesus:

The Nature of Jesus

1. Servant
2. Not Lord It over Others
3. Lead by Example
4. Humble
5. As A Child
6. As the Younger
7. As the Least
8. Last
9. Used No Force on Us
10. Was Not Driven by Selfish Ambition
11. Made Himself of No Reputation
12. Was Fully Human
13. Obedient
14. Unto Death

and we know this about the Father, again from Erwin
We now give you God the Father's description of himself as found in Exodus 34:6:

The Nature of God the Father

1. Compassionate
2. Gracious
3. Slow to Anger
4. Abounding in Mercy
5. Abounding in Faithfulness
6. Maintaining Love to Thousands
7. Forgiving Wickedness, Rebellion and Sin
8. Punishing Only Those Who Hate Him

and finally the Holy Spirit
Prophecies of Jesus about the Holy Spirit

1. Comforter
2. Abide, live with us forever
3. Spirit of Truth
4. Dwell in Us
5. Teacher
6. Testify of Jesus
7. Convict World of Sin
8. Convict World of Righteousness
9. Convict World of Judgment
10. Guide Us into All Truth
11. Not Speak of Himself
12. Show Us Things to Come
13. Glorify Jesus

The Anointing of the Spirit

1. Preach Good News to the Poor
2. Heal the Brokenhearted
3. Proclaim Freedom for the Captives
4. Release from Darkness for Prisoners
5. Proclaim the Season of God's Favor
6. Day of Vengeance of our God
7. Comfort All Who Mourn
8. Provide for Those Who Grieve
9. Beauty for Ashes
10. Oil of Joy for Mourning
11. Garment of Praise for the Spirit of Heaviness
12. Trees of Righteousness, the Planting of the Lord

how can this God, just described be reduced to an image? it's an insult. it's a blasphemy. one that God punished the Jewish nations for by Assyria and Babylonia. by that time, they supplemented worship of him with worship of other gods and their idols and the dissipation that followed inevitably. we are conformed to the image of what we worship. and even noble things, though approaching an aspect of God's nature, are limited. why would someone only enjoy one facet on a diamond? it's all those facets together that cause the brilliance and the beauty. any idol is a part. and worshipers realized it and had to supplement their pantheon.
i realize i am only retreading Paul's argument to the Athenians, keepers of the Pantheon. so i will let Paul's conclusion be mine...

Acts 17:22 So Paul stood before the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. 17:23 For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you. 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, 17:25 nor is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives life and breath and everything to everyone. 17:26 From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their set times and the fixed limits of the places where they would live, 17:27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope around for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 17:28 For in him we live and move about and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’
17:29 So since we are God’s offspring, we should not think the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human skill and imagination. 17:30 Therefore, although God has overlooked such times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent, 17:31 because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he designated, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead.”