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Part 3 - The Fall and the Restoration
The Model of Restoration: Commandment Two
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image; any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I,
the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My
commandments" (Deut. 5:8-10).
The Second Commandment has a connection to the creation account. It
concerns creatures that God had made to fill the heavens, the earth, and the
seas. Genesis 1:20 records, "Then God said, 'Let the waters abound with an
abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the
face of the firmament of the heavens.' " Also in Genesis 1:24, "Then God
said, 'Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind:
cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its
kind'; and it was so." The simple command to Israel is to not make an image
or likeness of these creatures, to not bow down to such
images, nor to serve them.
The living God's presence
An example of this sin occurs during the Exodus when Moses went up on
Mount Sinai and left the congregation below. The Scripture records how the
people, led by Aaron, built a golden calf: "And he (Aaron) received the gold
from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a
molded calf. Then they said, 'This is your god, O Israel, that brought you
out of the land of Egypt!' So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before
it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, 'Tomorrow is a feast to the
LORD' " (Ex. 32:4-5). The First Commandment is different from the second in
that the first says that there shall be no other gods besides Yahweh. The
second is that God shall not be represented by an image and thus worshipped.
Although Aaron made the golden calf, he still considered that they were
worshipping Yahweh, for he said, "Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD." The
people had lost all sense of God's presence and wanted something visible to
worship.
In redeeming Israel, Yahweh separated for Himself His own people. They
were to be different from the surrounding nations because they were to serve
the true and living God. The other nations all had gods, but they were false
gods. They had to be represented by images. The true and living God was to
be related to directly and not through dead images.
A spiritual application
The creation account is a type of the redemption of Israel, but
it is also a type of the redemptive and sanctifying work of
Christ (see Part Two). As a type of Christ's
work, the living creatures in the creation account model life in the
Spirit. This involves the realm of the world, the spiritual realm, and the realm of the church. In consecrating the lives of believers and giving them purpose,
Christ gave the Holy Spirit to each one so that the life of God Himself
would be manifested in all areas of a believer's life. The Second Commandment was
given to Israel as a law of preservation and has a spiritual application to those redeemed and
sanctified in Christ. Consider the
implications of making an image of these creatures:
1) An image or likeness is a copy.
2) The creatures in these three realms are living whereas a copy is dead.
3) The living creatures are the work of God but the dead copies are the
work of man.
4) Yahweh is "a jealous God" toward those who would bow down to and
serve works of man that are dead copies of living works of God.
One manifestation of the absence of the living God in one's life is the
attempt to imitate the evidence of His presence. A simple example is the use
of religious statues and pictures. In order to be aware of God's presence,
some must look to these because of the lack of an inward awareness of the
living God.
God's presence is further imitated by dead works of man that are then
attributed to God. God filled the physical creation with living creatures
that He made. The new creation in Christ, the new man, is that which is to
be filled with God's living presence. The believer's life is to be filled
with the living works of God. God has anointed each believer with the Spirit
and has given him spiritual gifts to be exercised in the Spirit. The
resulting good works are those for which God gets the credit and glory, for
it is of His presence whereby they come forth.
It is the presence of the Holy Spirit that enables one to fellowship with
and worship God, to minister to the church, and witness to the world. The
gifts and enabling of the Spirit of God make this possible. It is the active
and living participation of God Himself in the believer's life that causes
fruit to be born. God is jealous toward those who replace the work of the
Holy Spirit with their own dead works, and who would then glory in and take
credit for it while calling it God's work. God's fullness and presence is
not to be imitated, and this forms the second point of a proper relationship
with God.
Restoration to a living relationship
In the fall Adam and Eve tried to establish themselves by their own work
and provision. They acted in a way contrary to
God's will and thus in a way apart from God's help and doing. In eating of the forbidden tree, God was not
involved, and so they walked not by His Spirit but according to their own
works. It is the imitation of God's life and God's works that violates the
intent of the Second Commandment. Yahweh desires that one abide in His life
through the Spirit, for He designed
man's soul to cleave to Him. If one rejects His fullness, the attempt to imitate life in the
spiritual realm, the realm of the church (both individually as members of
the body of Christ and corporately as one body), and the worldly realm will only result
in a dead copy of life in the Spirit. God alone is life, and true
fruitfulness comes only from His living presence. As a model of
restoration, the Second Commandment concerns the soul of man. In returning
to God, man must repent from living apart from God. Fallen man desires to
worship his own works, accomplishments, and possessions, and glory in
self-sufficiency. But the model of redemption points to life in
and by the Holy Spirit, where God is all in all and is due all glory.
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