Kenny Loggins and the Worship of God

Understanding the Totality of the Second Commandment

Howdy!

I am going to do my best not to make our walk through the commandments boring and/or monotonous. Whenever you start a long journey it is best to mentally prepare yourself for the length. I often joke that in a former life I was a long-haul truck driver because I can get in a car and zone out and make a ten-hour drive feel like a half-hour. However, not a lot of people are like that (ask my kids). The hope is by the time we get to the Tenth Commandment you have not completely checked out and are not pulling a Roberto Duran chanting NO MAS! NO MAS!

My goal is to help you see the beauty of Christian ethics. It is where our faith meets real life. We need to understand that it is worth the effort to examine what God would have us to do and to be, because as we seek to obey the Lord we will begin to experience a devotional peace in which by submitting ourselves to Jesus and confessing that as we see the wisdom and attractiveness of the way He has ordered His creation with more clarity, our hearts will be tied to Christ as a wife is to a husband. There is a lot to be said for that type of loyalty. Fidelity to our confession of faith matters. Our belief that there is no hope outside our Redeemer is worked out in what we do when we make decisions and act in the world. While it may seem as if that kind of moral principle is really for the second table of the law, the first table is just as practical for our day-to-day.

Let’s go ahead and get to our catechism questions for this morning as we start to get into how that works:

Q. 49. Which is the Second Commandment?

A. The second commandment is, Thou shalt not make unto 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 water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Q. 50. What is Required in the Second Commandment?

A. The second commandment requires the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and en­tire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his word.

Question 49 is the longest question we’ve had so far. Part of the reason for that is because the second commandment is the first one with an extended explanation of why we are not to do the thing God has told us to steer clear of. Before we get into that we need to deal with the plain reading of the text and what exactly men and women are being instructed to accomplish, or not accomplish in this case. The commandment has to do with one major idea, with two similar, yet not exactly identical roads which lead out from it. Worship is the natural outcome of having no other gods before the one true and living God. We were made to worship. That’s our central identity. Given that Jehovah is the focus of our worship it is just common sense that He dictates how, and in what way, He is to be worshipped. A key verse for us to consider in this regard is Deuteronomy 12:32, which says, “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.”

The way some describe this is by using the term Regulative Principle of Worship. All that simply means is that we only do in corporate, family, and private worship what God has revealed to us to do in His word, either by direct command, or by good and necessary example/consequence. The reason why we don’t have dancing, laser light shows, speaking in tongues, and any number of other innovations is because as our Father has shown us His manner of praise, we follow it, not offering up strange fire to the Lord, but by humbly relying on His gracious order of worship we trust in His way. It is why our service is “plain”, without seemingly pious extravaganza. It’s why our children stay in worship and are not shuffled out before the “adult” stuff starts. All the members of the covenant are to be present when their God speaks.

We do what we do simply because God has shown us this truth in His word.

The other part of this commandment is the somewhat controversial command not to make images of the Godhead. That means no pictures whatsoever of the Father, Son, or the Holy Spirit. Some will say that it is okay to image Christ because He came in the flesh. The primary problem with that is in forming a painting or sculpture or NFT we are necessarily portraying a false image since the Bible does not give us a description of any physical attributes of Jesus. There also is the issue of dividing His humanity from His divinity. If you can figure out how to take the spiritual and make it physical than you are a lot smarter than I am. In Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 109 we are warned against not just making idols of wood and stone (Acts 17:29-31), but forming an image of God in our minds. It is worth remembering that we are not allowed to do in our head what we are not allowed to do with our hands. (Matt. 5:27-28). The requirement here is no more strict than the mental restrictions for coveting or stealing. One of the pushbacks that usually appears is whether or not it was wrong for the disciples to think about Jesus when they were out preaching or just living life after His ascension. Of course it wouldn’t have been wrong because Mattias, Bartholomew, and James all would have seen Christ in the flesh, thereby remembering a true image, however, it still would have been sin for them to worship that physical image.

Some people like to say that those of us who take the commandment at face value and push back against everything from stained glass representations of Kenny Loggins to the funko images found in children’s storybooks are being too literal and are reading the Bible too woodenly. I am a firm believer in letting the Scriptures speak for themselves. Where God communicates His will it is my duty to not just be quiet, but to desire obedience unto His word and to lovingly follow as a sheep following my Shepherd. Both the 2nd and 4th Commandment have become provocative in our Reformed circles, and it should not be. This is a case where our forefathers were not necessarily “more holy” than us, but they were in this situation without a doubt wiser.

Here is a bit more to read on the rationale for our Catechism’s understanding on images:

https://www.placefortruth.org/blog/the-second-commandment-westminster-and-images-of-jesus

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church