The second of the Ten Commandments prohibits the use of any idols or images of any god whatsoever. God’s people were not even to make an image of God Himself. The dangers of idolatry are many. But the main reason God banned it is obvious: only God can represent God. Everything else falls short.


In Colossians 1:15 Paul calls Jesus the “image” of the invisible God. How can this be right if images of God are forbidden? It could only be right if Jesus was both God and man. And that is precisely what Paul goes on to say; that the God who created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, revealed Himself to us in Jesus Christ. It’s as if the second commandment created a vacuum that would one day be filled when God represented Himself on earth.


Strictly speaking, Jesus was not an object lesson about God. An object has to be something other than what you are teaching about. Yet Jesus did come to teach us about God and to mysteriously be at the same time the God He was teaching about.