Oh boy...... The old “That was Mosaic Law, therefore delete” maneuver. This move is popular with folks who treat the Old Testament like it’s the expired section of the divine grocery store—use by date: 33 AD. But let’s take a closer look and see if that actually holds water or if it’s just a leaky dispensational bucket.

First, let’s grant what should be obvious: the ceremonial and judicial laws of Moses—those types and shadows pointing forward to Christ—were indeed fulfilled in Him. Praise God. We no longer slaughter goats at sunrise. But the Second Commandment is not part of the ceremonial scaffolding that was taken down when Christ rose. It’s part of the moral law, the Ten Commandments, the ones written by the finger of God on stone, the ones placed inside the Ark of the Covenant, the ones reiterated by Jesus Himself.

Now imagine someone in the New Testament era saying, “That was part of the Mosaic Law,” and then using that to justify coveting their neighbor’s wife or taking the Lord’s name in vain. We’d all understand immediately that they had either lost their theological marbles or were looking for permission to sin. But when it comes to the Second Commandment, suddenly we’re all about “context” and “fulfilled law.” Funny how that works.

You see, God didn’t prohibit images of Himself because goat blood hadn’t been shed properly. He prohibited images of Himself because He is infinite, eternal, invisible, and holy. That hasn’t changed. That never can change. The very reason the commandment was given is the very reason it still applies. The eternal nature of God is the foundation for the ongoing obligation. In other words, God wasn’t just being culturally sensitive to Bronze Age Israelites. He was drawing a line in the sand for all of human history: Do not image Me.

And let’s add this: if the Second Commandment was “for worship only,” then all these Jesus movies and Sunday School coloring books should still be on the chopping block. Because nobody is out here watching “The Chosen” as a secular educational documentary. And the very minute you say, “This image helps me think about Jesus,” congratulations—you’ve just slipped into the exact function of worship the commandment forbids. The ancient Israelites didn’t say, “Let’s worship the calf instead of Yahweh.” They said, “This is Yahweh!” (Exodus 32:5). And God was not amused.

Also, if we’re being honest, the argument that “Jesus fulfilled the law, so this command doesn’t apply” conveniently turns Christ into the patron saint of iconography, which is about as backwards as saying Moses parted the sea so we could go back to Egypt. Christ didn’t fulfill the law so we could now violate it with impunity. He fulfilled it so that the law could be written on our hearts (Jer. 31:33), not thrown in the shredder.

So here’s the bottom line, and it’s as sharp as the edge of Occam’s razor: the Second Commandment still applies, because the God it reveals has not changed, and our hearts are still just as eager to domesticate the Infinite with a sketch pad or a film reel. The problem wasn’t Old Covenant ceremonialism. The problem was—and remains—our sinful tendency to reimagine God in our image, even if the coloring book says “Jesus” on the front.

Let's take a quick stroll through church history—where we’ll find that the early church and the Reformers both had their heads screwed on straight when it came to this issue.

Start with the early church. Irenaeus—writing in the second century, mind you—slams the Gnostics for making images of Christ, and he does so precisely because they were trying to domesticate the Incarnate Word into something manmade. Tertullian likewise denounced Christian art of Christ as idolatrous. These men were no lightweights. They weren’t Baptist youth pastors with a guitar and a fog machine. They were bleeding for the faith, and yet they still thought images of Jesus were a bad idea. Imagine that.

Move forward a few centuries and you hit the iconoclastic controversies. You had real theologians—men like Epiphanius and later the iconoclast bishops of the East—saying that even attempting to depict Christ’s humanity apart from His divinity was a Nestorian heresy in paint. Why? Because you cannot divide Christ into parts—if you paint His face but not His divinity, you’re not painting Jesus. You’re painting your imagination.

Now fast-forward to the Reformation, and this is where it gets really spicy. The Second Helvetic Confession (1566), a major Reformed statement, says this: “It is not lawful for any man to make an image of God.” Not just unlawful to worship it. Not just unwise. Not lawful to make. Period.

The Westminster Larger Catechism (Q&A 109) doesn’t pull punches either. It says the Second Commandment forbids “the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness whatsoever.” That’s not unclear. That’s not “don’t misuse it in worship.” That’s “don’t make it—at all.”

And what about the Heidelberg Catechism? Same tune, different verse: “God can and may not be visibly portrayed in any way.” Again, that’s not contextualized away by Jesus’s incarnation. If anything, His glorified, ascended state only makes such portrayals even more presumptuous. He is the image of the invisible God, not the visible image we are free to draw doodles of.

So, to sum up: the early church fathers said “don’t,” the Reformers said “definitely don’t,” and modern evangelicals say “but it helps my kids focus.” That’s called regression, not progress.

The history of the church has been overwhelmingly on the side of obeying the Second Commandment as it actually reads. If you want to make an image of Christ, you are not siding with the apostles, the martyrs, or the Reformers—you’re siding with the Byzantines who eventually thought kissing an icon was a decent substitute for communion.

But Christ is not honored by golden calves or Renaissance oils. He is honored by faith, obedience, and refusing to bow to the cultural pressure to make God marketable. No man has seen God at any time—and that includes the art department.

Ah yes, Exodus 25. The golden cherubim. Now before we all start crafting flannelgraph Jesuses and Nativity Play bobbleheads in earnest, let’s take a moment and do what the text calls us to do—actually read it and interpret it in context.

The objection here seems to be something like this: “God commanded the making of some images, therefore we can make any image, including depictions of the Second Person of the Trinity.” That, to be blunt, is the exegetical equivalent of saying that because God gave dietary laws about eating lamb, I now have biblical warrant to eat my neighbor’s cat. No thank you.

God commanded the cherubim to be fashioned for the tabernacle, for specific liturgical use, under divine instruction, within a covenantal structure, and with no hint whatsoever that these beings represent God Himself. In fact, they were guarding the place where God dwells, not representing God. You could call them heavenly bouncers. But they were not the Host.

So let’s draw a hard and fast line where God draws it: He is not to be imaged. Period. Not in wood, not in stone, not in film, and not in your devotional Instagram reels. The second commandment doesn’t merely prohibit idolatrous use of an image of God; it prohibits the making of any image of God. That means intent is not the loophole some people think it is. “But I don’t worship the painting of Jesus in my living room.” Right, and a burglar may not worship your front door either, but he still had no business making it his point of entry.

To quote the text plainly: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing… Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.” (Exodus 20:4–5). And the force of the passage is not a division between the making and the bowing, as if one is fine without the other. The prohibition includes the crafting itself, because the crafting itself corrupts our conception of the Creator.

And let’s not forget Deuteronomy 4:15–16, where Moses, reflecting directly on Mount Sinai, says: “Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves… for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb… lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image.” In other words, because you didn’t see a form, don’t try to make one. That’s not a gray area. That’s God putting up a neon “DO NOT ENTER” sign, and doing it in covenantal Hebrew.

Now if you want golden angels guarding the Ark, that’s fine—when God tells you to build a tabernacle and gives you blueprints by name. Until then, obey the Second Commandment and keep your crayons away from the Christ. God is spirit. Christ is risen and ascended. We walk by faith, not by Photoshop.