Series: The Ten Commandments
The Second Commandment: God is Revealed, Not Created
Exodus 20:4, NRSV
Colossians 1:15-23, NRSV
Reflections
God says to us in the 2nd Commandment, “If you stop trying to make me into your likeness, I can start making you into my likeness. If you only will let me stretch your imagination instead of you confining me to your imagination, I can make you into something beyond your wildest imagination.”
— Tim Keller
- Often times we have low expectation with God
- One way to get to know God is by looking at Jesus
- Second commandment is a little more specific than other commandments
- With idolatry, we won’t get ourselves right, we won’t get God right, we won’t get others/love right
- With idolatry, we try to get the god we prefer, rather than the God that’s been revealed, through Jesus Christ
- Getting ourselves right
- John Calvin – Knowledge of God and knowledge of self is interconnected
- We construct our own image of self as we grow up; we all have our own strategy to cope with the world without God
- Some of the life strategies we come up with: isolation, perfection, fact-finding, fear
- But none of them can deal with the fullness and completeness of ourselves
- None of them has to do with the love of God
- Getting God right
- The god we prefer is a distorted image of God
- God could seem too harsh or too soft when the image doesn’t match our distortion
- Mystery of nailing on a cross: there is a difference between thinking it as a problem being solved by God, and thinking it as God’s revelation of His character
- Getting others (or love for others) right
- “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.” — from the book “The Way of Chuang Tzu” (莊子), by Thomas Merton, American Catholic writer, a keen proponent of interfaith understanding
- From marriage counseling: What you hope is you are marrying a good block of marble, not a statue. Not so you can create the kind of person you want, but rather because you see what kind of person Jesus is making.
- Demanding others to fit into our ideal, can only lead to anger, disappointment, cynicism
- All of us were made in God’s image, with just as much complexity
- Love others in a different way; not trying to control and fit into our idea
