You Saw No Form

Deuteronomy 4:11-19

Have you ever been in a situation where you heard a voice but could not see the person it was coming from? That can be unnerving! Now imagine you heard that voice and there was no person or speaker that it was coming from. Most of us would take off running. Many would assume it was a ghost. As I write this I am chuckling a little because I feel like I have seen this in an episode of Scooby Doo. We know that a voice is supposed to come from a person. So, when there is no person for the voice to come from, we do not know how to take it.

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“Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess.

"Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.

Deuteronomy 4:11-19

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I'm not going to go verse by verse through this, but God is driving a point home to the Hebrews; do not make idols. He never appeared to the children of Israel in the form of anything. He spoke to Moses from a burning bush, but the bush was not God. Here He tells about speaking to them from the mountain, but He was not the mountain. There was a thick cloud of darkness on the mountain, but God was not the cloud. He told them that He did not appear in the form of anything in earth or the heavens.

Some people take this to mean that we can never portray God, or Jesus, in any way. I'm not criticizing them, but I do not share that conviction. I believe there is a difference in portraying God/Jesus in a skit or tv show, and worshiping that portrayal. That being said, I also know that there can be a fine line that is easily crossed at times. I will give you an example.

Some 8-9 years ago we went to the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida. There was an actor playing Jesus, and he quoted part of the sermon on the mount. I was fine with this. However, after the production people flocked to him to be touched by him or prayed for. At one point they even announced that you could be baptized by "Jesus". That pretty much ruined my day. I told our group that we were in the middle of idolatry. It went above and beyond what was acceptable.

God has only ever appeared as one man, Jesus. We do not know what He looked like. There is no description of Him given in scripture. We know two things: He was Jewish, and He had a beard. This was intentional because God did not want us making images of Him (Father, Son, or Spirit) to worship or to be a part of our worship. He is very clear about that.

When images are worshiped, they tend to take the place of the deity. They also become good luck charms. Think about how the "Lord's prayer" gets used today. At many sporting events it is quoted in the hopes that it will bring good favor and a win to that team. How much more if we had some statue of God? God wants us to look in one direction, to Him. He does not want our hearts divided over the true God and an image. He does not want us fighting over whose image is superior or thinking we are superior because of the image we have. That makes the "worship" all about us. That means that it is not worship at all.

Father, there are many that have idols in their lives in the name of worshiping You. Beads, necklaces, crucifixes, statues, and many other things draw hearts to the object instead of to You. Help us to walk in truth because we want to be close to You. Help us to cherish You in a way that You approve of and that honors You alone.