When we experience God’s presence by seeing His face in the Holy Spirit (Matt. 5:8), we come to see the image of God. This image is formed by the various Words, and revelations, and understandings that come from seeing God’s face. It comes from God speaking within our spirit, and showing us things in the Spirit. This image that is formed in the Holy Spirit is the true understanding of what God is like. Each Word or revelation or experience of God causes us to truly understand Him. Coming to God, to experience this wonderful being called God (the first commandment), causes us to look into His face, in spirit, to see what He really looks like (the second commandment). This is His image. And this image is seen in the face of Jesus Christ, the Word of God Himself. This is why He is even called “the image of God” (II Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 1:15).
This true image of God is what we are to serve. This is what the second commandment is about. “You shall not make for yourself any graven image…. You shall not bow down to them or serve them…” (Exodus 20:4-5). A graven image is an image that WE can form. We do the shaping of the idol. The true image -- which is the Word of God revealed by the Holy Spirit -- can only be formed BY GOD within our spirit.
We are only to love and serve God in that true image that is formed in our spirits, and in our hearts, as we experience God’s presence. The second commandment says we are not to make any graven (or, carved) image; and, we are not to bow down to or serve any such false image of God or of His works. We are not to serve any false image of God -- “an image formed by the art and thought of man” (Acts 17:29, New American Standard Bible).
We are not to bow down to these false images, or serve them, for our God is a jealous God. He wants all of us. And He wants to be the one that forms Himself into our being. He does not want us to serve anything except God Himself. He does not want us to serve anything that is just a copy of Him, formed by the work and mind of man. That is what an idol is. It is what the imagination of man thinks God is like. It is the imagination of what man thinks the Bible means by its many glorious descriptions of the life of Christ. It is the imagination of man putting together systematic theologies. It is the works of man, trying to imitate what true righteousness is like. True righteousness only comes from the nature of God working within us, and woven into the fabric of our being. It comes from God changing us by His presence. It comes from seeing God in the Spirit, and living that. An idol is a mere human attempt to mimic this righteousness by our own dead works.
So, on the negative side, the second commandment says “don’t serve God like that.” On the positive side, it implies that by believing in Jesus we are set free from serving the idols of our imagination, and come into truth and reality. We are set free, and come to serve the TRUE image of God, Jesus Christ.
The new testament Scriptures have some very significant things to say about this image. We already noted above that Jesus is called “the image of God” and “the image of the invisible God” (II Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 1:15). The second phrase indicates that Jesus is the one who makes known the Father who cannot be otherwise known. We cannot see God, but in the humanity of Jesus we can see God. We cannot know God, but in the humanity of Jesus we can know God. We cannot perceive the Father without help, but Jesus is our connection to the Father.
As I have shared elsewhere (thegreatnessofjesus.com/How_Do_We_Find_the_Truth.html), the exciting thing is not only is Jesus within us that perfect image, that perfect expression of the Father, but He is changing each of us “into the same image” (II Corinthians 3:18). “For the ones He foreknew, he also did predestine to be conformed to the IMAGE of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Romans 8:29). “Conformed” means that He is changing our “form” to be just like Jesus, so that we are the family members who bear the family likeness -- the family of God. We are not just honorary members of this family! But through the awesome work of Jesus we have been born of that same nature. And this nature will fully grow and be fully formed within us. Now that is good news. That is something to rejoice about!
When we believe this truth, the operation of God starts working within us to make this truth true in us. This is why John uses the phrase, “which thing is true in Him AND IN YOU” (I John 2:8). You see, we are not trying to figure out the truth. Rather, we are living the truth! We are born of the truth! Jesus is the truth (the real revelation of the Father -- John 14:6). And we are “of God” (I John 4:4). Please ask God to reveal to you this phrase “of God.” Also, “we are of the truth” (I John 3:19). These verses are absolutely astounding in their implications, in their meaning, and in the outworking of the reality of which they are speaking. We are of His nature. We are of His ways. We are of His connection to the Father. We are of His being enveloped with the Father. We are of His “only doing what He sees the Father doing.” We are of His eternal life. We are of His image. This is the new covenant: Jesus making us a sharer of His nature, a sharer of His being. We don’t try to be good (in fact we die to that trying), but rather we receive and are changed by His goodness.
Now that is what the second commandment is all about.
In review, then, the first commandment is about the call to seek to experience God directly in rich fellowship in the Holy Spirit. The second is about a clear understanding and knowledge that comes from experiencing Him. The second is about a clear and true spiritual knowledge of Him (as opposed to the dead reasoning of our carnal mind, trying to form a concept of Him, and of truth, and of righteousness, through the reasoning of man). Thinking in terms of II Corinthians 3:17-18, the first is pressing within the veil to “behold the glory of God,” while the second is about being “changed into the same image” (becoming like Jesus). The first commandment is first seeking His presence, seeking rich flow of fellowship. The second one is what comes, through perception with spiritual senses, into our understanding; it is something for our mind to grasp hold of.
We can clearly see why these are the first two commandments. Without first directly experiencing God, and then coming to know Him and to be changed by Him, there would be no hope of living the other eight commandments.
Let us now press on to the third commandment….