WHAT IS IDOLATRY?

✝️Statues of Mary and the Saints? 

Is it idolatry?

 “You Shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is the water under the earth; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God….” 

(Ex 20:3-5).

Many Protestant Christians will accuse Catholic Christians of making idols and quote the above text. What they fail to do is understand the above text in its context. Throughout the history of God’s people, there is always a tendency to fall away from the worship of the One, True God and adopt the pagan practice of worshipping false idols. 

In modern times those idols are: money, sex, status, etc. When the Jews were under the bondage of the Egyptians there was a temptation to worship the animal like gods of the Egyptians. Many of the Egyptian gods were made in the images of jackals, birds and other animals. In the above text God is making an direct condemnation of this practice when he says do not make a graven image of anything in heaven, the earth, under the earth and in the water.

God is not condemning the making of all images, just images that one would worship as a false god. Just 5 chapters later in Exodus 25: 17-22 God actually commands Moses to make graven images of two cherub (angels) to be part of the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant.

“And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and on cherub on the other end; of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out its wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim.” 

Is God contradicting himself ? 

No, God condemns the practice of making false idols to be worshiped as gods as in the case of the golden calf, not images that are used to aid in the worship of God as in the case of the cherub on the Ark of the Covenant. In Exodus 32:1 the people said to Aaron “Up, make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” The above text is what God is condemning in Exodus 20, making images or statues and proclaiming them to be gods. Another good reference to God commanding man to make graven images is in Numbers 24:8-9 with the bronze serpent.

“And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”

 God is working his life saving grace through a graven image. Our God is a God of materials; always working his grace through things and people he has created (prophets, priest, angels, water, mud, a bronze snake, Moses’ staff, wine, bread, oil, etc). Twice here we have shown from scripture that God commanded the creation of graven images. If a graven image is made with the intentions to worship as a false god, then this is idolatry, but if the image is made to aid in the worship of God and not be worshiped itself as in the case of the Cherub and the Bronze serpent it is actually beneficial to the Christian people.