The danger is not in a good or bad crucifix the problem is generally in our minds.

Most us have been, are, or will be guilty of “creating God in our own image” or “telling God who God has to be.” Most of us have, are, or will sculpt false images in our mind. And do you see it? We don’t have melt gold earrings to sculpt a false image of God. Others say, “Well, my God would never _,” and again they fill in the blank by telling the Sovereign Lord who God has to be. By doing so, we do what? We make a caricature of God. We say, “I like to think of God as _,” and then we fill in the blank with something that is our image of God, whether it agrees with Scripture or not. These idols are the ways we like to “picture” God. One of the most profound things that I’ve learned in ministry is that the most common form of idol is the one in our minds. No matter how hard we try, we make him less. Any picture or statue that we try to make is God – no matter how glorious we make it – will absolutely be less than what God really is. Let’s focus on making an image of God-the-Father. Third, while the true focus needs to be on not worshiping a wrong image, there’s still a problem with making graven images. As I understand it, Luther reasoned that while the crucifix certainly helped us focus on the Good Friday sacrifice, a non-crucifix might help us remember this message: “The empty cross testifies that the Christ who died sacrificially for us has now risen!” (I like both.) Second, as my understanding of Christian history goes, it was actually a Lutheran – Martin Luther himself – who was first to popularize not having the crucifix in the church but rather an empty cross. In other words, it aids their worship of the true God it doesn’t become the object of their worship. The problem is any form of wrong worship! And I will joyfully say that 99.99999% of Christians who have ever worshiped before a crucifix have worshiped the Savior who did die on the cross, and not the figurine that is glue to a cross! In fact for many, the crucifix helps them focus more fully on God-the-Son’s love and sacrifice. So here’s the first point: The problem is not the graven image. It not about the image or likeness or statue or crucifixion, it’s all about bowing down or worshipping anything other than God! God is saying, Don’t make a statue to worship worship me!Īnd in context, what did the Israelites do just a few more chapters later? They made a stupid statue to bow down to and worship! Do remember this? Exodus 32:1-4 … “When the people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us….” Aaron replied, “Take off the golden earrings … and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people … brought them to Aaron. He received their offering, and … made a molten calf … cried out, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Question: Was God violating his own commandment? No! Again we need context for Exodus 20:4 … and that comes in verse 5! Read it in context: “ 4 You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness (or a graven image, to use the Old English) of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below… 5 you shall not bow down before them or serve them.” In context, it tells why we don’t make graven images. These two graven images (statues) were to be depicted as bowing over the Mercy Seat, the place where God’s presence would meet the people of Israel on earth. These two graven images of angels were to be affixed to the top of the Ark of the Covenant. Just a few pages after this commandment – Exodus 25:17-19 – God commands the Israelites to do precisely what it appears that he just commanded them not to do – create a graven image of something from heaven, or more precisely, two graven images of two angels. But we always need to remember the context – the verses and chapters around the passage.

If we stop reading there, we should perhaps ban crucifixes. No graven images is commandment number two! Exodus 20:4 says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness (or a graven image, to use the Old English) of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below…” If God commands us not to make graven images, why do some churches use crucifixes?

You shall not make any graven images