Key Bible Passage(s):

Is.40:12-15; Col.1:15; I Cor.15:49; Matt.22:15-22

Tier 1:

The first half of the 10 Commandments teaches us what it means to love God. In the last session we considered the prohibition on worshipping the wrong god. This session, focusing on the second commandment alerts us to the dangers of worshipping the right God in the wrong way. Do we know the God we worship? How can we cultivate a full and accurate vision of God when He far surpasses anything in our experience? Where do we go to understand who He is, and how can we represent Him in our relationship, thinking and worship?

Tier 2:

The second commandment doesn’t forbid an image of God. It forbids us making one from a perspective limited by creation. There is in fact already a gloriously adequate image of God in existence. He is called Jesus, and to dismiss that given Image in preference for one of our own making would be the height of folly and arrogance. When it comes to knowing truly and faithfully who God is, and what God is like, we are supposed to come to the Image He has given us – not create one of our own! We worship God and know God, in and through Christ.

Tier 3:

God is an image-maker, and He made us in His image.   We are dangerously subversive when we then try and make ‘god’ in our image, to reflect our desires, and our sense of what we think ‘god’ should be and do. This is spiritually catastrophic because, as we saw in our last session, we become like what we worship. If we create an image of god that is simply an amplified version of our sinful desire, it will simply resonate and accentuate that sinfulness. Rather than being recreated in the Image of God as we worship Christ, we end up exacerbating our fallenness, and degenerating further from that Image. The goal of discipleship is that we become images of the Image.

The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its source.

A.W. Tozer

Group Discussion:

Read Deut.5:8-10 again.

Why is the issue of God’s ‘jealousy’ brought to the forefront in the Second Commandment?  What is He jealous over?  How do you feel about worshipping a jealous God? 

What does it mean to say that God will punish the children for the sin of the parents (i.e. specifically idolatry) to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me?  How would you reconcile this with e.g. Ezek.18?  Do you think the Lord is just and fair?

Do you feel as uncomfortable with the promise to show love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands?  What do you think this promise means?

How does Deut.5:10 fit with the idea of God’s ‘unconditional love’?  How does this verse affect your thinking about God’s love?

and later in the session:

How can we be confident that we have an accurate understanding of Jesus ... and that we’re not just imposing on Him our own hopes or desires?

What do you think are the characteristics of ‘the image of the earthly man’? ...and the image of the heavenly man?

How do feel about the prospect of bearing the image of Christ?   What are you most looking forward to about it?

What would you say to someone who said they were a Christian, but who rejected (some of) the Bible’s teaching about Jesus?

How would breaking the 2nd Commandment jeopardize your growth as a disciple?

Homework:

Over this half-term we are working to memorise Matthew 5:17-20. You will have to keep refreshing Matt.5:1-16, Matt.6:5-15 and Matt.7:7-12 whilst you do this.

(we’ll memorise the whole of the Sermon on the Mount over the 3 years of DTP)

To Be A Christian: Q&A 274-282

You can listen to ‘To Be a Christian’ on Audible here

Read Matt.5:21-30.  Map out the same ‘internalizing’ process with the first 5 commandments?

Bible Meditation on Rom.1:18-23:

What is the difference between using an image from creation to describe Jesus (e.g. Lamb, King etc.) and making them into an image of Jesus?

What has to happen before we get to the place of creating an image?  Can you trace out the process from this passage?

Do you agree with Rom.1:19...  that God has made the truth of who He is plain to everyone?  And Rom.1:21, that everyone ‘knew God’?

How do we reconcile the idea that Creation reveals God’s eternal power and divine nature, with Jesus’ claim that only He can make God known (Matt.11:27)?

...and vv.24-25. What is the connection between spirituality and sexuality?