In our study of Chapter 21, we examined the Regulative Principle of Worship—the biblical rule that we may only worship God in the ways He has explicitly instituted in His Word. This principle is the direct application of the Second Commandment.
While the First Commandment tells us who to worship (God alone), the Second Commandment tells us how to worship Him (without images or human inventions). However, the historical Reformed application of this commandment often shocks modern believers. The Westminster Standards unequivocally forbid the use of any image of God, including physical pictures, statues, and even mental images of Jesus Christ.
To understand why the divines took this firm stance, we must look to the Westminster Larger Catechism (WLC 107–110), the broader Continental Reformed consensus, and root our understanding of worship in the profound Christology of the Confession (WCF 8).
The Catechism teaches that the Second Commandment forbids any representation of any Person of the Trinity, outwardly in art or inwardly in the mind; and that because Christ is a single, indivisible divine Person, any attempt to depict Him either creates an idol of a false god or commits the heresy of dividing His human nature from His divine Person.
The Duties of the Second Commandment (WLC 107–108)
The Second Commandment declares: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing… Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them” (Ex. 20:4-5).
Historically, the Roman Catholic Church has argued that this only forbids making images of false gods. But the Larger Catechism (Q. 108) shows that the commandment is much broader. The positive duty required by this commandment is “the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath instituted in his word.”
This profound connection between the Second Commandment and the Regulative Principle of Worship is rooted in how God chose to reveal Himself. Moses explicitly warns the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4:15–18:
15 “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.
Notice the logic of Moses’s argument: At Mount Sinai, the people heard God’s voice, but they saw no form. Therefore, they must not create a form. Because God revealed Himself by His Word (to be heard and believed), it is a corruption of His worship to invent an image (to be seen). God regulates His worship and demands that we approach Him on His terms. To introduce an image into worship is to say that God’s ordained means—the Word, the Sacraments, and Prayer—are insufficient, and that we must add a visual aid of our own devising to “help” us worship.
The Heidelberg Catechism
Lest one think this strict prohibition is a theological quirk of the Scottish and English Puritans who wrote the Westminster Standards, it is important to note that this is the universal consensus of the historic Reformed faith. The Dutch and Continental Reformed tradition, represented by the warmly pastoral Heidelberg Catechism (1563), takes the exact same position.
In Question 96, the Heidelberg Catechism asks what God requires in the second commandment, answering: “That we in no way make any image of God, nor worship Him in any other way than He has commanded us in His Word.” Question 97 adds that while creatures may be imaged, “God forbids the making or keeping of any likeness of them, either to worship them or to serve God by them.”
Historically, the most common defense for images of Christ in churches was pedagogical: Aren’t pictures helpful for teaching children or the illiterate? The medieval Church called images the “books of the laity.” The Heidelberg Catechism anticipates this exact pragmatic objection in Question 98: “But may not pictures be tolerated in churches as books for the people?” Its answer is a resounding rejection of human pragmatism in worship: “No, for we should not be wiser than God, who will not have His people taught by dumb idols, but by the lively preaching of His Word.” We must not presume to be better teachers than God Himself.
The Absolute Prohibition of Images (WLC 109)
Returning to the Westminster Standards, in Question 109, the Larger Catechism lists the sins forbidden in the Second Commandment. Among them is a sweeping prohibition perfectly aligned with the Heidelberg: “the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever.”
Many Christians today agree that we should not draw a picture of God the Father or the Holy Spirit. But what about God the Son? The common objection is: “Jesus became a man! He had a real, physical body. Therefore, it is lawful to draw or paint His human body.”
This is where the Reformed tradition leans heavily on the Christology articulated in Chapter 8 of the Confession.
The Christological Argument Against Images of Jesus
To understand why a picture of Jesus is a violation of the Second Commandment, we must look at who Jesus actually is. WCF 8.2 reminds us of the Hypostatic Union:
“Two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparately joined together in one person… Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ.”
When you look at Jesus, you are not looking at a human person who has God inside of him. You are looking at a Divine Person (the eternal Son of God) who has taken on a human nature.
If an artist attempts to paint Jesus, what exactly is he painting?
- Is he painting the Divine Person? This is impossible, as the divine nature is invisible, infinite, and uncircumscribable. To attempt this is to violate the explicit command of God not to make a likeness of Him.
- Is he painting only the human nature? If the artist claims, “I am only painting his human body, not his divinity,” he falls into the ancient heresy of Nestorianism—separating the human nature of Christ from His divine Person.
WCF 8.7 further explains the “communication of properties”: “By reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature.” Because Christ is one unified Person, you cannot separate His humanity from His deity. You cannot worship His human body without worshipping God the Son, and you cannot depict His human body without attempting to depict God the Son.
Therefore, any picture of Jesus is either an idol (an attempt to depict the divine) or a lie (a depiction of a merely human Jesus separated from His divine person).
The Idol of the Mind
The Catechism goes even further. WLC 109 forbids making representations of God “inwardly in our mind.” When we pray, our human weakness often tempts us to visualize God in some physical form or human likeness. But God is infinite Spirit. When we reduce Him to an image in our imagination, we are worshiping a figment of our own creation, not the God who has revealed Himself in Scripture.
How then do we apprehend God? By faith, through the Word. We hear His voice in Scripture, we do not visualize His face in our minds. As the Apostle Paul says, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).
A Jealous God (WLC 110)
Why is God so strict about this? WLC 110 explains the reasons annexed to the commandment: “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” The Catechism notes God’s “fervent zeal for his own worship” and His “revengeful indignation against all false worship, as being a spiritual whoredom.”
God is the husband of His Church. Just as a husband would be deeply offended if his wife kept a picture of another man to “help her think about her husband,” God is deeply offended when we use images to worship Him. He has given us His Word to tell us what He is like. Furthermore, He has given us visible, physical signs to help our weak faith: The Sacraments. The bread, the wine, and the water are the only “images” of Christ’s work that God has authorized.
To desire a crucifix or a painting of Jesus is to imply that God’s ordained means—the preached Word and the Sacraments—are inadequate. True Christian worship is beautiful not because it appeals to our physical eyes, but because it is pure, obedient, and directed entirely to the unseen Christ by faith.
Key Terms
- Hypostatic Union: The union of Christ’s two distinct natures (divine and human) in one indivisible Person (WCF 8.2). Because Christ is one Person, an image of His humanity cannot be separated from His divine Person.
- Nestorianism: The heresy of dividing Christ into two separate persons, or separating His human nature from His divine Person. Claiming to paint “only the human nature” of Jesus flirts with this error.
- Communication of Properties (Communicatio Idiomatum): The theological principle that whatever is true of either of Christ’s natures is attributed to His single Person (WCF 8.7).
- Spiritual Whoredom: The biblical metaphor (drawn from prophets like Hosea and Ezekiel) describing false worship or idolatry as spiritual infidelity against God, our Covenant Husband.