Lectio Continua : Exodus 32:1–8 - To Whom Will You Liken God?

Continuing the Lectio Continua study of the Ten Commandments, Pastor Chris Gordon turns to the second part of the second commandment, reading Exodus 32:1–8 alongside Exodus 20 and Lord's Day 35 of the Heidelberg Catechism. He begins with an honest confession that he once dismissed objections to images of Jesus as nitpicking, then traces why God's prohibition is actually a protective guardrail rooted in the third use of the law. Israel's impatience at Sinai produced the golden calf—a man-made attempt to manipulate God and experience him on their own terms—and Gordon argues the same discontentment drives the modern impulse to picture the Lord.

Drawing on Isaiah's question "to whom will you liken God," along with insights from Neil Postman and Susan Sontag on how images wrench reality out of context, Gordon explains why depicting Jesus—whether on a cross or as a comfortable family portrait—freezes him in time and inevitably remakes him in our own ethnic and cultural image. The only portrait of Christ given to us is the exalted Lord of Revelation 1, received by faith through the preached word. The sermon closes with a tender call to parents: teach your children to treasure God's word and worship, and they will be satisfied in seeing Jesus.

Chapters:

0:00 - Introduction
1:02 - Catechism Reading (Lord's Day 35)
2:37 - Scripture Reading: Exodus 32
4:33 - The Second Commandment
5:18 - A Personal Confession
7:19 - The Law as Protection
11:18 - A Jealous God
15:02 - The Golden Calf
24:09 - Why God Forbids Images
30:24 - Images of Jesus
31:31 - Photography and Context
35:47 - A Jesus Made in Our Image
37:53 - Teaching Your Children
41:42 - Living by Faith in the Word

Mentions:

Heidelberg Catechism (Lord's Day 35)
Neil Postman — Amusing Ourselves to Death
Susan Sontag — On Photography
Stephen Prothero — American Jesus