1. God is opposed to idols, that all may know He is the only fit witness to Himself. He expressly forbids any attempt to represent Him by a bodily shape. As Scripture, in accommodation to the rude and gross intellect of man, usually speaks in popular terms, so whenever its object is to discriminate between the true God and false deities, it opposes Him in particular to idols. Not that it approves of what is taught more elegantly and subtly by philosophers, but that it may the better expose the folly, nay, madness of the world in its inquiries after God, so long as every one clings to his own speculations. This exclusive definition, which we uniformly meet with in Scripture, annihilates every deity which men frame for themselves of their own accord —God Himself being the only fit witness to Himself. Meanwhile, seeing that this brutish stupidity has overspread the globe, men longing after visible forms of God, and so forming deities of wood and stone, silver and gold, or of any other dead and corruptible matter, we must hold it as a first principle that as often as any form is assigned to God, His glory is corrupted by an impious[1] lie. In the Law, accordingly, after God had claimed the glory of divinity for Himself alone, when He comes to show what kind of worship He approves and rejects, He immediately adds, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth” (Exo 20:4). By these words He curbs any licentious[2] attempt we might make to represent Him by a visible shape, and briefly enumerates all the forms by which superstition had begun, even long before, to turn His truth into a lie. For we know that the Sun was worshipped by the Persian. As many stars as the foolish nations saw in the sky, so many gods they imagined them to be. Then to the Egyptians, every animal was a figure of God. The Greeks, again, plumed themselves on their superior wisdom in worshipping God under the human form. But God makes no comparison between images as if one were more and another less befitting: He rejects without exception all shapes and pictures and other symbols by which the superstitious imagine they can bring Him near to them.
2. Reasons for this prohibition from Moses, Isaiah, and Paul. This may easily be inferred from the reasons which He annexes to his prohibition. First, it is said in the books of Moses (Deu 4:15), “Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude in the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire, lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure,” &c. We see how plainly God declares against all figures, to make us aware that all longing after such visible shapes is rebellion against Him. Of the prophets, it will be sufficient to mention Isaiah, who is the most copious[3] on this subject (Isa 40:18; 41:7, 29; 45:9; 46:5), in order to show how the majesty of God is defiled by an absurd and indecorous[4] fiction, when He who is incorporeal is assimilated to corporeal matter; He who is invisible to a visible image; He who is a spirit to an inanimate[5] object; and He who fills all space to a bit of paltry wood, or stone, or gold. Paul, too, reasons in the same way, “Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device,” (Act 17:29). Hence, it is manifest that whatever statues are set up or pictures painted to represent God are utterly displeasing to Him, as a kind of insults to His majesty. And is it strange that the Holy Spirit thunders such responses from heaven, when He compels even blind and miserable idolaters to make a similar confession on the earth? Seneca's[6] complaint, as given by Augustine is well known.[7] He says “They dedicate images of the sacred and inviolable immortals in most worthless and motionless matter. They give them the appearance of man, beasts, and fishes, and some make them of mixed sex, and heterogeneous[8] bodies. They call them deities, when they are such that if they should get breath and should suddenly meet them, they would be held to be monsters.” Hence, again, it is obvious, that the defenders of images resort to a paltry quibbling evasion,[9] when they pretend that the Jews were forbidden to use them on account of their proneness to superstition; as if a prohibition, which the Lord founds on His own eternal essences and the uniform course of nature, could be restricted to a single nation. Besides, when Paul refuted the error of giving a bodily shape to God, he was addressing not Jews, but Athenians.
From Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol I, xi. Beveridge Translation (1800).
1 impious – irreverent toward God; contempt for God and His Law.
2 licentious – unrestrained by law or morality.
3 copious – abounding in thoughts or words.
4 indecorous – unbecoming; inappropriate.
5 inanimate – not living; destitute of life.
6 Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC-AD 65) – Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman.
7 Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430) – from City of God, Book 6 chapter 10
8 heterogeneous – consisting of dissimilar parts that are unlike each other.
9 paltry quibbling evasion – avoidance of truth by raising trivial, insignificant objections.
John Calvin (1509-1564): the father of Reformed theology. During his ministry in Geneva, lasting nearly twenty-five years, Calvin lectured to theological students and preached an average of five sermons a week. He wrote commentaries on nearly every book of the Bible and numerous treatises on theological topics. His correspondence fills eleven volumes. Born in Noyon, Picardie, France.