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Statues, icons and bowing

Do images of Christ and the saints, and the honour paid to them, break the second commandment?

The passage it turns on

God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Exodus 20:1-6In context. The LORD gives the Ten Commandments at Sinai: no other gods, and no carved image to bow down to or serve, ‘for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God’.

The commandment is one sentence about other gods: do not make an image to bow to and serve as a god. God himself then ordered images for the tabernacle, cherubim over the ark and a bronze serpent to look at. What is forbidden is worshipping the image, which Catholics also forbid.

The command has two parts, no image and no bowing, and Israel’s golden calf was called a feast to the LORD, an image meant to honour the true God, and still idolatry. Deuteronomy adds that they saw no form, so they must make none. The cherubim were not bowed to, and Hezekiah smashed the serpent once people burned incense to it.

Press a reading to put the lamp behind the words that side leans on. The passage does not change.

What each side holds

Catholics (and the Orthodox) hold that since God became visible in Christ, images of him and of his saints may be made and honoured, that the honour passes to the one pictured, and that worship (latria) belongs to God alone while veneration (dulia) is a lesser honour. The Reformed tradition holds that the second commandment forbids images in worship and bowing to any image; Lutherans and Anglicans allow images as teaching and ornament and refuse to bow to them.

Both sides agree that bowing to a block of wood as if it were God is idolatry. The question is whether honour can pass through a picture without stopping there.

The points people make

God commanded images

They traveled from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom The soul of the people was very discouraged because of the journey. The people spoke against God, and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, and there is no water; and our soul loathes this disgusting bread.” the LORD sent venomous snakes among the people, and they bit the people. Many people of Israel died. The people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD, and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” Moses prayed for the people. The LORD said to Moses, “Make a venomous snake, and set it on a pole. It shall happen, that everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” Moses made a serpent of brass, and set it on the pole. If a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the serpent of brass, he lived.

Numbers 21:4-9In context. Israel grumbles in the wilderness and is bitten by snakes; the LORD tells Moses to make a bronze serpent on a pole, and whoever looks at it lives.

Scripture states it. God commanded images for his own house, and Israel carried the ark and fell on their faces before it, praying to the LORD (Joshua 7:6); God never commanded bowing to an image itself. The bronze serpent was made by command, and Hezekiah broke it because “the children of Israel burned incense to it” (2 Kings 18:4).

The Catholic reading

Cherubim of gold on the ark, cherubim woven into the veil and carved on the temple walls, pomegranates, lions and oxen on Solomon’s bronze sea: God is not against images as such. Jesus is “the image of the invisible God”; since the Incarnation the unseen has been seen.

“God forbids the worship of images as gods, but he doesn't ban the making of images.”

Catholic Answers, Do Catholics Worship Statues?, 2026

The Protestant reading

None of those images was itself prayed to or given incense; the one that was, the bronze serpent, was destroyed by a good king for it (2 Kings 18:4). Images of God were never permitted, and an image of the man Jesus pictures only his human nature, which is the ancient Protestant objection.

“as often as any form is assigned to God, his glory is corrupted by an impious lie.”

Calvin, Institutes 1.11.1, 1559

Worship and veneration

Be very careful, for you saw no kind of form on the day that the LORD spoke to you in Horeb out of the middle of the fire, lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth; and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.

Deuteronomy 4:15-19In context. Moses reminds Israel they saw no form at Sinai, so they must make no image of anything, male or female, animal or star, lest they worship it.

Scripture’s words can be read more than one way. The command says of carved images, “You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them” (Exodus 20:5), and the golden calf was condemned though Aaron proclaimed it “a feast to the LORD” (Exodus 32:5). Scripture also shows people bowing to kings and prophets in honour. Whether “them” means images treated as gods or any image, and so whether a bow of honour before an image falls under it, can be read more than one way.

The Catholic reading

Latria, adoration, is for God alone. Dulia, honour, is what we give a king, a parent, or the saints; the Bible has people bowing to kings and prophets without idolatry. Kissing an icon honours the person shown, as kissing a photograph does. Second Nicaea (787) drew the line and every Catholic is bound by it.

“the honour paid to an image traverses it, reaching the model,”

Second Council of Nicaea, 787

The Protestant reading

The Greek distinction exists, but Scripture uses the two words for the same acts, and the bowing, kissing, candles and incense given to images are what pagans gave idols. Peter would not let Cornelius bow to him, and an angel twice stopped John. In practice the ordinary worshipper does not feel the Latin line.

“That we in no way make any image of God nor worship him in any other way than has been commanded in God's Word.”

Heidelberg Catechism, question 96, 1563

You saw no form

who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things are held together. He is the head of the body, the assembly, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him; and through him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on the earth, or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.

Colossians 1:15-20In context. Paul’s hymn to Christ: he is ‘the image of the invisible God’, the firstborn over all creation, in whom all things hold together.

Scripture is silent on it. Paul says Christ is the image of the invisible God, and he was seen. Scripture is silent on pictures of him; what follows for them is an inference on both sides.

The Catholic reading

At Sinai God had not yet taken a form; in Christ he did, and to refuse all images now is to deny that the Word became flesh, which was the argument of John of Damascus against the iconoclasts. An image of Christ is a confession of the Incarnation.

“Previously God, who has neither a body nor a face, absolutely could not be represented by an image.”

John of Damascus, quoted in Catechism 1159

The Protestant reading

The apostles who saw his face left no portrait and told no one to paint one; the New Testament’s picture of Christ is preached and eaten, not painted. An image that shows a body but cannot show his divine nature either divides him or confuses the natures, as the Reformed argued.

“images of Jesus can be used to retell biblical narratives or illuminate biblical ideas without violating the second commandment.”

Kevin Keating, The Gospel Coalition, against Ryan McGraw on the same page, 2024

Idols of silver and gold

But our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see. They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. They have hands, but they don’t feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk, neither do they speak through their throat. Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.

Psalm 115:3-8In context. A psalm contrasting the LORD in heaven with the nations’ idols of silver and gold, which have mouths and eyes but cannot speak or see; those who make them become like them.

Scripture is silent on it. The psalm mocks idols of silver and gold and says “those who make them will be like them”. Both sides agree. Scripture is silent on images used by people who do not take them for gods; both sides apply its warning about the heart.

The Catholic reading

Paul in Athens and the psalmist both attack images taken for gods, with mouths that do not speak. No Catholic thinks a statue of Mary hears; the saint in heaven does. The image is an aid to memory and love, like a cross on a wall, which most Protestants also keep.

“not that any divinity, or virtue, is believed to be in them, on account of which they are to be worshipped”

Council of Trent, Session 25, on sacred images, 1563

The Protestant reading

The psalm’s point is that those who make images become like them: the heart goes to what the eye rests on. Reformed churches strip the walls not from hatred of art but from a reading of the heart. Many Protestants keep a cross and would still not bow to it.

“Reformed Christians have a number of problems with icons,”

Robert Letham, Ligonier, 2008

The council that settled it, for some

Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.

Acts 17:29In context. Paul in Athens, surrounded by statues: since we are God’s offspring, we should not think the Divine is like gold, silver or stone shaped by human skill.

Not a question Scripture answers. A council held in 787 is not something Scripture could speak of. Whether a council binds a Christian is the authority question; Paul’s warning at Athens is one both sides accept.

The Catholic reading

Second Nicaea, the seventh ecumenical council, defined in 787 that images are to be venerated and anathematised the iconoclasts. It is received by Catholics and Orthodox and had been accepted in the West for seven centuries before Calvin. A church that rejects it has rejected a council.

“The honor paid to sacred images is a "respectful veneration," not the adoration due to God alone:”

Catechism of the Catholic Church 2132

The Protestant reading

Charlemagne’s bishops at Frankfurt (794) rejected Nicaea II, working from a bad translation; the Reformers rejected it on the merits. Protestants receive a council as far as it agrees with Scripture; the first four are received because they do, and this one, they judge, does not.

“thus I guardedly embrace the council's decree but do not make a habit of kissing icons.”

Matthew J. J. Hoskin, an Anglican, Ad Fontes, 2023

Watch

One talk from each side, chosen for making its own case well. Each loads from YouTube only when you press play.

The Counsel of Trent. 161 min. Trent Horn and Jimmy Akin reply to Ortlund on icons, at length. Open on YouTube
Gavin Ortlund. 28 min. Gavin Ortlund on why he holds that the veneration of icons defined at Nicaea II is a later addition. Open on YouTube

Sources on this page

Every quotation above, with the page it comes from and the day it was read. Primary documents first where a side has one.