ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

Sapate Ma’asi 19, 2023

פסל Graven Images

Tamapua pe Fakatātā

EXODUS 20:4

"YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A CARVED IMAGE, OR ANY LIKENESS OF ANYTHING THAT IS IN HEAVEN ABOVE, OR THAT IS IN THE EARTH BENEATH, OR THAT IS IN THE WATER UNDER THE EARTH."

‘EKISOTO 20:4

‘Oua te ke ngaohi ma‘au ha tamapua, pe ha momo‘i fakatātā ‘o ha me‘a ‘o e langi ‘i ‘olunga na, pe ‘o māmani ‘i lalo ni, pe ‘o e tahi ‘i lolofonua.

In 63 BC, when the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem and entered the temple, he must have been surprised to find no image of God. His surprise would have been shared by any person in the ancient world. All deities had their statues, poles, carvings, or images, which served as a kind of visual rendezvous between the gods and their worshipers.

Not Yahweh. Every "carved image" or pesel (from the verb pasal, "carve, hew, cut, sculpt") of God was banned on pain of death. Images of angels, oxen, and flowers were in the temple, but not Israel's Lord. Why? Because he had not yet given them his image.

But in Christ, he did. The Messiah "is the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). To see him is to see the Father (John 14:9), "for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Col. 2:9). Hidden in the prohibition against "images of God" is the promise of God giving us his image in his Son, who "is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature" (Heb. 1:3).

O Christ, the image and glory of the Father, transform us into your image from one degree of glory to another.