The Unseen God and the Folly of Forms Text: Deuteronomy 4:15-20
Introduction: The War on Worship
We live in an age that prides itself on its sophistication, an age that believes it has outgrown the crude idolatries of the ancient world. We have science, we have technology, we have psychology. We don't bow down to golden calves or stone statues. But this is a profound self-deception. The human heart is, as Calvin said, a perpetual factory of idols. We have not abolished idolatry; we have simply industrialized it. We have exchanged idols of wood and stone for idols of the mind and the will. We worship the self, the state, the market, the revolution, the algorithm. We worship our own autonomy.
The central issue in all of life is the issue of worship. Who will you serve? And just as importantly, how will you serve Him? The modern evangelical impulse is to treat worship as a matter of personal expression, sincerity, and what "works" for us. We want a god we can tailor to our preferences, a worship service that caters to our felt needs. But this is the very essence of idolatry. It is an attempt to worship God on our terms, not His. It is to make a god in our own image, a god who looks suspiciously like us and approves of everything we already wanted to do.
Into this sentimental and man-centered confusion, the book of Deuteronomy speaks with the force of a thunderclap. This passage is not a gentle suggestion. It is a dire warning from Moses to the people of God as they stand on the precipice of the Promised Land. It is a foundational statement on the nature of true worship. The central command is to worship God as He is, not as we imagine Him to be. And the central fact about God that governs all true worship is this: He is transcendent, spiritual, and unseen. He reveals Himself in His Word, not in a physical form. To violate this is not a minor liturgical infraction; it is to "act corruptly" and to abandon the covenant.
This passage establishes what we call the regulative principle of worship. The question is not, "What has God forbidden?" but rather, "What has God commanded?" We are not free to invent forms of worship. We are bound to worship God in the way He has prescribed. This is a fence God builds around His holiness, not to keep us out, but to keep paganism out of our hearts and minds. And as we will see, this profound prohibition in the Old Covenant points us directly to the glorious revelation of God in the New.
The Text
“So keep your souls very carefully, since you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves 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 below the earth, and lest you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which Yahweh your God has apportioned for all the peoples under the whole heaven. But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own inheritance, as today.”
(Deuteronomy 4:15-20 LSB)
The Foundational Memory (v. 15)
The entire argument hinges on this first verse. It is an appeal to Israel's own experience.
"So keep your souls very carefully, since you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire," (Deuteronomy 4:15)
The command is to "keep your souls very carefully." This is a matter of spiritual life and death. The temptation to idolatry is not a surface-level problem; it arises from the depths of our fallen souls. And the reason for this vigilance is rooted in the nature of God's self-revelation at Mount Sinai, or Horeb. What did they experience? They saw fire, smoke, and lightning. They heard the blast of a trumpet and the very voice of God, which terrified them. But what they did not see was a "form."
God revealed Himself through His Word, not through a visual representation. He is a speaking God, not a posing God. This establishes the fundamental Creator/creature distinction in the realm of worship. God is spirit (John 4:24), and He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. Any attempt to capture His essence in a physical form, no matter how beautiful or well-intentioned, is to shrink Him down to the level of His creation. It is an attempt to domesticate the Almighty, to put a leash on the lion of Judah. Paganism is all about managing the gods through images and rituals. True religion is about submitting to the God who cannot be managed, the God who speaks and whose Word must be obeyed.
This is why the first and most important discipline of the Christian life is listening. We are a people of the Book. We know God because He has spoken. Our worship is grounded in His revelation, not our imagination. To "keep your souls" is to keep your ears open to His Word and your eyes shut to the seductions of your own religious creativity.
The Cascade of Corruptions (v. 16-19)
From this foundational principle, Moses lays out a comprehensive, four-fold list of forbidden forms. This is a systematic dismantling of all pagan options.
"lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves 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 below the earth," (Deuteronomy 4:16-18 LSB)
First, he forbids making God in our own image, "the likeness of male or female." This is the root of all humanism. We want a god who is relatable, a god who is like us. The Greeks and Romans did this with their pantheon of adulterous, jealous, and petty man-gods. We do it today when we fashion a god who affirms our sexual proclivities, who shares our political outrage, or who is more of a cosmic therapist than a holy king. To make God in our image is the ultimate act of arrogance. It is to reverse the order of creation.
Second, he forbids making God in the form of animals, birds, creeping things, or fish. This is a direct polemic against the religion of Egypt, the "iron furnace" from which they had just been delivered. Egypt was filled with gods in the form of bulls (Apis), crocodiles (Sobek), cats (Bastet), and birds (Horus). God had systematically humiliated each of these so-called gods through the ten plagues. To return to this kind of worship would be the height of spiritual amnesia and ingratitude. It is, as Paul would later argue in Romans 1, to exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
The third category of forbidden forms is celestial.
"and lest you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them..." (Deuteronomy 4:19a LSB)
This was the great temptation of the Mesopotamian cultures like Babylon and Assyria. They worshipped the host of heaven. Astrology is an ancient form of this idolatry, seeking guidance and destiny from the stars rather than from the Star-Maker. But Moses provides a stunning theological corrective. Why should you not worship them? Because Yahweh your God has "apportioned" them for all peoples. The sun, moon, and stars are not gods to be worshipped; they are gifts to be used. They are universal public utilities. God hung the sun in the sky to give light to everyone, the pagan and the saint. To worship the sun is like worshipping a streetlamp. It is to mistake the servant for the master, the gift for the Giver.
The Covenantal Contrast (v. 20)
The prohibition against idolatry is not a standalone rule. It is grounded in the glorious reality of Israel's redemption and their unique relationship with Yahweh.
"But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own inheritance, as today." (Deuteronomy 4:20 LSB)
This is the great "but" of the passage. The nations of the world have been "apportioned" the sun and the moon. That is their lot. But you, Israel, have been apportioned God Himself. He has taken you. This is the language of sovereign grace. You did not choose Him; He chose you. He did not simply find you; He rescued you. He brought you out of the "iron furnace," a metaphor for the brutal, soul-crushing slavery of Egypt.
And for what purpose? "To be a people for His own inheritance." This is one of the most profound truths in all of Scripture. We tend to think of God as our inheritance, our great reward. And that is true. But the Bible also speaks of us, His people, as His inheritance. We are His treasured possession, the prize He fought for, the people He redeemed for His own glory. Why would a people who have God as their God, and who are God's own treasured people, go scavenging in the garbage heaps of paganism? Why trade the diamond of a covenant relationship with the living God for a piece of carved wood or a shiny rock in the sky? Idolatry is not just wrong; it is insane. It is an act of cosmic treason and profound foolishness.
The Image Revealed
So what does this mean for us, who live on this side of the cross? Does this mean all images are forbidden? No. This passage, in its very prohibition, creates a holy tension and a great longing. If we cannot make an image of God, how then can we know this invisible God? The Old Testament prohibition was absolute because it was preparing the world for the one, true, divinely-authorized Image of God.
The writer to the Hebrews says that in these last days, God "has spoken to us by His Son... He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature" (Hebrews 1:2-3). Paul tells the Colossians that Jesus "is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" (Colossians 1:15). Jesus Himself told Philip, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).
The prohibition against making an image of God has not been abolished, but rather fulfilled in Jesus Christ. God has given us an Image. He has provided the Form. We are no longer to look for God in statues of men or beasts or in the patterns of the stars. We are to look at the God-man, Jesus Christ. He is the perfect representation of the Father's character and being.
Therefore, the warning of Deuteronomy 4 comes to us with even greater force. Any attempt to come to God through any other means than Jesus Christ is idolatry. To invent a different Jesus, a more palatable Jesus, a Jesus who does not demand repentance and faith, is to create a graven image. To construct a worship service that is about our feelings and our entertainment instead of the faithful proclamation of the Word of God in Christ is to build a modern golden calf.
Like Israel, we have been rescued from an iron furnace, the furnace of sin and death. God has taken us, not from Egypt, but from the kingdom of darkness, and made us His own inheritance through the blood of His Son. The only faithful response is to "keep our souls very carefully," to reject all the idols of our age, and to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, the one true Image of the invisible God.