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You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman,\xa0or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars\u2014all the heavenly array\u2014do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. (Deuteronomy 4:15-19)

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The first two commandments receive an extended treatment in chapter 4 of Deuteronomy.\xa0 That is, the commandments about loving the Lord by having no other gods, images, or idols before him.\xa0 These commands dictate that there is only one God for Israel.\xa0 Their hearts and loyalty cannot be divided, for as Jesus will later say: the human heart can only follow one master.\xa0

These commands that place God at the centre as the only God show up here in chapter 4 as the heart and foundation of the rest of the law.\xa0 Everything flows from this: from God and his primacy in the Creation and Redemption of Israel.\xa0 There is no other who has created Israel\u2019s life, saves them, or sustains them.\xa0

And yet, with a God who remains as mysterious as Israel\u2019s God does\u2014so invisible and seemingly unapproachable\u2014there is a strong desire to create something more tangible for our faith.\xa0 It\u2019s hard to trust in what we cannot see, and so we are endlessly distracted by the things that we can see, touch, count, carry with us, or control.\xa0 The human heart is an idol-factory.\xa0

The law cuts hard against our tendencies.\xa0 \u201cYou saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire,\u201d Moses says, and so it must remain.\xa0 What they have received from God is his speech, his voice, his word.\xa0 And this is how they are to know their God\u2014through his spoken word\u2014a thing which is organic, relational, and memorable, but which is also momentary, fleeting, and invisible.

But that doesn\u2019t mean God has left us without a visible witness of himself.\xa0 This verse recalls the opening chapter of Genesis.\xa0 As all the various facets of creation that may not be turned into an idol or object of worship are rehearsed, one is reminded that the only image of God that we have been given, has been given by God.\xa0 And that image is humanity itself\u2014for \u201cin the image of God he created them.\u201d\xa0

At this point in the Bible, we may interact with an image of God only by interacting with the living, breathing, enfleshed reality of one another.\xa0\xa0And we may interact with God himself only through the dialogue of speech\u2014listening and responding.\xa0 One does not have to think hard to understand why Jesus came as the Word of God in Human flesh.

There is something good and life-giving about this arrangement.\xa0 When these laws are observed and obeyed, we find ourselves growing deeper into a loving, relational connection with both God in prayer and with our fellow-image-bearing neighbours in conversation.\xa0 When we transgress this command however, we subvert relationships by enslaving the creation or being enslaved by it\u2014the very things God had Redeemed his people from.

So live as the people that God has created and redeemed by loving the Lord your God whose voice you now know in the form of Jesus.

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