# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1861_S327
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report on the Law. 327

all these words fall under this first commandment. Therefore images are here forbidden which are used against the meaning and understanding of this commandment, namely, that one should not place confidence in images, but should look for all good solely to God, and avoid everything that hinders this confidence. So then, by this text — Thou shalt have no other gods before me — only godlike images are forbidden; and that to the Jews, not to us. For this is spoken to the Jews alone. The words are well worth noting. He does not say: Thou shalt have no other image before thee; but says: Thou shalt have no other gods before me or besides me. What does it mean to have gods? Wooden, stone, and silver images that are gods; as follows. For men are thereby led to become idolatrous; and even if they do not worship wood, stone, silver, and gold outright, they nevertheless have the confidence that it pleases God well to set up images in his honor — which is indeed against the meaning of the first commandment: I am the LORD thy God, thou shalt not, etc. Therefore pay heed to the meaning of this commandment. I will, he says, be thy God, I will make thee blessed. I will help thee, and that out of pure grace; thou needst not earn it from me, nor set up any worship out of thine own notions. But the image-breakers rush ahead and tear the images down outwardly. That I would not so much contest. But they add that it must be so, and that it pleases God well. By this they accomplish nothing else than that they take the images out of people's eyes and set them into people's hearts instead, thereby perverting the meaning of this commandment. Thereby they deny God, and yet still boast that they tear down the images by God's command and word. The devil take them for it! When they tear one down, they set up twenty again in their hearts; and of that same false confidence — that the common people think they are doing God a favor by tearing down images — they say not a word. So then this is the right understanding: that heathen and Jews alike hold the LORD to be a God who gives everything freely, etc., whether Moses says so or whoever else. Beyond this, God commanded the Jewish people through Moses that they should not have images, by which they might set up a form of worship. Other images are not forbidden even to the Jews. Secondly, it is to be noted here that such a threat and promise does not concern us Gentiles and Christians either (for one must block the way to the fanatical spirits at every point): "I, the LORD thy God, am a jealous God, etc."; for we have another threat and promise or assurance. These, like the other points related above, concern the Jews alone, not us. For Moses is a teacher of the Jewish people; therefore all his words are directed so as to concern the Jews alone. Although the commandments of God are written in the hearts of all men, yet men's hearts are so darkened by the devil that they can neither see nor recognize them. But God now reminds the Jews of the commandment that is impressed upon their hearts, giving them, over and above the natural light, also a written law; indeed, he presents it to them