# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1859_S246
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

246 The Lutheran Division of the Ten Commandments.

...idols" separates the "prohibition of images" — let him at least make his distinction with full seriousness and not limp on both sides, and an understanding with him should still be possible. 11) Because we combine Exodus 20:3–5 into one, we take the measure, sense, and scope of the "prohibition of images" from the "prohibition of idols," and thus do not posit two fundamentally different kinds of false gods, but hold images to be "idols" made by human hands. But an idol is not already, in and of itself, by its nature and essence, a false god; rather it only becomes one when it is worshipped and served, and it ceases to be one and becomes again what it originally was (a creature and gift of God, such as the fire, air, water, and stars mentioned in Wisdom 13:2 — or a work of human art, as in 2 Kings 18:4), as soon as veneration of it ceases. We therefore hold it to be sinful and forbidden to worship any image, to venerate it, to serve it; but also to make and set up any image whatsoever — of whatever form, for whatever intended place, for whatever representation or depiction — for the purpose of worship, veneration, and service. But apart from idol-worship, we do not hold images to be forbidden. 12) A "prohibition of images" essentially distinct from the "prohibition of idols" may draw its content and scope from nothing else but itself. From this the following results. First, the prohibition would strike all images without distinction. Second, it would declare, unlike the case of idols, that images are already, in and of themselves, by their essence and nature — quite apart from any veneration — false gods, which they are before they are even worshipped, and which they remain even when their worship has long since ceased, or indeed never took place at all. Therefore not merely two kinds of worship, as with idols, but three kinds of image-idolatry would be forbidden: a) You shall make no image; b) You shall not worship them; c) You shall not serve them. This, and nothing else, is the sense and content of a Mosaic prohibition of images separated in substance from the first commandment. 13) We are accused of having done away with the "second" Sinaitic commandment, and Stier (op. cit., p. 22) dares to write: "I therefore demand back for the Decalogue its original textual state, and consequently also the prohibition of images as the second commandment, in the name of the biblical principle and in contradiction to Lutheran tradition." Very well then! Let the pious guardians of the holy Ten Commandments first give us, the impious falsifiers of Scripture, a striking, unambiguous proof that this reproach and this demand truly proceed from deep reverence for the divine Word, and not from hypocrisy, hatred of Lutherans, contentiousness, or some other impurity of motive. By a striking proof we do not mean some great, difficult work, perhaps even a miracle; oh no, only a most trifling thing, one that ought to be entirely self-evident to our over-holy zealots for God's honor: we ask merely that they roundly and unreservedly condemn all painting, sculpture, drawing, and image-making as being just as sinful and forbidden as murder, adultery, theft, and perjury. For that is what the clear letter