What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church

by Gavin Ortlund

One expression of idolatry that is expressly forbidden in Scripture involves bowing down to images. This is the concern of the second commandment (Ex. 20:4–6) and is reiterated in many other passages (for example, Lev. 26:1). The basis for this concern is the invisibility of the true God, as distinct from false gods (Deut. 4:15–18). Hence, one quality that distinguishes the good kings of Judah like Hezekiah or Josiah is their iconoclasm—though even during their reigns cultic objects are usually not fully removed. A representative example is Josiah’s activity in 2 Kings 23:15: “the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place he pulled down and burned, reducing it to dust. He also burned the Asherah.” This is portrayed positively in the text; many more such examples could be adduced. As Humphreys puts it, “The Hebrew Bible is stridently, repeatedly, unavoidably anti-idolatry, and pro-idol destruction.”87

This is a very bad argument. Of course every christian is an iconoclast when it comes to Baal, but we would have bowed to Moses serpent, and to the ark.