Is The Chosen Idolatry? How the 2nd Commandment - And the Mosaic Law - Applies to the Church

I’ve been seeing some on social media, many of whom I generally agree with and have great respect for, condemning the series The Chosen and other shows like it for being idolatry and a violation of the second commandment because it depicts Jesus, who though human is the second person of the Trinity and this violates the language forbidding making an image or likeness of God in Exodus 20:4. While I have my own thoughts about the show, which do include criticisms, and I will likely get around to posting them at some point, I wanted to specifically address this issue on its own because I remember seeing some of those same people taking this stand make a similar argument concerning nativity scenes this past Christmas and I believe those putting forward this position are misapplying the Mosaic Law to the church.

Before I get into my main points, I do want to note that I really believe the language here was prohibiting making carved images of things other than God and worshiping them instead of God rather than of God himself as they really would have no way of depicting God prior to the incarnation when God became man, but I’ll concede the point for the sake of argument and focus on the broader point I want to address that the specific commands of the Old Covenant do not apply to us in the way they are being used here.

Those promoting such a view take the position that the church today is still held to the ordinance as delivered in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:4, but I would argue such a position is inconsistent with the concept of the abolition and fulfillment of the Old Covenant and its replacement with the New Covenant. How could such a supersession be possible if some of the Old Covenant Law remains in effect today? That perspective also leads to an awkward way of interpreting the Ten Commandments today where one is embracing the specific ordinance in one command and explicitly rejecting the specific ordinance of the Sabbath command four verses later. Again, I find this problematic, and has implications much bigger than a television show that almost no one is going to remember 10 years from now. It is a matter of what is the most consistent interpretation of Scripture.

I know those who disagree with me will support their position with the traditional Reformed Protestant view expressed in most of the confessions that typically divides the law into different categories of ceremonial, civil, and moral. However, the apostles do not seem to think of the Law in this manner in Scripture. In fact, they speak of it in the exact opposite way. In Galatians 5:3, Paul says the man that accepts circumcision is required to keep the whole law. Though the subject here is circumcision, it does demonstrate that Paul did not believe the old law was severable, and that it stands and falls as a whole. In Acts 15, though circumcision was the central issue that caused the council in Jerusalem, it is evident from 15:10 that the discussion expanded to a wider evaluation of how the law applied to Gentile believers. Peter refers the Law as a yoke that even the Jews have been unable to bear, again displaying his thought of the Law as a unified whole. James seems to also display this way of thinking in James 2:10. If the Law cannot be severed, that means the Old Covenant and the Law that went with it are either abolished in full, or still in effect. Hebrews 8:13 clearly tells us that covenant has been abolished and replaced with a new and better covenant.

Now, Paul also speaks against lawlessness and sin in the New Testament. He and the other apostles obviously did not believe that people were free to live in any manner they pleased using the grace of God as a license for immorality. The abolishing of the Law did not mean it became irrelevant. He even makes reference to the commandments of God in 1 Corinthians 7:19. However, I would argue that the best and most consistent interpretation of a this and similar texts is not that Paul is saying the commandments themselves are still in effect, but rather using the Law to draw principles of God’s expectations of Christian moral conduct and pointing to the commandments as examples of how the Law should be used by the church. This seems consistent with Ephesians 2:15 when he speaks of “abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances”.

Keeping in mind the idea of the Law as an inseverable whole, I want to turn now to Hebrews 7:12 where Christ’s priesthood is being discussed and it says, “when there is a change in the priesthood, of necessity there is a change in law.” The use of the phrase “change in law” here seems to me to be speaking of Christ bringing a new law to replace the old. As 7:14 reminds us, as our Lord was of the tribe of Judah, Jesus could not be a priest under the Old Covenant Law, but if that Law was fulfilled and abolished in whole and replaced with a new law, he could. In 1 Corinthians 9:21, Paul alludes to a Law of Christ that is different from the Old Testament Law, but is still consistent with God’s law. Use of the Mosaic Law to discern and obey the Law of Christ is consistent with how Paul and the other apostles use the Law throughout the New Testament. Again, see Ephesians 2:15 referenced above.

For example, Christians do not worship on the Sabbath, but rather on Sunday. In the Old Testament, the Sabbath day is related to the 7th day of creation when God rested from all of his creative work. Sunday is the first day of the week. This would be a clear violation of the letter of the command to “honor the Sabbath day to keep it holy” if it were still in effect. However, since that ordinance has been abolished along with the covenant that it was given under, this is not a problem. Under the new covenant as Christians, we still look to the Law recognizing its intent and that is it good and proper for us to have a day for honoring God in worship with fellow believers, resting from our work to enjoy the fruits of our labor, and spending time with family. However, because we are no longer under the Law, we are free to do this on first day of the week, when our Lord rose triumphantly from the grave as was the practice of the earliest Christians. I believe this understanding is the cleanest, most comprehensive, and most biblical explanation of all the changes in the Law brought about by Christ, including the end of sacrifice, a better priesthood, the practice of Sunday worship and abolition of the kosher diet.

Applying this concept to the issue of images and likenesses, we can see that the true intent of the command in Exodus 20:4, is to forbid idolatry. While we should use caution, I believe pictures, paintings, statues, and television shows depicting biblical scenes, even those depicting Jesus, can have use to us as teaching aids if they are faithful to Scripture, so long as they are not being worshiped. In the end, this isn’t really about a television show, but rather the consistent biblical handling of the Mosaic Law and it has big implications for Christian theology and practice. I think the traditional Protestant three-part distinction is inconsistent with the way the apostles viewed the law, and creates an inconsistency in how one interprets the Ten Commandments in the church age. I think the understanding presented here eliminates both of those problems and provides the cleanest and most consistent biblical understanding of how the Mosaic Law should be applied in the life of the church today.