Catholic statues, relics and art. Veneration, bowing and kneeling.
Exodus 20:3
Thou shalt have no other gods before me
Commands not to worship other gods before Yahweh.
Exodus 20:4-5
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
that is in the water under the earth.Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third
and fourth generation of them that hate me
Adds context about the worship (adoration) of graven images?
Is it speaking about the creation of an image? Art that is worshiped in a specific way, even things of the sea is idolatry.
Key differences
How is the graven image or idol being worshiped?
Do they sacrifice or adore these objects that put a false deity before
Yahweh?
Maybe the intention is more important than the art created?
Catholics wear scapulars and saint medallions. Catholics have statues and
even recite rosaries. What is the intention?
To say that Catholics are participating in idolatry is
misunderstood.
St. Augustine believed that the second commandment, specifically the part about not making graven images, was an explanation of the first commandment, which focuses on having no other gods. This interpretation is followed by the Catholic and Lutheran traditions, while the Eastern Orthodox and most Protestant traditions reject it, keeping them as two separate commandments. This interpretation is followed by the Catholic, Lutheran.
Catholic (Augustinian): Splits the prohibition against coveting into two separate commands. One for a neighbor's wife (9th Sin of Lust) and one for a neighbor's goods/property (10th Sin of Greed).
Protestant (Philonic): Combines coveting a neighbor's house, wife, and possessions into a single, final 10th commandment. The first commandment is separating the sin of idolatry and graven images, which is truly, the same sin.
While creating religious images is permitted, their purpose is to aid in devotion and contemplation, not to replace worshipping the divine.
The early Church expanded upon this via Latria and Dulia.
There is Latreuo and Duolos used in the Greek NT. Catholics have derived
their doctrine from this Greek text basis. Latreuō is specifically used when referring to God, unlike Duolos, which is used when speaking about a human lord and God. Two distinctly different words for worship.
Language changes overtime and it is absolutely critical to understand. Written about as early as St. Augustine and St. Jerome. St. Thomas Aquinas
expanded upon this;
"Wherefore dulia, which pays due service to a human lord, is a distinct
virtue from latria, which pays due service to the Lordship of God. It is
moreover, a species of observance we honor all those who excel in dignity,
while dulia properly speaking is the reverence of servants for their
master, dulia being the Greek word for servitude."
Catholics worship the trinitarian God through sacrifice of the Holy
Eucharist. No saint or statue is provided a sacrifice. No adoration of an
earthly creation or angel is deserving of what is due to God alone. The
early church condemned a group of christians sacrificing to Mary. A degree of veneration, honor or respect is even due to your mother and father, according to the 4th commandment.
God cannot compel or command us to sin; otherwise, He would not be a
perfectly holy and all-good God.
Only when the Israelites disobeyed God and put the golden calf before
Yahweh worshiped & sacrificed to it, did it deem the molten calf a sin.
Exodus 32:8
They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them:
they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have
sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which
have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
What about the Ark of the covenant?
Exodus 25:10
And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half
shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth
thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
With golden cherubim?
Exodus 26:1
Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with
ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet:
with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.
What about the carvings of cherubim on Solomon's temple?
1 Kings 6:23-29
And he overlaid the cherubims with gold. And he carved all the walls
of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims and palm
trees and open flowers, within and without.
What about Ezekiel's vision of the heavenly Temples having carvings of
cherubim?
Ezekiel 41:18-20
From the ground unto above the door were cherubims and palm trees
made, and on the wall of the temple.
What about the Serpent that God commands Moses to the Israelites to bow
to?
Num 21:8
And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it
upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten,
when he looketh upon it, shall live.
Hezekiah destroys the false deity; Asherah poles and Nehushtan.
2 Kings 18:4
He removed the high places, and broke the images, and cut down the Asherah poles, and broke in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. Asherah poles (a Canaanite mother goddess and frequently the consort of El or Baal) and Nehushtan. For roughly 700 years, the Israelites preserved this physical, carved image without issue. It was even a prophetic symbol used by Jesus Himself to describe the crucifixion (John 3:14).
What about Jesus being an incarnation of the invisible God? What about us
being made in God's image?
Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them.
Dura-Europos Church 233-256 AD
The Good Shepherd
The Healing of the paralytic
Christ and Peter walking on the water
(These are considered the earliest depictions of Jesus.)
Dura-Europos synagogue 244AD contained iconography of the Binding of Isaac
and other Genesis stories, Moses receiving the Tablets of the Law, Moses
leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, the visions of Ezekiel, and many others.
The Hand of God motif is used to represent divine intervention or approval
in several paintings.
Do eastern cultures bow before each other?
Do performers bow in humility to their audience?
Examples of Bowing in Honor:
Genesis 33:3
And he passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven
times, until he came near to his brother.
1 Kings 1:16
And Bathsheba bowed, and did obeisance unto the king. And the king
said, What wouldest thou?
1 Kings 2:19
Bathsheba therefore went unto king Solomon, to speak unto him for
Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto
her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the
king's mother; and she sat on his right hand.
Kneeling and Worshiping of Men Approved
Joshua 5:14
And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now
come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and
said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?
Joshua falls on his face before the Commander of the army of the Lord.
Revelation 3:9
Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are
Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and
worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.
Jesus Himself says He will make persecutors come and "worship before thy feet" to the bishop/Church of Philadelphia. Jesus would never command people to commit the sin of idolatry.
Kneeling and Worshiping of Men is Not Welcomed
Rev 19:10
And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou
do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the
testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy.
John, overwhelmed by the spectacular, blinding heavenly vision, momentarily forgets himself and tries to offer the angel latria (the worship due to God alone).
Acts 10:25-26
And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his
feet, and worshipped him. But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I
myself also am a man.
Cornelius was a Roman pagan who was accustomed to treating emperors and Roman figures as gods. Peter stops him because Cornelius's internal intent was pagan adoration (latria), mistakenly treating a human Apostle as a divine being.
(These are considered the earliest depictions of Jesus.)