– The prohibition of Exodus and Deuteronomy applies to cult images. In the NT, the word image is sometimes used in the sense of authentic and adequate expression:
Ex 20,4s : You shall not make sculpture for yourself, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on earth below.
Deuteronomy 4:15s : On the day that the Lord your God spoke to you from the heart of the fire in Horeb, you saw no figure.
– Paul says, for example, that Christ is the image of God:
2Cor 4,4 : The light of the Gospel, where the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, shines.
Col 1:15 : He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation.
Col 3:10 : And you have put on the new, which is constantly being restored in the image of Him who created it.
– At other times, it indicates subordination of a lower order to a higher one. For example, the Christian in relation to Christ:
Rom 8:29 : Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.
– Earthly life in relation to spiritual realities:
1Cor 15,49 : As we reproduce in ourselves the features of the earthly man, we need to reproduce the features of the heavenly man.
2Cor 3,18 : But we all have our faces uncovered, we reflect the glory of the Lord as in a mirror.
– In this sense, it is said that man was created in the image of God:
Gn 1,26s : Let us make man in our image and likeness. May he reign over the fish of the sea.
Gen 5:1 : When God created man, he made him in the image of God.
Gen 9:6 : Whoever sheds human blood will have his own blood shed […] because God made man in his image.
Wis 2:23 : God created man for immortality, and made him in the image of his own nature.
Eclo 17,1 : God created man from the earth, he formed him after his own image.
– Both in Exodus and Deuteronomy, the prohibition of images refers to the images of foreign gods and not any kind of drawing, painting or sculpture. These are idols and images of false gods that take the form of people, animals, stars, etc.
– So much so that God himself sent Moses to make a bronze serpent. This serpent image was prefigurative of Jesus nailed to the cross:
Jn 3,14s : As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
– In addition, God commanded Moses to make two cherubim to cover the mercy seat:
Ex 25,18ss : You will make two cherubim of gold; and thou shalt make them of beaten gold, on the two ends of the cover.
– Solomon, when he built the temple, also had cherubim and other figures made, including lions and oxen: not for that reason was the temple displeasing to God:
1Kings 7:29 : On the framed panels of frames, there were lions, oxen and cherubim, as well as on the crossbars likewise.
– With these prohibitions, God sought to protect the small people of Israel, surrounded by so many idolatrous peoples and itself prone to idolatry, from the danger of that same idolatry. One thing is image, another is idol.
