Does the commandment against graven images forbid Christians to make and venerate images of Christ and the saints?
26 verses are cited on this page. Each one links to its chapter in the Greek text.
Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing... Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them.Exodus 20:4-5
The commandment, stated at full force. Any answer must reckon with it as it stands.
...you saw not any similitude in the day that the Lord spoke to you... lest perhaps being deceived you might make you a graven similitude.Deuteronomy 4:15-16
The reason given for the prohibition: they saw no form, so they must make none.
Thou shalt make also two cherubims of beaten gold, on the two sides of the oracle.Exodus 25:18-20
In the same book, God commands golden images to be made and placed in the holiest place of the sanctuary, above the ark itself.
Make brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live.Numbers 21:8-9
God commands a made image, and commands the people to look at it to be healed. The bronze serpent was later destroyed by King Hezekiah, because the people had begun burning incense to it (2 Kings 18:4). That cuts both ways and must be granted: it proves that a God-given image can become an idol through misuse, a real warning; and it proves that the object itself was not the problem, since God had commanded it, until the people's use of it became worship.
...we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.1 Corinthians 8:4
An idol is a representation of a god that does not exist. The sin is in what is believed and given, not in the existence of a carved object.
We must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man.Acts 17:29
Paul condemns supposing that God is a made thing.
The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve.Matthew 4:10
The verse the whole dispute turns on, and it uses two verbs, not one. Proskyneseis is adore; latreuseis is serve, and monoi, only, stands with the serving. Honest concession: the line can be read as parallelism, in which case only covers both. But the Greek does not require that, and the distinction between the reverence an image may carry and the service owed to God alone rests here.
Behold, I will make them come and adore before thy feet.Revelation 3:9
The same verb, proskyneo, of men bowing before other men, and Christ himself says he will bring it about. So the bodily act of bowing before something that is not God is not by itself the forbidden thing. What is forbidden is what the bowing means.
...See thou do it not... Adore God.Revelation 19:10
The line Scripture itself draws: adoration is for God alone, and a holy creature refuses it.
...I fell down to adore before the feet of the angel... And he said to me: See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant... Adore God.Revelation 22:8-9
The refusal repeated, so no reader can miss it. This and the next verse are the strongest texts against treating proskyneo as freely flexible, and the hub is weaker without them on the page.
Cornelius came to meet him, and falling at his feet adored. But Peter lifted him up, saying: Arise, I myself also am a man.Acts 10:25-26
Cornelius offers proskyneo to Peter and Peter will not take it. The critic's point is fair: if even an apostle refuses the act, a painted board can hardly be given it. The Catholic answer is that Peter is stopping what Cornelius meant by it, a pagan prostrating before a man he took for more than a man. Read as a flat ban on any reverence toward any creature, the same verse would condemn Revelation 3:9, where Christ brings the act about.
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.Colossians 1:15
God has made his own image, and it is a person with a human nature.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw his glory.John 1:14
The reason images of God were forbidden was that no one had seen him. In Christ, they saw him.
He that seeth me, seeth the Father also.John 14:9
What Deuteronomy said was impossible at Sinai has happened.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes... and our hands have handled.1 John 1:1
The apostolic witness insists on the visible and tangible reality of Christ, which is the ground on which he may be depicted.
The commandment stands, and no Catholic may worship a creature or a thing. But the same God who gave it commanded golden cherubim above the ark (Exodus 25:18-20), a temple carved throughout with figures (1 Kings 6:29), and a bronze serpent that Israel looked upon and lived (Numbers 21:8-9), which Christ himself took as a figure of his own lifting up (John 3:14). So the commandment cannot mean that religious images as such are forbidden, or God contradicted himself in the same books. What it forbids is making a false god, and giving to any creature the adoration owed to God alone. Hezekiah's destruction of the bronze serpent (2 Kings 18:4) is a real warning that a good image can be abused into an idol, and the Church has said the same. Above all, the reason given for the prohibition was that Israel "saw not any similitude" (Deuteronomy 4:15); but now the Word has been made flesh and been seen and handled, so that what could not be depicted may be. The Second Council of Nicaea (787) settled this, teaching that images are to be venerated but not adored, since the honor shown an image passes to the one it represents, and whoever venerates the image venerates the person depicted in it. The candle before the icon is no different in kind from the photograph a soldier's wife keeps on the mantel. No one thinks she is worshipping paper.