Also, the Jews worshipped a God who had not yet revealed himself in visible form. We worship a God who has made himself known visibly in Jesus Christ; who is, as Col 1:15 says, the "image (Gr eikon) of the invisible God".
“Those Roman standards weren’t just images; they were idols to Caesar (worshipped as a “god” remember) and treated as such.”
See, it sounds like you are taking the narrow interpretation I was talking about, but it is incorrect. The historical accounts, and the archaeological record do not agree with it. Anywhere else we look in the near east, there are statues and idols aplenty to be found if you just dig around a bit. In Israel, it’s a different story. We do find some pagan idols, but beyond that, there are no idols, monuments, or public works with statuary adornment to be found.
What we do find are inscriptions, mosaics, paintings, and some shallow reliefs, but not sculptures and standing images, which agrees quite well with the literal reading of the Biblical account.
“Also, the Jews worshipped a God who had not yet revealed himself in visible form. We worship a God who has made himself known visibly in Jesus Christ; who is, as Col 1:15 says, the “image (Gr eikon) of the invisible God”.”
Yet, we still do not know what even that visible form of God looked like with any certainty, and furthermore, the prohibitions from the Bible do not allow any exceptions for making images of things even if you do know what they look like.