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What Is a Graven Image?

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.” (Exodus 20:4-5)

What exactly does God mean by this term?
The main thrust of this commandment is that believers are not to worship anything that is earthly as a representation of God. The emphasis was on worshiping the idol, the image of an earthly thing, or the earthly thing itself in place of God. Idolatry is nearly always a major problem and downfall of God’s people—both then and now.

The first four commandments involve the direction of how we should relate to God; the remaining six describe our relationship with each other.

The first four commandments focus on Yahweh: “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17). And these commandments specifically insist that there is nothing on Earth, or under Earth, or above Earth that could be like Yahweh, “who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen” (1 Timothy 6:16). All attempts to make a physical representation of Yahweh’s eternal Being were forbidden and would result in capital punishment.

The New Testament extends and applies idolatry to anything that is worshiped instead of God(like the statuary of the Catholic MAry). The key is the worship of a thing or practice that takes the place of God. Attempting to portray the work of the Lord Jesus on Earth, in story form, is not worship or idolatry. That portrayal is merely an effort to tell the story of what Christ did while on Earth so that the gospel can be made clear and efficacious. Very few Christian groups use idols as a means to worship. BUT Catholicism is one of the exceptions ... if one could identify Catholicism as Christian, which it is not.