When God forbids images, he is not merely prohibiting carved statues—he is protecting his own glory and our understanding of who he truly is. In this reading from John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 2, Chapter 8, Sections 17–21, Calvin explains the Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4–6) as a safeguard against corrupt worship and distorted conceptions of God. Because God is incomprehensible and spiritual in nature, any attempt to represent him in visible form inevitably diminishes him. The commandment therefore restrains our impulse to fashion God according to our senses and imaginations, and instead directs us to the worship he himself appoints—spiritual, obedient, covenantal worship. Calvin then turns to the declaration that God is “a jealous God,” showing that divine jealousy is covenant language: God relates to his pe ...