The Second Commandment
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under
the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God
am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth
generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep
my commandments.
Exodus 20.4f
The divine harmony between the Second Commandment, the Number 2, and the
content of the Second Spoke is beautiful to
behold. It essence of Spoke 2 ultimately descends from the very
nature of the eternal Godhead revealed in the names and character of the Second Person of the Trinity.
It begins with the fundamental Bet KeyWord בן (Ben, Son), the title of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God. The Hebrew alphabet (Aleph - Bet) is the story of the
Father אב (Av)
and the Son בן (Ben), and when
the Father and the Son share the same House בית (Bayit), we find the
Stone אבן (Aven) of Prophecy נבא (Navah, anagram of
Stone):
This is the Cornerstone of Creation, the Foundation Stone of the Christian faith. This is the Gospel
- the union of the Father
and the Son in Jesus Christ,
in whom "All the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily" (Colossians 2.9). It is very significant that this
perfectly coheres with the traditional Rabbinical understanding
of the Stone, as explained in the words of Rabbi Heshy Grossman in [Research and Reviews] >
A New Dimension. These ideas also appear in the word play of
John the Baptist in Matthew 3:9:
And think not to say within yourselves, We have
Abraham to our father (av): for I say unto you, that God is able of
these stones (avenim) to raise up
children (benim) unto Abraham."
Matthew 3:9
The prohibition
against graven images links directly to the nature of Christ who
is "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1.15). All of this coheres with the concepts
naturally subsumed in the category defined by the Number 2: Duality, Division, Image, and Reflection,
to name but a few. Thus we see that the Second Commandment divides Humanity (the Waters, cf. Rev. 17.15, Zech 13.) into those
"who hate me" and those "who love me and keep my commandments." The origin of this image of division and regathering
can be seen in the division and regathering of the Waters in the Second and Third Days of Creation. This then
is reiterated in the division of the Church in I Corinthians (Spoke 2), when the sinner was cast out, and the
regathering of Waters in II Corinthians (Spoke 3) when he was brought back in.
More coming soon ...
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