Calvin: Men are so stupid that they...

Any use of images leads to idolatry*

Adoration promptly follows upon this sort of fancy: afor when men thought they gazed upon God in images, they also worshiped him in them. Finally, all men, having fixed their minds and eyes upon them, began to grow more brutish and to be overwhelmed with admiration for them, as if something of divinity inhered there. Now it appears that men do not rush forth into the cult of images before they have been imbued with some opinion too crass—not indeed that they regard them as gods, but because they imagine that some power of divinity dwells there. Therefore, when you prostrate yourself in veneration, representing to yourself in an image either a god or a creature, you are already ensnared in some superstition. For this reason, the Lord forbade not only the erection of statues constructed to represent himself but also the consecration of any inscriptions and stones that would invite adoration [Ex. 20:25]. For the same reason, also, in the precept of the law a second part is subjoined concerning adoration. For just as soon as a visible form has been fashioned for God, his power is also bound to it. Men are so stupid that they fasten God wherever they fashion him;17 and hence they cannot but adore. And there is no difference whether they simply worship an idol, or God in the idol. It is always idolatry when divine honors are bestowed upon an idol, under whatever pretext this is done. And because it does not please God to be worshiped superstitiously, whatever is conferred upon the idol is snatched away from Him.

Calvin, J. (2011). Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2. (J. T. McNeill, Ed., F. L. Battles, Trans.) (Vol. 1, p. 109). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

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John Stott on the "old man" and the "body ruled by sin" in Rom 6 v 6

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