And the LORD said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: 'You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it.'
Exodus 20:22-26
In the remainder of ch 20, and in the three chapters which follow, we have a series of laws delivered by God to Moses, immediately after the delivery of the Decalogue, which constituted the second stage of the revelation, and stood midway between the first great enunciation of abstract principles in the Ten Commandments and the ultimate, minute and complicated elaboration of rules to meet all cases which fills the three books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This immediate revelation appears to have been at once committed to writing, and in its written shape was known as 'the book of the Covenant' (24:7), and regarded with special veneration' (Ellicott). These verses here contain laws relating to the worship of God. The keynote is twofold: reality and simplicity. On the one hand, since the living God had manifested Himself to them from heaven, no mere representation of Him (23) was either possible or necessary. On the other hand, the furniture and accoutrements of worship were to be of the simplest, since God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. That this was a needful warning, yet nevertheless neglected, is seen from the later history of Israel, who showed a remarkable propensity for being beguiled from this simplicity by all manner of false worship. It would be good for the Church to remember this too. The man who is in touch with God through the only Mediator, Jesus Christ, needs no 'aid to worship' other than the Holy Spirit. God has given us His Word, and it is in submission and response to its teaching that we offer our truest worship. Could it be that, when men find worship difficult if not impossible without some extraneous aids, it is because this obedience is being neglected or withheld?