In thinking about images and idolatry, it is important to remember that idolatry begins with graven imagery. Graven imagery is first degree idolatry. Second degree idolatry is one step removed from graven imagery--mental idolatry versus physical. When Paul warns the Colossians of "greed which is idolatry" Scripture endorses the concept of second-degree idolatry.
There are, in other words, mental idols. The second commandment can be broken in the heart as can the sixth, seventh, and virtually all the rest.
But, of course, second degree violations of any commandment are dependent upon the existence of first degree violations. If it were impossible to kill your neighbor physically, there would be no basis for Jesus' second-degree extension of that commandment in the Sermon on the Mount. The same goes for adultery: mental adultery is inconceivable in the absence of physical adultery.
Thus, when we consider only second degree violations of the second commandment without ever linking them to first degree violations, we eviscerate the commandment of reality: life and blood, warp and woof. It becomes entirely an academic, cerebral violation, and thus a cold sin. But idolatry is a sin of passion and enthusiasm. It is not cerebral. It is pulsating.
And Scripture routinely warns against first order idolatry. In fact, it primarily and overwhelmingly warns against physical images when it speaks of idolatry. Nor have we advanced beyond first degree violations of the second commandment. We are as image-besotted and beset as any culture in any age of human existence. Yet we do not worship any graven images? We do not commit first-degree idolatry?
In fact, nothing is more common to our condition than first degree idolatry. Hear the Word: "Little children, guard yourselves from idols." What weak little children we truly are. God protect us from thinking we stand in regard to the second commandment.
