When speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well concerning worshipping the Father, he told her: "The hour is coming when neither in this mountain (Mount Gerizim) nor in Jerusalem (at the temple) is the place where persons ought to worship. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation originates with the Jews. Nevertheless, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him. God is a Spirit, and those worshipping him must worship with spirit and truth."(John 4:21-24)
Hence, Jesus clearly identified that those who worship the Father, God, must do so without the use anything that is venerated as an idol. The Samaritan woman and Jews had to adjust their way of worship so as to please God. Jesus emphasized that God wants true worship. Thus, there are forms of worship unacceptable to God, though these may profess to be Christian. The Samaritans had false religious ideas and accepted only the first five books of the Bible as inspired - and these solely in their recension known as the Samaritan Pentateuch. These, therefore did not really know God.
At Exodus 20:4,5, God gave the nation of Israel the command: "You must not make for yourself a carved image or a form like anything that is the heavens above or that is on the earth underneath or that is in the waters under the earth. You must not bow down to them nor be induced to serve them, because I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion." These were not to make anything to use as an aid in worshipping God, for doing so would cause God to bring "punishment for the error of fathers upon sons."
Forty years later, just before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, God told the nation through Moses, that: "you must take good care of your souls, because you did not see any form on the day of Jehovah’s speaking to you in Ho´reb out of the middle of the fire, that you may not act ruinously and may not really make for yourselves a carved image, the form of any symbol, the representation of male or female, the representation of any beast that is in the earth, the representation of any winged bird that flies in the heavens, the representation of anything moving on the ground, the representation of any fish that is in the waters under the earth; and that you may not raise your eyes to the heavens and indeed see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the army of the heavens, and actually get seduced and bow down to them and serve them, which Jehovah your God has apportioned to all the peoples under the whole heavens."(Deut. 4:15-19)
Later, though, the nation of Israel did not listen to this command and began making images to serve in their worship, even to other gods. Josiah, the last good king before the destruction of the land of Judah in 607 B.C.E., followed God's command, for 2 Chronicles 34:33 says that "Jo·si´ah removed all the detestable things out of all the lands that belonged to the sons of Israel, and he had all who were found in Israel take up service, to serve Jehovah their God."
Just a few years before the destruction of the land of Judah in 607 B.C.E., Ezekiel was shown by God that the nation of Israel, though in a covenant with God, had prostrated themselves before idols, giving devotion to these. God thus said: "And your altars must be made desolate and your incense stands must be broken, and I will cause your slain ones to fall before your dungy idols. And I will put the carcasses of the sons of Israel before their dungy idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars."(Eze 6:4,5) God was going to bring the nation of Israel to ruin because of their false religious practices, which involved the use of idols.
Some sixteen years after Jesus death and resurrection, the apostles and older men, when settling the issue of circumcision, wrote letters to all the congregations, saying that "the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication."(Acts 15:28,29) Thus, these reiterated that God hates the use of idols, putting it in the same category as fornication and the misuse of blood.
Then, almost fifty years later, the apostle John in giving loving counsel to the congregations, said" Little children, guard yourselves from idols."(1 John 5:21) Hence, the use of idols is condemned in the Bible and God is looking for those who will worship him "in spirit and truth".
