These injunctions were given to the Jews on account of their proneness to idolatry. Now we, on the contrary, are no longer in leading strings. Speaking theologically, it is given to us to avoid superstitious error, to be with God in the knowledge of the truth, to worship God alone, to enjoy the fulness of His knowledge. We have passed the stage of infancy, and reached the perfection of manhood. We receive our habit of mind from God, and know what may be imaged and what may not.-Apologia of St John Damascene Against Iconoclasts, Part I.
Israel also claimed superior knowledge of God to "know what may be imaged and what may not."
CSB Hosea 8:1 Put the horn to your mouth! One like an eagle comes against the house of the LORD, because they transgress My covenant and rebel against My law.
2 Israel cries out to Me: My God, we know You!
3 Israel has rejected what is good; an enemy will pursue him.
4 They have installed kings, but not through Me. They have appointed leaders, but without My approval. They make their silver and gold into idols for themselves for their own destruction.
5 Your calf-idol is rejected, Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?
6 For this thing is from Israel-- a craftsman made it, and it is not God. The calf of Samaria will be smashed to bits!
7 Indeed, they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if they did, foreigners would swallow it up.
8 Israel is swallowed up! Now they are among the nations like discarded pottery.
(Hos 8:1-8 CSB)
8:1. Like a swift eagle comes the Assyrians because Israel has rebelled against God's law including its prohibition against images.
8:2 Israel protests they know God, that they did this by God's mystical direction (cp 8:4).
Compare:
22 "Many will say to Me in that day,`Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?'
23 "And then I will declare to them,`I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'
(Mat 7:22-23 NKJ)
NKJ 1 Corinthians 12:1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant:
2 You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led.
(1Co 12:1-2 NKJ)
Evil spirits pretending to be God's leading carried them away into idolatry. These were confident they knew God, that superior knowledge enabled them to " avoid superstitious error, to be with God in the knowledge of the truth, to worship God alone, to enjoy the fulness of His knowledge."-Ibid.
8:4 God contradicts their claim, their religious experiences were not from Him, He had nothing to do with their apostasy from the Law.
Hosea 8:5 I will have nothing to do with your young ox, O Samaria; my wrath is burning against them; how long will it be before the children of Israel make themselves clean? (Hos 8:5 BBE)
God calls Israel "O Samaria" because they mixed paganism into true religion by copying Jeroboam's image of the true God:
28 So the king sought advice. Then he made two gold calves, and he said to the people, "Going to Jerusalem is too difficult for you. Israel, here is your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt." (29 He set up one in Bethel, and put the other in Dan.
30 This led to sin; the people walked in procession before one of the calves all the way to Dan.
(1Ki 12:28-30 CSB)
Each gold calf represented God, He was being worshiped through them.
God spurns the image and asks "How long will they be incapable of purity."
That God speaks of impurity rather than idolatry confirms the calf image was used to worship Him.
8:6 "For this thing is from Israel-- a craftsman made it, and it is not God." Their impurity is astonishing given the origins of this image are clearly known, a craftsman made it, not God, therefore He will smash it to pieces.
It is clear God rejects worship via an image:
NKJ Exodus 32:8 "They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said,`This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!'" (Exo 32:8 NKJ)
As God does not change, as Jesus is God, it is certain Jesus does not accept worship via an image, regardless whether its three dimensional, or two, for it is written "any kind of icon" is forbidden as an image of Him:
DT 4:15 And take good heed to your hearts, for ye saw no similitude in the day in which the Lord spoke to you in Choreb in the mountain out of the midst of the fire:
Dt 4:16 lest ye transgress, and make to yourselves a carved image, any kind of figure[eikona], the likeness of male or female.- Benton (lxx)
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
(1Jo 5:21 NKJ)