No Other Gods/No Idols

“I am the LORD your God…You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 2:2-5).

“I am the LORD your God.” The Ten Commandments begin with the reality of God. He doesn’t explain or defend His existence, He states it as fact. We may disbelieve, but He still is. He doesn’t argue to prove His word is true, He presents it as absolute. We may reject it, but it is still truth. The first two commandments establish God’s authority to command and our duty to obey.

But what is so clearly presumed in these laws is not so in the world. Our friends and neighbors don’t all believe in God, and those who do often define “God” differently. A 1994 Barna Research study found that 30% of adults “embrace an unorthodox definition of God, such as a state of higher consciousness.” You and I can expect to meet more and more people who believe in a God, but not the God of the Bible.

The world’s view of truth is getting blurrier. In that same Barna survey, 72% either “strongly” or “somewhat” agreed that “there is no such thing as absolute truth; two people could define truth in totally conflicting ways, but both could still be correct.” You and I can no longer presume that our neighbors believe in a single, absolute, God-given truth.

In fact, our society is losing respect for religion in general. Many folks think that any beliefs which might be called “religious” should be confined to church buildings or living rooms. Yale professor Stephen Carter described the modern opinion that “religion is like building model airplanes, just another hobby: something quiet, something private, something trivial — and not really a fit activity for intelligent, public-spirited adults” (The Culture of Disbelief, p. 22). You and I can no longer presume that everyone around us will be tolerant of our convictions. We may face a future of increased hostility toward our faith.

All this means that serving the true and living God is becoming as tough for Christians in America as it was for the Israelites among their pagan neighbors! No commandment is more often repeated in the Mosaic Law than these first two. And sadly, no law was more frequently broken. Beginning even at the foot of Sinai (Exodus 32), idolatry reared its ugly head again and again throughout Israel’s history. God’s prophets cried out against it continually (cf. Isaiah 44:15-17; Jeremiah 2:27-28). Only after the return from Babylon does the problem seem to have subsided. Israel’s failure gives us all the more reason to think about the challenges of these first two commandments.

I understand that many of our Lutheran and Catholic friends treat these two commandments as one (they separate the law against coveting into two). Such mistakes are evidence that we have trouble seeing any difference between the worship of false gods and the making of idols. While the two usually went hand in hand, there is an important distinction. Commentator James Smith sums it up smartly, observing that the first commandment deals with the “who” of worship, while the second addresses the “how.”

“You shall have no other gods before Me.” Both Old and New Testaments emphasize God’s oneness (Deuteronomy 4:4; Ephesians 4:6). If there is one God, then He alone is worthy of worship and service. “You shall worship the LORD your God, and serve Him only” (Matthew 4:10; cf. Deuteronomy 6:13).

Idolatry is not confined to ancient societies or third-world cultures. It’s alive and well any time someone or something takes first place in our hearts ahead of God. When we define happiness by how much stuff we have, we worship the god of wealth (cf. Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5). People can become our gods, too — and not just popular stars. We may exalt family (Matthew 10:37), preachers and teachers (1 Corinthians 3:4-5), and of course, self (Luke 9:23). Just about anything can become our god if we let it. But God is “a jealous God” who demands our undivided loyalty.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol…You shall not worship them or serve them.” We usually think of “idolatry” as the worship of pagan gods, which involved carved or graven images that represented those gods. But Israel’s idolatry wasn’t always aimed at other gods. At Sinai, Aaron fashioned the molten calf and declared, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD” (Exodus 32:5). There was at least a pretense of worshiping the true God. Micah the Ephraimite made images from silver that was dedicated to Jehovah (Judges 17:1-5). Even under the rule of good kings, the people often sacrificed to God at the “high places” that had been built for idol worship (cf. 2 Chronicles 33:17).

Here is where the distinction between the two commands is important. God forbade the worship of images even if they were associated with worshiping Him. The invisible God needs no earthly dwelling place or physical form (Deuteronomy 4:12,15; Acts 17:24-25). But it seems the people longed for a God they could see and touch. They wanted to worship Him in a way that was familiar and comfortable — and appealing to their neighbors. The second commandment stressed that “the worship of God must not be transferred from the realm of the spirit to that of the senses” (Smith). That thought echoes in Jesus’ statement: “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). It is Christ Himself who is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).

So these first two commandments really address the sin of making God in our own image. False gods are the product of man’s imagination. Idolatry tries to create a god we can manage — one who likes what we like, hates what we hate, gives us what we want, and stays out of the way the rest of the time. God warns us against trying to re-create Him in our own likeness. Yet our attempts to do so know no bounds.

We do it through man-made religion. We add to or take away from God’s revealed pattern of worship and service, wanting to do as we like and expecting Him to go along. Nadab and Abihu did so and paid with their lives (Leviticus 10:1-3). Jesus condemned his own generation for “teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Matthew 15:9). Merely calling a thing “worship” or “ministry” or “religion” doesn’t give it God’s approval. The numerous unscriptural changes men have made in the church’s worship (images, incense burning, instrumental music, etc.) and work (institutions and societies of every description, fund-raisers, political and social projects, etc.) are really just attempts to bring God down to our level.

We do it through man-made morality. Paul’s description of the savage hedonism of his world (Romans 1) sounds uncomfortably like our own. When God is just a thought and truth is just an opinion, every man becomes his own god (cf. Judges 21:25). Even many professed believers let “I feel” trump “God says.” (cf. Jeremiah 17:9). We want a God who is “reasonable” instead of holy and just. We want a God who lets us make our own rules.

In short, we want a God who is like us. But God is not like us (Isaiah 55:8-9). He expects us to worship Him, not our conception of Him. He wants us to serve Him, not second-guess Him. Let the first two commandments return us to these principles. Like the Thessalonians, let’s “turn to God from idols to serve a living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9).