PERSONALITY OF GOD - 3

IDOLATRY FOREWARNINGS

 

The solemn prohibition against idolatry becomes very clear in the light of these facts about spirit in the previous article. After stating the first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exod. 20:3), the very next commandment is a warning about the making of images. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" (Exod. 20:4). This com­mandment is repeated and enlarged and intensified, when Moses was completing his ministry with the children of Israel on the plains of Moab (Deut. 4:12-24).

The reason is clearly stated. "The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: Ye heard the voice of words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice...Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves; and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: and lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven" (Deut. 4:12, 15-19).

The word idol means that which may be seen. So then, when men began to make something they could see, which was intended to represent the God whom they could not see, what they made did not truly represent the invisible God. What they worshipped was false, and this started the trend into the darkness away from God. "And [they] changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things" (Rom. 1:23). There went with this the corruption of themselves and the awful descent into sin which compelled God to give them up (Rom. 1:24-32).