Yeshua Explored

False worship

What are we worshipping?

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“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)

There are four connected narratives here. Here’s the first:

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.”

The Hebrew word translated as “image” is pecel and although the context implies something carved or sculpted, it can refer to any three-dimensional image, however it is produced. Suddenly we can see the relevance to today, in our image-conscious society. Stone and clay give way to pixels, whether graphics or videos displayed on a smartphone or huge experiences in 3D cinemas or huge glittering electronic billboards. Images are everywhere, imploring us to buy, to experience … dare I say to worship? But perhaps we are jumping ahead of ourselves, as the clear message here is the prohibition against the making of the image, rather than what it is used for. Is this a specific condemnation against graphic designers, animators, artists, even if their talents are not knowingly being used in ungodly ways? As ever, the clue is in the context.

The prohibitions concern images of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. Is this significant? Yes, it was to the immediate audience for these words. In those days, things in the heaven, such as the sun, the moon and the stars, were certainly worshipped by the pagan nations. So anyone who created such an image can be held responsible. Things on the earth beneath alluded to natural features such as rivers, trees, hills and mountains, that were deified and therefore abhorrent to God. This could also include statues made to commemorate mere mortal beings such as Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, who considered themselves “gods”. Again, the very objects themselves were an affront. Things in the waters below was a reference to demons, who would conceal themselves down below and, as archaeology has shown us, were well catered for in the form of idolatrous images of stone and clay.

Tearing ourselves away from the past the prohibitions for today would be for anyone guilty of creating images for the overt purpose of worship, such as porcelain Buddhas, icons of the Virgin Mary and such objects that may be found in ecclesiastical gift shops.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them …

This is where it gets serious as we are soon going to read about consequences. It’s one thing to be creating such abhorrent objects, but it’s a far more serious matter when we are prostrating ourselves before these objects. And because we are living in very different days to the Ancient Israelites, everything broadens out as we consider modern equivalents to those images of stone and clay and look behind the form, at the function. In short, God is unhappy at anything that we bow down to and worship. And this can take many forms in our modern society:

• Prominent people who you respect / feel attracted to / empower you / entertain you. These are products of the media of the day. In the 19^th century it would be the explorers, scientists or writers who would be featured in the daily rags and penny pamphlets, in the early days of the cinema they would have been film stars, in the TV age it would have broadened to pop stars and ‘celebrities’ in general and in our internet age it can be absolutely anyone, irrespective of any talent or redeeming features.

• Anything actually produced by one of the above groups, such as pieces of music, films, art etc. I know someone who has seen the Sound of Music fifty-eight times – is that the best use of their time? Obsessional behaviour is self-destructive and certainly gives no glory to God and instead mars His image that lives within us.

• Anything in God’s Creation that may cause you to worship the creation rather than the Creator. The correct behavior is that the beauty of the Creation should bring us to our knees to praise and thank God Himself. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen. (Romans 1:25)

Now of course we are not physically bowing down and worshipping the above (though I’d make an exception at some behavior I’ve seen at football games) but it’s not the externalities we need to concern ourselves with but the inner motivations and impulses. We human beings were made to worship, it’s a natural God-given impulse within each of us, yet when the object of our worship isn’t God Himself then something has got very skewed along the way.

A philosopher once asked Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder (the same one as in Acts 22:3), “if idols of other gods are so dead and powerless, yet they still led the Israelites away from God, then why didn’t God just destroy them all?” The Rabbi replied, “do they worship just idols? They also worship the sun, the moon, the stars and the constellations, the mountains, hills, springs and valleys, even their fellow men! Should God destroy His whole creation because of these fools?”

A good reply and a pointer to our restless souls that just need to worship something and that, if we are so blind as to ignore our Creator, then we are liable to shower our affections and loyalty on a whole number of worthless substitutes.

This is an extract from the book, Sinner’s Charter: Are the ten commandments for today?, available for £10 at https://www.sppublishing.com/the-sinners-charter-260-p.asp