Let’s take a look at the Ten Words or Ten Commandments as they are also called. They are introduced by the words, “I am the Lord your God.” Let’s look at that in more depth.
Exodus 20:2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
The Exodus experience is a history that is attested to in archaeology, with historically accurate place names, characteristic four-roomed housing, and parts of ancient Egypt with semitic place names. However, the spiritual lesson for us today is also important. What is the spirit of the declaration that begins the Ten Commandments? It tells us that the God we worship is also intent on freeing His people from every form of slavery today.
What forms of slavery exist today? We are too often slaves to debt, slaves to jobs which do not pay enough to cover the cost of living, slaves to slumlords, slaves to a corrupt food industry, in some countries we are slaves to governments that do not allow freedom of worship, some of us are slaves to a prison system that frequently jails small-time crooks and often only fines those who steal millions from customers, slaves to an advertising world that makes the world look ugly, slaves to utilities that take a monthly bite out of our bank accounts, in the United States many are slaves to a healthcare system that can rob people of their homes, and on it goes.
Why are we still figuratively in Egypt, in one form of slavery or another? We have forgotten the God who frees us. We are not truly free, even in “the land of the free.”
No other gods
Exodus 20:3 You shall have no other gods before Me.
Most pastors care for small churches and their salary is a large percentage of the local church’s budget. Some church people complain about what they pay their pastors, without a thought for the millions we all pay sports stars, or CEO’s of companies that often have questionable morality. But, one of our gods is money and we do not value those who teach us about the one true God as we ought to.
Another of our gods is materialism. It drives the economy. Rather than encourage saving, advertisers and governments alike encourage spending, because we live the lie taught by economic theories which are driven by environmentally and financially unsustainable growth. A great blight on the Church is the preaching of a materialistic false gospel. Rather than a self-sacrificing Jesus, we worship a tooth-fairy Jesus, who grants our every wish.
Idolatry
Exodus 20:4-6 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, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
A Jewish Talmud version of the Ten Commandments numbers this together with having no other gods. A lot of people don’t realize that there are over half a dozen variations on how the Ten Commandments are numbered. The Talmud, Reformed Protestants, Septuagint, Lutheran Protestants, Samaritan, Augustinian, Catholic, and Philo all number them differently. However, none of the various enumerations of the Ten Commandments, leaves a commandment out, as some seem to believe. The words are all there, even if the numbering is different.
So what is an idol? First of all, it is not an image. Neither a two dimensional painting, nor a three dimensional statue are idols of and by themselves. All one has to do is look at the Tabernacle to see that. God commanded that two dimensional tapestries of pomegranates and cherubs be woven into the curtains of the Tabernacle and these were not idols. The three dimensional covering cherubs over the mercy seat were statues, but not idols.
When does a picture or statue become an idol? When it is bowed down to and worshipped, it becomes an idol. The bronze snake on a pole, which has become a symbol of medicine, was at first not an idol. God commanded that it be made in Numbers 21, and those who saw it were protected from snake bite.
However, the same three dimensional object began to be worshipped as an idol and so had to be destroyed as we read in 2 Kings 18. What is worship? The original Hebrew in Exodus 20:5 is clear. What is specifically forbidden is bowing down to or serving a likeness as subjects, as any good Hebrew lexicon will show.
So the spirit of the law here is also quite clear. What do we build and subsequently bow down to or serve as subjects? The list could be very long indeed. Everything from jingoism to personal property, from family names or businesses to our own church institutions, and the list goes on.
The lesson of the bronze snake is very relevant to the Protestant Reformation. A once viable Church which had carried the message of the Gospel for centuries, had also become corrupt. The imperfect human institution had become an idol, whereby many Christians were bowing down to and serving it instead of the one true God. Any institution that refused repentance had allowed its rules or itself to become an idol.
An impressive saying that our Reformed friends discuss is “reformed and always reforming.” The motto may be an ideal, but is largely ignored by we who are Protestants, because we have become much like the ancient western Church, stubborn and unrepentant. Or, it may be used for watering down the gospel and adopting worldly values, thus labeling modern apostasy as a new reformation.
Obviously, some of us are Protestant because we see so much in Catholicism that is wrong, but we must admit that our churches are also far from perfect. That’s why we all need Jesus and His perfect sacrifice, because none of us can measure up to the perfect law of God. May God have mercy on all of us.
