A man walks into a bakery to taste what he hears are the most delicious cookies known in all the world. Upon tasting one, he agrees and asks the server for more. Hooked now, the man continues to come into the bakery day after day to eat these world renown cookies. After many days, seeing how in love with the treats the man is, the server asks if he would like to meet the baker, the owner of the shop. With a mouth full and crumbs spilling out, the man replies, “No, I have no need of the baker.” Surprised at this, the server tries, “But, sir, the baker is the provider of these cookies you love so much. Wouldn’t you like to thank him and tell him how much you delight in his work?” “I told you, no. I have no care for him. Now, bring me a dozen cookies to go.”
What this man did not know was that the server was the baker. Dumbfounded at the man’s statements, the baker said in protest, “You fool, you have need of filling your desire for my cookies but believe you can fill that desire without me? Get out! You have no place in my shop!” And at that, the man was left forever without his beloved treat because he found more value in it than in the one who made it.
This short story only gives a glimpse into the idolatry that humans have fallen into. In our original nature, we have chosen a love for the created things without giving due honor to God, the creator of all. Idolatry is the first of many things we will look at in jumping into the part of this series that looks at the attributes of Christ. Hopefully obvious to you is that idolatry is not an attribute of Christ, though. Jesus Christ fulfilled perfect worship, service, and obedience to the one and only true God. Idolatry is mostly defined in the Bible as worship to any false deity, typically in man-made objects. It is this opposition in nature between idols and the true God that gives reason for us to look at not only the attributes of Christ we are to put on, but also their opposites that we must remove to make what we put on more fitting.
Idolatry: What is it?
If I had to guess, out of everyone reading this writing, there is not even one who has, does, or will worship a man-made object and idol (as in sing praises and offer sacrifice to). It is not a normal part of our American culture as it is in many parts of the world, today. But, there are multiple passages in the Bible that make perfectly clear that idolatry is not only the worship of objects made out to be gods. Because of disobedience towards God, it was said to King Saul, “Rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:23). Idolatry is directly linked to his disobedience or as in other translations, his arrogance, presumption, defiance, or stubbornness. If that is the case, all of us have been idolaters.
Ephesians 5:5 says, “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” A covetous man is an idolater. Colossians 3:5 is similar in saying, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.” This time, Paul associate’s greed with idolatry, though, it is practically the same thing as covetousness. We have, then, multiple ways to look at idolatry: a clear act or decision to worship and serve another so-called god, or for most of us reading this, a disobedience towards God, covetousness, and greed.
What is it about disobedience and covetousness that equals idolatry? How can those sins and the worship of false gods point to the same overarching sin? From the International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia comes what I think is a good definition of idolatry. There, it calls idolatry, “The giving of any human desire a precedence over God’s will.” Worshipping another “god” gives precedence over thee God and certainly precedence over His will when the first commandment from Exodus 20:3 is, “You shall have no other gods besides me.” Giving his desire precedence over God’s will is certainly what King Saul did when he disobeyed God’s command by not destroying everything within Amalek, instead preserving, “All that was good” (1 Sam. 15:9). In this story we see disobedience linked with coveting. Why did Saul disobey God, committing idolatry? Because he coveted what, “Was good.” Instead of desiring the will and glory of God, he desired what he saw would benefit his own will and glory. The lure of great wealth, the best livestock in this case, had a grasp on the will and desires of King Saul and he paid the price for it. Samuel said to Saul, “Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king” (1 Sam. 15:23).
Do we suffer from the same idolatry, from the same desire for giving other things precedence over God and His will? 1 John 2:15-17 says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” The definition we have chosen to define idolatry comes alive in this passage. Notice coveting in, “The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes,” for the things of this world. This coveting is given contrast with what truly gives life, eternal life, which is doing the will of God. We are all guilty of this idolatry and that is what Paul makes clear in Romans, chapters 1-3.
In our fallen nature, we all have, “Exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). The creature should be seen as all that is in the world and universe, all that has been created by the Creator, God. In other words, anything besides God because God, alone, is uncreated. We all have the tendency to seek after the things in this world through the lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes in place of God. We easily – too easily – obsess over objects, created things such as the human body, cars, homes, toys, and the wealth that purchases it all. By itself, God’s creation is meant to be seen as good, all of it. But we have abused this reality by exchanging the creator for the created thing. Like the cookie-loving man from the beginning story, we have given precedence to the creation over the creator. We have been idolators.
Two Paths
In coming back to the aim of this writing, we must remove this aspect from our being to put on Christ. In this case, we put on obedience and love for the will of God. We put God, the creator, first. Nothing in this world can come anywhere close. What are the objects of this world but His handiwork only to bring glory to Him? Where else should the glory go? Has anyone or anything else created everything, from the smallest of small to the largest of large? Has anyone or anything else created something from nothing? We only create something from the something God has created. All is His.
I pray that no one reading this will fall into being the people of Philippians 3:18-19: “For many walk, of whom I often told you and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.” Who is their God? Their appetite, their lust for the creation. For who’s glory? Not for God’s because they have removed his precedence and so it can only be for their shame, the end of which is destruction.
I pray we all fall into this latter group: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:20-21). Even now, God is transforming us into conformity with His glory in and through Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit. By His power we are putting on the things of Christ, being sanctified, made holy. The great distinction between verses 18-19 and 20-21 is where we look, where we set our minds, and in what we desire precedence for. One is idolatry and the other, truth and life. Those in the former, “Set their minds on earthly things,” but those in the latter on, “Heaven,” God’s kingdom.
-Pastor Ben