We Become What We Worship

A Biblical Theology of Idolatry

G. K. Beale

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780830878086
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The heart of the biblical understanding of idolatry, argues Gregory Beale, is that we take on the characteristics of what we worship.Employing Isaiah 6 as his interpretive lens, Beale demonstrates that this understanding of idolatry permeates the whole canon, from Genesis to Revelation. Beale concludes with an application of the biblical notion of idolatry to the challenges of contemporary life.

1

Introduction

WHEN MY TWO DAUGHTERS, HANNAH AND NANCY, were about two or three years old, I noticed how they imitated and reflected my wife and me. They cooked, fed and disciplined their play animals and dolls just the way my wife cooked, fed and disciplined them. They gave play medicine to their dolls just the way we fed them medicine. Our daughters also prayed with their stuffed animals and dolls the way we prayed with them. They talked on their toy telephone with the same kind of Texas accent that my wife uses when she talks on the phone. It was amazing. Most people, I am sure, have seen this with children. But children only begin what we continue to do as adults. We imitate. We reflect, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously.

Most people can think back to junior high, high school or even college when they were in a group and to one degree or another, whether consciously or unconsciously, they reflected and resembled that peer group. Members of the group may have worn polo shirts with a certain logo, and a newcomer needed to have the same shirt in order to feel a part of the group. Others may have been in a group that was very athletic, and so to be accepted in the group the new kid had to pursue athletics. And still others, unfortunately, ran with a crowd in which they felt they had to use drugs or participate in other harmful activities. All of us, even adults, reflect what we are around. We reflect things in our culture and our society, sometimes consciously and sometimes subtly and unconsciously.

These contemporary examples follow a very ancient pattern that has its roots in the beginning of history. In Genesis 1 God created humans to be imaging beings who reflect his glory. What did God’s people in the Old Testament, Israel, reflect, whether consciously or unconsciously? We will see what they resembled in their sinful disobedience. As we see what they reflected, we should ask ourselves whether we reflect anything similar in our culture today.

What do you and I reflect? One presupposition of this book is that God has made humans to reflect him, but if they do not commit themselves to him, they will not reflect him but something else in creation. At the core of our beings we are imaging creatures. It is not possible to be neutral on this issue: we either reflect the Creator or something in creation.

This book is not intended to be a comprehensive book on idolatry in the Bible but primarily an attempt to trace one particular aspect of idolatry as it is sometimes developed in Scripture. We will focus specifically on idol worshipers being identified with the idols around them. A number of the biblical passages that we will study express the idea that instead of worshiping and resembling the true God, idolaters resemble the idols they worship. These worshipers became as spiritually void and lifeless as the idols they committed themselves to. We will see that people are judged as their idols are; ironically, people are punished by means of their own sin: “Do you like idols? Then you will be punished along with them.” It is difficult to distinguish between being punished like the idol and becoming identified with the character of the idol. Sometimes the idolater may not be viewed as reflecting the character of the idol but only suffering the same fate (e.g., being burned in destruction). At times it seems both are true.

Conversely, we will also discover how people are restored to the true worship of God and reflecting his likeness. Therefore, the main thesis of this book is: What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration. This then is a biblical-theological study of this one aspect of idolatry. Rather than attempting to observe threads of this theme throughout the Bible, we will proceed primarily by tracing the development of earlier biblical passages dealing with this theme and how later portions of Scripture interpret and develop these passages (what is today referred to as “intertextuality” or “inner-biblical allusion”). After setting forth these developments, a concluding chapter will address a sampling of contemporary concerns and applications of the study.

WHAT IS IDOLATRY?

Before launching into our study, I need to define idolatry. Martin Luther’s larger catechism discussion of the first commandment (“You shall have no other gods before Me” [Ex 20:3]) included “whatever your heart clings to and relies upon, that is your God; trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and idol.”1 I might add here, “whatever your heart clings to or relies on for ultimate security.” “The idol is whatever claims the loyalty that belongs to God alone.”2 These are good and basic definitions of idolatry. The word idolatry can refer to the worship of other gods besides the true God, or the reverence of images. According to both the ancient Near East and the Old Testament, an idol or image contained a god’s presence, though that presence was not limited to the image.3 The ultimate biblical assessment about the purported divine reality behind idols is well summarized by Christopher Wright:

Although gods and idols are something in the world, they are nothing in comparison to the living God . . .

[W]hile gods and idols may be implements of or gateways to the world of the demonic, the overwhelming verdict of Scripture is that they are the work of human hands, constructs of our own fallen and rebellious imagination . . .

[T]he primal problem with idolatry is that it blurs the distinction between the Creator God and the creation. This both damages creation (including ourselves) and diminishes the glory of the Creator.

Since God’s mission is to restore creation to its full original purpose of bringing all glory to God himself and thereby to enable all creation to enjoy the fullness of blessings that he desires for it, God battles against all forms of idolatry and calls us to join him in that conflict . . .

[W]e need to understand the whole breadth of the Bible’s exposure of the deleterious effects of idolatry in order to appreciate its seriousness and the reason for the Bible’s passionate rhetoric about it.4

This book will explore what Wright summarizes as the idolatrous “damages” to creation, especially humans as the crown of creation, and what he calls “the deleterious effects of idolatry” on humans, which is underscored by the “Bible’s passionate rhetoric about it.”

Discussions about the nature of idolatry often include the first two of the ten commandments in Exodus 20.

³You shall have no other gods before Me.

⁴You 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.

⁵You 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, ⁶but showing loving-kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Ex 20:3-6)

Though some commentators have seen the two commandments as separate, others have understood them as one.5 Whichever is the case, it seems plausible that the first commandment is to be interpreted by the second, so that to “have no other gods” before Israel’s God meant that one was not to make “an idol, or any likeness” of anything in the created world that was worshiped because it was believed that the divine presence was to be contained in that image. Even making an image in which the God of Israel was believed to be present (as likely in Ex 32:1-9) was forbidden for the following reasons: (1) God had not revealed himself in any form to Israel, and to portray him to any degree in the form of any part of the creation is to misrepresent him and thus to commit idolatry (Deut 4:12-16, 23-25). Accordingly, God’s “self-disclosure came through a revelation in words, and the Sinai experience constituted a paradigm of God’s self-disclosure to Israel; thus, images were prohibited.”6 (2) Images of God were also not allowed in order to maintain a continuing consciousness among God’s people that there is a distinction between the Creator and the finite creation, which “cannot even remotely accord with the absolute, transcendental character of the God of Israel.”7 (3) Images were also prohibited to maintain a continuing consciousness among the Israelites that their God is different from and incomparable to the pagan gods (Is 40:18-26),8 whose presence could be transferred to particular images in the form of created things, whereas God’s presence could never be localized or captured in this manner. To deny that even part of the true God’s presence can be possessed in a created object is to cause Israel to remember that every part of creation is the possession of God (“for all the earth is Mine” [Ex 19:5]) in contrast to the deities of the nations whose dominion is localized and only over the nation that worships them.9 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in [the] spirit and truth” (Jn 4:24).10 To worship an image of any part of the creation is to take away from the incomparable glory of God: “I am the LORD, that is My name; / I will not give My glory to another, / nor My praise to graven images” (Is 42:8). God is “ jealous” (i.e., intolerant of disloyalty) when people give glory to anything other than himself because he is truly the only being in the universe who deserves glory.

(cf. Ex 20:5; 34:14; Deut 4:24; 5:9; 32:16, 21)

In expounding on the second commandment, Calvin asserts that representing God by images of his creation is forbidden because as soon as people, who are so bound by physical surroundings, imagine a created image in connection to the deity, they are distracted from God’s true spiritual being, and to some degree the deity is conceived of in some corporeal way.11 It is all the more important not to make created images of God since such “idolatrous deceits besiege us on every side, [so that] we shall in the vanity of our nature be liable” to turn aside to substitutions for the true worship of God.12 “Since God has prescribed to us how He would be worshipped by us [i.e., apart from any images whatsoever], whenever we turn away in the very smallest degree from this rule, we make to ourselves other gods, and degrade Him from His right place.”13 Such divinely prescribed worship is the difference “between true religion and false superstitions.”14 Thus, though I have offered reasons behind the prohibition of images, Calvin rightly would say that God’s prescription of imageless worship is justification alone for such worship.

While it is true that there are appearances of God in human form, whether in heavenly visions or otherwise, it is generally acknowledged that these appear to be legitimate exceptions to the rule, especially since these are living appearances sovereignly initiated by God himself and not lifeless images made by humans in the form of parts of the creation. There is also general consensus that the second commandment did not prohibit the making of images in an artistic way to depict the parts of the creation, as long as these representations were not thought to represent God. While there is a distinction between an attempt to worship images of the true God and worshiping pagan gods (with or without images) and worshiping their images, the term idolatry in this study will refer to all of these, in line with our analysis of the first and second commandments, especially since biblical authors do not normally distinguish between them but consider both to be equally abominable.15

OTHER LITERATURE ON IDOLATRY

There are a fair amount of books and articles written directly and explicitly on idolatry, though many of these explore contemporary forms of idolatry and focus less on the notion in the Bible.16 Some of the pertinent material that has been written will be alluded to at various points throughout this book. There is, however, one book that has been published recently that is in some respects similar to the present one: Edward P. Meadors’s Idolatry and the Hardening of the Heart. Meadors relies on and develops to some degree the thesis about idolatry that have I set forth already in some articles and in my Revelation commentary, and on which this book will elaborate in more detail.17

Consequently, there are places where he states what is my own main thesis of this book: that people become like the idols that they worship, that is, they are described as becoming like their idolatrous objects of worship are portrayed.18 For the most part, however, Meadors discusses mere examples of idol worship without attempting to give examples of the principle of becoming like what we worship and the in-depth nature of it. In reality, Meadors’s work traces a bit more the notion of “the hardening of the heart” as a part of idolatry (hence the title of his book), a specific theme I leave virtually untouched. He never gives one example of how idols are pictured as having “hard hearts.” Consequently, when he then discusses people that Scripture says have hard hearts, and he says they have become as hardened as the idols, there is no precedent that he can point to as a precise parallel. Generally speaking, I think he is on the right track, but, in fact, the reality is that there is no place in Scripture that specifically affirms that idols have hard hearts and that those who worship them become as hardened as the idols that they worship. Nevertheless, Meadors’s book does have some helpful discussions on the subject of idolatry.19

We will look at a number of examples whereby idols are described in a certain way, and then those who worship the idols are described in precisely the same manner. I will argue that the purpose of the identical description is to indicate mockingly that the worshiper, rather than experiencing an expected life-giving blessing, has received a curse by becoming as spiritually inanimate, empty, rebellious or shameful as the idol is depicted to be. For example, when idols are portrayed with eyes and ears that cannot see or hear, their worshipers are described as having eyes and ears but not seeing or hearing. Conversely, I will also focus on how the worshipers of the true God reflect his image in blessing. All humans have been created to be reflecting beings, and they will reflect whatever they are ultimately committed to, whether the true God or some other object in the created order. Thus, to repeat the primary theme of this book, we resemble what we revere, either for ruin or restoration.

A BRIEF COMMENT ON THE INTERPRETIVE APPROACH OF THIS BOOK

Before proceeding to the topic of this book, it is important to discuss the presuppositions and hermeneutical approach that underlies the way I will interpret Scripture in this book. This discussion may be a bit in-depth for the more popular reader, but I have tried to distill one of my main approaches to interpreting Scripture to make it communicable to a wider audience. Nevertheless, I suspect that there will be moments in the remainder of this chapter that some readers will have to exercise patience in following my discussion. I believe, however, such patience will pay off by enabling readers to better understand the remainder of the book...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A Foundational Example of Becoming Like What We Worship - Isaiah 6
• 3 Becoming Like What We Worship: Evidence Elsewhere in the Old Testament
• 4 The Origin of Idolatry in the Old Testament
• 5 Becoming Like What We Worship: Judaism
• 6 Becoming Like What We Worship: The Gospels
• 7 Idolatry in Acts
• 8 Becoming Like What We Worship: Paul’s Epistles
• 9 Becoming Like What We Worship: The Book of Revelation
• 10 The Reversal from Reflecting the Image of Idols to Reflecting God’s Image
• 11 Conclusion: So What Difference Does It Make?
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Scripture Index
• Notes
• Praise for We Become What We Worship
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright Page