18

CHAPTER 2

CREATION: THE BURIED TRUTH OF WHO GOD IS

Someday in the future, believers of all ages and the angels will praise God at His Throne: Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed and were created. Rev. 4:11

Note here that the defining event of all history for revealing Who God is, is the creation event. This praise comes prior to praise for the redemption in Christ (Rev. 5:9-14)! The reason why creation is the defining event instead of the Cross is that redemption would be unimportant if the God Who redeemed were not the Creator. For this reason Paul insisted that the “front end” of the gospel to a pagan society ought always to be creation (cf. Acts 14:15; 17:24; Rom 1:20). How foolish, then, for us in an increasingly pagan society to skip over creation because unbelief in our day has deliberately made it “controversial”!

To learn Who God really is, we must abandon the pagan deceptions surrounding creation. This is no trivial act. It involves changing our most basic presuppositions about the world and who we are. It is repentance at the very bottom of our hearts, minds, and souls. It is the “unburying” of original God-consciousness that has become piled high with debris from this world’s wisdom. Only after we confront the God with Whom we have to do, can we understand sin and the need for atonement and resurrection.

In this chapter, to help in any needed repentance, I am going to clarify further the radical difference between biblical creation and its pagan counterfeits. Then I will address the question of how can we know Who God is, followed by a survey of His attributes He has chosen to reveal to us. The chapter concludes with a brief study of how idolatry gets into our lives.

THE DISTINCTIVES OF BIBLICAL CREATION

What are the distinctive marks of biblical creation? First and foremost it is ex-nihilo creation. Ex-nihilo means “out of nothing”. God created without having to use pre-existing material. There was once nothing beside Him; then He spoke the universe into existence by His Word (refer again to Ps.33:6,9). Something suddenly exists that didn’t exist before. And its “cause” was only the spoken Word of God. There is a radical discontinuity.

All pagan myths deny ex-nihilo creation. Remember in Enuma elish how the gods came about by procreation? Procreation is a natural process of producing something from something. These myths all tell stories of transformation of prior existing material. One piece of the universe “causes” another piece. There is a basic continuity underlying whatever change takes place. Let’s look at a diagram to see how paganism differs from the distinctive biblical creation.

Biblical Creation:

INFINITE-PERSONAL ............................CREATOR..............................

x.....finite man, nature..................... creation event

Paganism:

INFINITE-IMPERSONAL COSMOS “mystery”.......transformation of gods, man, nature..............

I want you to see more deeply into these differences because very few of us are free from pagan influences. Let’s look at three basic questions all men ask: who am I? what is truth and how can I know? how should I live? I want to show you the different answers you get from biblical creation and paganism.

Who Am I? If you study philosophy this area is called metaphysics or ontology. Metaphysics comes from Greek components that mean “above” and “nature”, what is the higher understanding of nature? Ontology comes from Greek components that mean “being” and “knowledge”, a knowledge of being. To answer “who am I?” you have to deal with the bigger context: what is reality or existence? What is its structure?

In the Bible, reality isn’t one thing; it’s two things. There are two levels of being: the eternal existence of the Infinite-Personal Creator in His manifold complexity, and the created existence of man and nature that began and continues in utter dependency upon Him. Picture the Genesis 1 narrative in your mind. You see God causing everything to do with man and nature by simply speaking His Word. The universe doesn’t come out of His anatomy. He doesn’t procreate it. Nor is He fighting with another god in order to create. He just speaks the Word!

What does Genesis 1 tell you that you are? It tells you that your ultimate environment is not DNA molecules nor the laws of physics nor even a warm, fuzzy “Good” principle. Your ultimate environment is a Person Who thinks, talks, experiences emotion, loves, has a sense of art, and appreciates music! Beyond the galaxies is not cosmic dust cloud radiating background energy from a Big Bang; but a living Personal God!

And what does the pagan worldview tell you that you are? It tells you that reality at bottom is one. There is only one level of being. It matters not whether reality is pictured as a vast machine (19th and early 20th century), or as some sort of cosmic organism (ancient paganism and just now returning to popularity). The universe beneath you, above you, in front of you, and behind you is an Infinite Impersonal “It”. You and your “personal” nature differ only in degree from It’s electrons and protons. In the Chain of Being, your thinking, talking, emotions, loving, and artistic expressions are merely surface appearances on a reality that is basically impersonal. You and other humans are really only person-like bubbles floating for the moment on an impersonal ocean of chance. Ultimately, you and other humans are alone.

What is Truth and How Can I Know? In philosophy the area of knowing is called epistemology from a Greek word meaning “to know”. This area deals with the question, how can we know? What is knowledge? It concerns language and logic. What distinctive answer comes from biblical creation?

In the two-level view of reality, God the Creator thinks thoughts about everything. He created according to a plan (Eph. 1:4-5). Truth is His thoughts! They pre-exist your thoughts. That means you discover truth, not invent it. It also means you can only discover truth that He permits you to (Deut. 29:29; Matt.11:25), no more. It means your personal relationship with your Creator is directly involved in knowing His thoughts! You and He must be “on speaking terms”.

In all the versions of paganism there is no ultimate Personal Creator God. Gods, if existing at all, themselves are surrounded by the same mystery you are. They may know more than you on the Chain of Being, but in the end they, too, are limited. That means you and other beings truly originate thoughts that have no pre-existence. You invent truth, not discover it. In short, you are autonomous. Autonomous comes from two Greek words, one meaning “self” (autos) and another meaning “law” (nomos). You, as a lonely self, determine whatever laws you think about. There is no prior standard of truth.

A severe problem with all this, a problem paganism has never solved in either ancient or modern forms, is how language and logic can be trusted to think about reality with. If you need stable categories and contexts to get meaning, as I said in the previous chapter, how can this occur if all reality is one? If there is no Personal Creator, there are no pre-existing eternal thoughts that express the plan of the universe. There is no assurance that today’s categories will remain tomorrow. There is no knowable ultimate environment, only mystery. A man in his everyday speech may use universal terms (“all”, “always”, “never”, “truth”, etc.), but they have no basis. Without the preconditions of knowledge, paganism is what the Bible calls “vanity” (a more modern word would be “speculation”). [1]

How Should I Live? In philosophy this area is known as ethics and axiology. It seeks answers to questions like what ought we to do? What is the source of value? To answer the question “how should I live” you have to seek your highest loyalty.

You just learned that in the pagan worldview you are alone and autonomous. That means you have a big problem at this point! With No One there to Whom you are ultimately responsible, you are left on your own. You may do what seems right in your own eyes. The rub comes when you meet another autonomous person who is doing what seems right in his eyes! You could try to attach your loyalty to “society”, hoping to convince your doubting heart that at least here you have a standard of right and wrong. Or you could try “mother earth”. I discuss these options later in this Part Two and in Part Three.

By now I hope you are beginning to see the distinctives of biblical creation. Only with the creation event do you have the distinctive two-level reality with the eternal, self-contained, infinite personal God as your ultimate environment. Only with ex- nihilo creation do you have a standard of truth and a source of your “oughts”.

Exercise 2.1.

1. In Genesis 3:5 and Isaiah 14:12-14 Satan claimed that humans could elevate themselves upward to become like God. How does this claim imply the one-level view of reality or Continuity of Being?

2. Read Job 38:1-4; 40:1-14; Isa. 40:12-14. How are these texts related to the two-level and single-level views of reality?

3. Re-read Enuma elish and Genesis 1. In Gen. 1 what process does God use to create with? In Enuma elish what process do the gods use to “create” with? Is the pagan process a true ex-nihilo creation? Why not?

4. Explain one major distinctive of biblical creation.

HOW GOD CAN AND CANNOT BE KNOWN

Paul tells us in Romans 1 that all men at bottom know God. If they didn’t, they could not be held accountable at the final judgment. That judgment is “according to truth” (Rom. 2:2) and falls upon men precisely because they anger God by their deliberate suppression of the truth (Rom. 1:18). Fallen men, of course, deceive themselves into thinking the evidence for God’s existence is not clear. By so doing, they think they have a legitimate defense if such a judgment should ever come upon them.

This pagan program of burying God-consciousness resembles a little child who gets mad at his father. The child defiantly shuts his eyes, thinking for a moment that by shutting off his perception he can erase genuine existence. He deludes himself that his father doesn’t exist anymore because he can’t see him through deliberately closed eyes. Throughout history the Church confronts again and again men who like the child have deliberately closed their eyes because they are mad at their Creator. Of course one day God will ripe off the closed eyelids, but by then it will be too late.

Unfortunately, Christians too often have tried to prove God’s existence without ever demanding that the child open his eyes. Many of the so-called arguments for the existence of God simply cater to the child’s tantrum. They unintentionally encourage the sinful game of pretending God can’t be seen. I’ll give you an example and then show you how God is known along with the limits of this knowledge. Trying To See God without Opening the Eyes. You read in the previous section how paganism answers the three basic questions men ask. In that view, you share the same essential level of existence with God (if He exists). Both of you are ultimately alone, surrounded by the mysterious Impersonal Cosmos run by Chance. In your autonomy you legislate what the universe is like on the basis of your limited experience and reason. And you do what seems right in your own eyes.

These are the presuppositional “closed eyelids” with which the carnal heart hopes to eliminate God. These “closed eyelids” must be challenged when we speak of God. Are they challenged, however, by the classical arguments for God’s existence? Let’s look at one.

One classical argument is called the cosmological argument. In its usual form it goes like this: (1) everything has a cause; (2) therefore the universe has a cause; and (3) that cause is God. A common atheistic maneuver around this argument is simply to apply statement (1) to God and continue the reasoning. “Therefore God must have a cause”, and so on.

What is wrong here? Look at statement (1). The term “everything” for the atheist includes God and the universe together. The notion of “cause” applies to God and the universe in exactly the same way. Here is that familiar pagan feature again: one-level of existence! It hasn’t been challenged. The “closed eyelids” remain in place.

We diagram the state-of-affairs this way:

Q___________

Nature, Man, God

In the diagram there is some (Q)uality that universally applies to God, man, and nature as though they all share the same kind of existence. The atheist has absorbed the cosmological argument into his pagan worldview by interpreting the terms “everything” and “cause” his way. He has made “causation” a (Q)uality that stands above God, man, and nature applying to all in exactly the same way.

Here is why anti-Trinitarians like Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses devastate naive Christians. These pseudo- biblical people come with a definition of “threeness” and “oneness” as a (Q)uality that applies in the same sense to God and man. After showing that something cannot be both “three” and “one” in the realm of man, they merely apply the logical conflict to God and thereby “prove” the Trinity doctrine is self- contradictory.

Naive Christians don’t see that the pagan presupposition of the Continuity of Being was slipped into the argument’s first step when they defined the numerical quality as applying to all reality in the same way. The only way the numerical quality could possibly apply to God and man in the same way would be for God and man to partake of the same level of existence. This pagan presupposition is not challenged.

The Bible warns us not to “answer a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him” (Prov. 26:4). Too often the classical arguments for God’s existence amount to answering the closed-eyed pagan according to his false one-level existence presupposition. You become like him. Then you can’t answer him when he attacks your belief in the Trinity, in a sovereign God, or in a loving God. Your answer must not be according to folly. You ought not go along with his closed eyes!

Opening the Eyes to See God. How to know God depends upon Who and What He is. By pretending that the pagan view of origins is correct, you falsify Who and What He is from the very first step. No wonder He can’t be known by the usual arguments for His existence!

Therefore you start with God as He is revealed in the creation event--the Infinite Personal God wholly independent of His creation. You and He, therefore, do not share the same basic existence, differing only in degree. You and He differ in kind. Isaiah puts the matter clearly: “To whom will you liken me, that I should be his equal?” says the Holy One. . . .The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth. . .His understanding is inscrutable.” Isaiah 40:25,28 (NASV)

His existence sustains your existence. By virtue of the creation event, your ultimate environment is not a cosmic “It”; your ultimate environment is a Person! And His ultimate environment in turn is not some mysterious cosmic Fate or Chance in back of Him. He has no ultimate environment other than Himself!

To know Him, therefore, you must conform to Who and What He is, not to some image of a “possible” god of paganism. Arguments for His existence must also comply with Who and What He is, or they inevitably lead to other gods. Thus we bow our knees and begin with the consequences of the creation event.

Q_____________

INFINITE-PERSONAL CREATOR q____________

CREATION

Starting from the presupposition of biblical creation, there are two levels of existence so that qualities of God and qualities of the creature are NOT identical. A (Q)uality or attribute of God, is never identical to a corresponding (q)uality in the created universe. The pagan equation, Q = q, denies biblical creation.

Take the quality of “causation” for example. At the level of the Creator “causation” has its archetypical meaning in the inter-Trinity relationships whereby the Father eternally gives to the Son all things (John 17:5; Eph. 1:4). At the level of the creation, however, “causation” has to do with dependent rational structures of observed cause-effect. “Causation” at the Creator level is a (Q)uality of the Personal nature of God but at the creature level is a (q)uality of both personal mankind and impersonal nature. “Causation” is not some abstract category standing above both Creator and creature, forcing them both to partake of one level of being.

Biblical creation implies the incomprehensibility of God. Not only are there things He has not and may never reveal to us (Deut. 29:29), but even the things He has revealed to us remain incomprehensible (Rom. 11:33)! His thoughts are not identical to our thoughts (Isa. 55:8). Here is why we worship Him!

At this point the pagan theologian interrupts me, “Ah! With your creation doctrine you have made your Creator unknowable! You admit He is incomprehensible. You therefore agree with us liberal theologians that revelation is impossible. You can’t distinguish Christian worship from Buddhist meditation on the great Unknown.”

“Not at all,” I respond. “It is precisely the creation doctrine that is the basis of revelation. Because God spoke the universe into existence by His Word, it has been structured by His thoughts. We men are shaped by His mind and mouth. Why should He have any trouble revealing Himself to us. . .especially since mankind is ‘made in His image’? Unlike the pagan deities who manifested in animals, God selected man for the incarnation of His Son (Heb. 10:5).”[2]

Genesis 1:26-27 informs us that we are the image of God. We are a finite replica of Him. We are not identical to Him, but we are what He would look like if projected down to finite size. (Q)ualities of the Creator appear as finite (q)ualities in the creation. Biblical creation, therefore, gives us the answer to how we can know an incomprehensible Creator. It is not the identity relationship, Q = q, but a similarity relationship, Q q.

The liberal theologian, following the pagan program, insists that knowledge be defined as comprehensive: unless man can know God as fully as he knows anything else, he says He, God, canÕt be known. If you were to agree with this notion, you would be led back to the identity relationship, Q = q, and on to the one-level view of reality. And finally you would wind up with some form of the pagan origin myth.

To know the God of biblical creation you have to comply with His structures and laws. You have to open your eyes. You have to look at biblical creation. If, instead, you insist on the pagan program of suppressing God-consciousness, you essentially are shutting your eyes like a child having a tantrum against his father. The “closed eyes” approach, technically, is one way of knowing Him but only as a Threatening and Rejecting Judge. It is knowledge to avoid. You cannot really know Him that way.

To know God as a Loving and Accepting Savior, you must be fully convinced in your heart that it is safe to open your eyes. . . .that the biblical creation event is true. . .that you are dealing with the Person Himself and not mere propositions about Him. In what follows, therefore, I will try to speak about Him in a way that consciously submits to His nature as Creator.

WHO AND WHAT GOD IS

To know God means at least that we can speak of His nature in some way. I showed above that when we speak of (Q)ualities of His nature, we must speak analogically not comprehensively. Let us stand in awe of His incomprehensiveness! Shun the arrogant habit of paganism of “boxing God in” with a humanly-generated universal quality that stands over Him.

C. S. Lewis pictured the situation exquisitely in his well- known children’s story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When Lucy became aware that she might meet the Christ-figure, the Lion Aslan, she worriedly asked Mr. Beaver whether he was safe. “‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver; . . .Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King.”[3]

Each (Q)uality or attribute of God we know from creaturely experience with His revelation in the Bible and in the world. Some would call them “anthropomorphisms”, analogies with (q)ualities in our lives. To properly honor Him, however, we must hasten to add that the analogies exist only because He created our lives the way He did. The analogies, therefore, go both ways. Creature (q)ualities could also be called “theomorphisms” or analogies with His (Q)ualities.

As an aid in our brief survey of some of God’s attributes, I divide them into two classes: those that are less similar to ordinary experience (“incommunicable” attributes), and those that are more similar to ordinary experience (“communicable” attributes). For seeing the “context” of each attribute in your life, read all Scriptures cited.

Some Incommunicable Attributes.

1. The attribute of omnipresence means that God is completely present at every point in space (I Kings 8:27; Ps. 139:7-12; Isa. 41:10; Matt. 28:20). Our experience of instantly imagining ourselves to be at some remote location from where we are is something like His omnipresence. The (q)uality of space is like the (Q)uality of omnipresence. The creature concept of geometry is a finite replica of the Creator’s spatial nature.

Nevertheless, His omnipresence is not identical to creature space. He is not partly here and partly there. Tozer recalls the experience of a Christian missionary to India: Canon W. G. H. Holmes of India told of seeing Hindu worshipers tapping on trees and stones and whispering, ‘Are you there? Are you there?’ to the god they hoped might reside within. . . .God is indeed there. He is there as He is here and everywhere, not confined to tree or stone, but free in the universe, near to everything, next to everyone, and through Jesus Christ immediately accessible to every loving heart.[4]

2. The attribute of omnipotence means that God can do anything compatible with His character (Exod. 15:2-10; Pss. 33:6-9; 104; 136; Isa. 41:10; Jer. 32:17,27; Eph. 3:20; Rev. 19:6). Our experience of physical work and personal influence is something like the (Q)uality of His omnipotence. The (q)uality of energy is a finite replica of the Creator’s energetic nature.

Yet His omnipotence is not identical to creature energy. He never exhausts His energy and therefore never needs sustenance from outside Himself; His energy is not “conserved” at a set value.

3. The attribute of immutability means that God’s character is forever perfectly stable. He is the fixed reference point for all trust, discussion, and measurement (Mal. 3:1-6; Heb. 6:17; Jas. 1:17). Note that this (Q)uality refers to His nature, not to every statement He makes in the Word of God. For example, in Exodus 32:12,14 and Amos 7:3,6, God threatens judgment from which He “repents” (changes His mind) in response to prayer! Our experience of unusually stable and conservative personalities or of what are called “natural laws” and “constants” in science is something like the (Q)uality of immutability. They are finite replicas of it.

Nonetheless, His immutability is not identical to creature stability, natural laws, and constants. His immutability is absolute, never to be overridden. It is also personal, not an abstract “law”.

4. The attribute of eternity means that God has always existed; He has no beginning or end (Gen. 1:1 cf. John 1:1; Isa. 43:10; 44:6; Ps. 90:1-4; John 8:56-58; Rev. 1:8). Our experience of historical duration is something like the (Q)uality of eternity. The (q)uality of time or history is a finite replica of the Creator’s eternal nature.

Eternity, obviously, also differs from time. God is never “hurried” through rapid historical events; He has had, as it were, all eternity to view what to us is a split-second occurrence. Moreover, He can experience at once all facts and interrelations of facts without becoming enmeshed in a temporal sequence of experiences.

Some Communicable Attributes.

The (q)ualities of geometry, energy, constants, and time are not as personal as choice, holiness, love, and knowledge. Nor are the corresponding archetypical (Q)ualities of God’s nature quite so personal either. Let’s go on, then, to those attributes more like us as creatures made in His image and therefore more communicable.

5. The attribute of sovereignty means that God personally wills His own nature within the Trinity. His self-will is at once necessary (because of His nature) and free (undetermined by anything outside of Himself). He also wills the kind of creation and history that come to pass. Such will toward the creation is not necessary (didn’t have to create) but is free (undetermined by anything outside of Himself). Chance is excluded for He is the ultimate cause of all things (Prov. 16:4; 21:1; Isa. 46:8-13; Rom. 11:36; Eph. 1:11). Our experience of causation in everyday processes around us is something like his sovereignty except that His “causation” is personal, not some impersonal process. Our experience of authoritatively convincing someone else to do something probably is closer to His (Q)uality of sovereignty.

His sovereignty is not identical to the kind of “necessity” we observe in creature cause-effect. It cannot be modeled by a notion of physical law, of a robotic system, or by any other determinism. Impersonal determinism is the only way the pagan mind can picture total control because it excludes in principle an Infinite-Personal Creator and the Creator/creature distinction. Learn to rejoice in His sovereign nature without falling into this common trap!

6. The attribute of holiness means that God’s character is perfectly righteous and just. By righteous is meant that His moral character is a flawlessly consistent law unto itself. It is the standard throughout the cosmos for what is right and wrong (Exod. 9:27; Jer. 12:1; Rev. 16:5-7). By just is meant that His attitude of judgment upon evil is uncompromising regardless of who might be involved (Deut. 4:24; Ezk. 18:4; Rom. 2:11). Our experience of conscience, moral judgment, revulsion over evil, and need for law is something like His (Q)uality of Holiness.

Yet holiness does not refer to an abstract moral principle beyond God’s nature to which He Himself must adhere. He doesn’t demand something because it is “right” in itself; something is “right” because He demands it. Nor does holiness refer merely to God’s revealed demands as is often the case with Islam. It refers to His mysterious holy nature from which the demands come.

7. The attribute of love means that God gives to whom He loves. Only with the biblical Triune God can there be an eternal attribute of love in this sense: the Father eternally loves the Son (John 17:24). The (Q)uality of love before creation had a wholly satisfactory object; the universe was not needed for God to gain an object to love. Because there is no such eternal object for love in a non-Trinitarian monotheism like Islam, Allah’s love must be downplayed. Toward the creature God has revealed His love supremely in coming to this planet to redeem us (Exod. 20:6; Deut. 4:37; John 3:16). In contrast, Allah remains safely “dirt-free” in heaven. Our experience of the personal and at times passionate love is a finite replica of His love.

The (Q)uality of love, however, cannot be identical with the human (q)uality of love. His love never is contingent upon the object. It never tires of expression. It never becomes a mere principle or a mere emotion.

8. Finally, the attribute of omniscience means that God has total knowledge of Himself as well as knowledge of all creature things, actual and possible (I Sam. 16:7; Matt. 11:21-23; Heb. 4:13; I John 3:20). His knowledge is immediate and perfect. Our experience of being aware that there is a standard of truth, that real knowledge must be somehow universal, that we know by coming to know our mental perceptions of reality, and that we can create in our imagination is something like the (Q)uality of omniscience.

Nevertheless, like other divine attributes, His omniscience is not identical to human knowledge. His knowledge is its own standard of truth, is absolutely universal, is independent of perception and learning, and can cause the truths it knows.

Exercise 2.2.

1. Select one chapter from any book of the Bible. Prayerfully read it through, asking Him to bring to your mind His attributes revealed in the text. Write out your observations and thoughts in terms of the attributes we have just learned.

2. List four “bad” circumstances you have faced. Write out how knowing and trusting God’s nature as revealed in attribute “X”, “Y”, etc., would have made a difference in those circumstances.

STAYING OUT OF IDOLATRY

Even after coming to know the God of creation it is altogether too easy to slip back into various types of idolatry. The Apostle John concludes his first epistle with the strange note: “Little children, guard yourself from idols.” (I John 5:21) Since nowhere else in this epistle does he mention idols, it challenges the attentive reader to find out what he means. The previous two verses supply part of the answer.

John uses the Greek word alethenos for “true” three times in verses 19 and 20. This word emphasizes the idea of genuiness. The Father and the Son are the genuine God over against false gods or idols. Idolatry is a counterfeit of the genuine. And because it is so much a part of the all-surrounding world-system, says John, Christians must ever be watchful. I conclude this chapter with some thoughts on staying out of idolatry.

Modern-day Idolatry. Although it would seem we moderns don’t worship wooden and clay statues of various gods, we still daily encounter idolatry. In its essence idolatry is simply putting something else in place of God. But there is more to it than that.

Always involved in idolatry are powerful pictures in our imagination. The second of the ten commandments speaks of the “likeness” of any created thing--whether in heaven or on earth-- being worshipped and served (Exod. 20:4-5). Moreover, Paul makes the additional claim that whatever the idolatrous image is, it is a direct substitution of God’s glorious revelation of Himself in the creation (Rom. 1:23). Idolatrous images are powerful because they “feed” off of the true character of God. They mimic His attributes.

Even as Moses was on Mt. Sinai receiving God’s Word, the people of Israel quickly sought an idol to provide for their needs (Exod. 32:1-6). Note how Aaron claimed that the new golden calf was the God of the Exodus: “This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt”(Exod. 32:4). The golden calf took upon itself God’s delivering glory.

A recurring form of such images are the ancient astrological signs that show up in modern horoscopes. They have been prominent in pagan thought from Moses’ day (Deut. 4:19), through Paul’s day (Acts 19:18-19), to the newsstands and “900” numbers in our day. Kenneth Hamilton observes: “Just as polytheism continued in an underground form through the Middle Ages and lives on today in modern cults of witchcraft and Satanism, the imagination of Western man was never fully Christianized. . . .The modern idolatrous imagination still refuses to believe that the promises of the living God are sure and that his grace is sufficient for all our needs. It still looks to other powers and other authorities for support and guidance, transferring to them what belongs to the Creator alone.”[5]

The modern world upon closer inspection is filled with idols. There are historicisms like Marxism that mimic God’s sovereign plan and seek to explain all things by historical political, economic, social, and military “causes” alone. There are naturalisms like evolution that mimic God’s sovereignty and omnipotence and seek to explain all things by natural physical laws. There are humanisms that deify humanity as replacing God’s sovereignty and omniscience. There are mammons that value all things in terms of monetary wealth. There are statisms that transfer God’s sovereignty, omnipotence, and love to totalitarian civil government.[6]

As if the world doesn’t have enough idolatries, our fleshy minds are capable of generating hundreds more: a friend, a family, a marriage, a preacher, a business, a career, etc. Each one serves as a God-replacement that for a while appears to meet our needs.

Most insidious of all is that church traditions and even Bible doctrine itself can be idolized. Paul in I Corinthians 8 warns believers who are more instructed than their peers to be careful. Truth about God is not something that can be crammed into someone’s intellect as though it is an abstract piece of data. As I have pointed out above, God’s attributes are not abstract (Q)ualities that can be treated independently of one’s relationship with God. In his writings Paul reveals the proper strategy for leaving idolatry.

How to Get Out and Stay Out of Idolatry. Put yourself into the position of the weaker brother in I Corinthians 8:7-13. Deep down in the imagination of your heart and mind, you still believe in and fear the power of an idol. In spite of biblical teaching that God alone is Lord (I Cor. 8:4-6), the false “existence” (and powerful influence) of the idol still grips your mind.

Paul’s strategy for dealing with this problem is not a direct one. Mere intellectualizing the problem away won’t work. Nor is external peer pressure from fellow believers a solution (I Cor. 8:7-13). If you cannot act in faith toward God, stop what you are doing; don’t do anything without the inner conviction of truth (Rom. 14:23). To root idolatry out of the heart demands a different approach, an indirect one.

Paul’s indirect strategy involves a prayer campaign to God for an enlightening work of His Holy Spirit in the heart. Spiritual truth must be illuminated to the conscience in order for knowledge and belief to occur (Eph. 1:17-18; 3:16-19). Of course, this illumination doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It happens along with constant exposure to the Word of God and its God-given imagery. Apparently this revelational imagery of God’s nature expands and “crowds out” the idols. The creation event, it must be remembered, is the defining image of God!

Staying out of idolatry, therefore, requires a stronger and stronger personal relationship with God. You must be willing to worship and trust Him wherever circumstances challenge truth He has shown to your conscience. Your intellectual grasp of His truths will then grow accordingly. A thankful heart, not a Ph.D. in theology, is what is needed to know Him better.

Exercise 2.3.

1. List idols that tempt you. Here’s how to find them: look at what attributes of His nature that are easy for you to “forget”, then examine what imagery fills your mind when you do this “forgetting”.

2. Write out Bible verses--either those cited above or ones you find yourself--that speak of His attributes on 3 x 5 cards. Take the cards with you throughout the day. Some believers put a suction-cup hook on their bathroom mirrors so they can memorize verses each day.

3. Pick out a passage of Scripture that worships God because of His attributes (see Psalms for starter) and use a copy machine. Use this copy to mark up and model worship with.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

END NOTES FOR CHAPTER 2

1. The theme of the “vanity” of paganism and the carnal mind is expounded in excruciating detail in the book of Ecclesiastes.

2. A deeper treatment of the Creator-creature distinction may be found in the writings of the late Cornelius Van Til such as his Introduction to Systematic Theology and Defense of the Faith.

3. C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1950), p. 77.

4. A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), p. 81f.

5. Kenneth Hamilton, To Turn From Idols (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1973), pp. 40-41.

6. An extensive study of modern social idolatries is Herbert Schlossberg, Idols Fitted For Destruction (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983).