Redefining Idolatry
“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.” Exodus 20:4 NASB
Likeness – What is an idol? You could ask Indiana Jones, I suppose. But you’ll probably learn more if you ask Abraham Heschel.
The second commandment implies more than the prohibition of images; it implies the rejection of all visible symbols of God; not only of images fashioned by man, but also of “any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” The significance of that attitude will become apparent when contrasted with its opposite view.
It would be alien to the spirit of the Bible to assert that the world is a symbol of God. In contrast, the symbolists exhort us: “Neither say that thou hast now no Symbol of the Godlike. Is not God’s Universe a Symbol of the Godlike; is not Immensity a Temple . . .”[1]
What is the reason for that sharp divergence? To the symbolist, “All visible things are emblems . . . Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some Idea and body it forth.[2] The universe is “a mechanism of self-expression for the infinite.” The symbol is but the bodying forth of the infinite and it is the very life of the infinite to be bodied forth.
Now, the Bible does not regard the universe as a mechanism of the self-expression of God, fo rthe world did not come into being in an act of self-expression but as an act of creation. The world is not of the essence of God, and its expression is not His. The world speaks to God, but that speech is not God speaking to Himself. It would be alien to the spirit of the Bible to say that it is the very life of God to be bodied forth. The world is neither His continuation nor His emanation but His creation and possession.[3]
God manifests Himself in events rather than in things, . . .[4]
If Heschel is correct, then we have a lot of correction ahead of us. First, we must refuse to erect any further images of YHVH. Any image diminishes Him. This includes symbolic representations, caricatures in nature, celluloid portrayals and personal adornment. But it is more than this. The commandment prohibits investing God in any of the creation. No matter how beautiful the scene, how awesome the sight, how magnificent the experience, it is not God. In fact, the Scripture allows only one thing to be considered a proper image of God—human beings—and even here what is in view is not the physical embodiment but the verbal exhibition. If God is YHVH, then “He” is best understood as a verb, and verbs exists only in the actions they describe.
What is an idol? It is converting any God-event, God acting in history, into a fixture, a static reminder. If you want to see YHVH, you must look at the actions of His chosen one—Yeshua HaMashiach or you and me.
Topical Index: second commandment, idolatry, Abraham Heschel, likeness, Exodus 20:4
[1] Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (New York, 1937), Book III, Chapter 7, pp. 253-54 as cited in Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, p. 82 footnote 6
[2] Ibid., p. 72
[3] Abraham Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, p. 82.
[4] Ibid., p. 83.
Where does that leave the churches with large portraits of Jesus in the foyer (as the second member of the Trinity) or in many cases still hanging on the cross?
I’m not trying to throw stones, just trying to understand. Would an example of this be people with the Hurricane saying, “This is the finger of God”?. Trying to understand. Thanks
I have been thinking that so-called “acts of God” are just that; actions He is in control of. When Moses hid in the rock he could tell that YHVH was NOT in the wind and other actions, but only in, like Skip says, that “still, small Voice”. There is our contrast. People who think God IS the wind would be out there attempting to worship and/or appease that wind. I don’t see too many people making that mistake (so far, anyway).
We still have enough of a legacy of the truth in this country (well, maybe barely enough) to understand that God is not His actions in the present OR His manifestations in the past, where we have only the relics of forms (things) left of that action. There is no power in forms; only in action, for power is function (action), but function only happens in the present.
This is just my take, y’all: I think the hurricane right now is a current action in the present, but God is not His actions any more than truth is the words that describe it. It is the Speaker of those words, and the Actor of those actions Who is the Source of reality. Reality is just an aftereffect of the speech/action of YHVH. He is ‘realer’ than reality, or anything contained within that reality, including words or actions; much less the things (forms) that they produce.
I completely agree with you! What a great website…. I just found this!
Sister I read your comments after adding my post and marveled even more at the nature of the Rauch to inspire and speak to us through one another. Yet another proof of the action of a living God that showes forth His life through living things rendered to His service. I think you would appreciate my post “whose the artist ” in the context of these threads . Shalom!
If all things (forms) are expressions of history – literally, the PAST – and YHVH is the self-stated God of the present (Mark 12:27, etc.), where there is only action (function), then to attempt to represent Him with things is an attempt to relegate Him to the past, where, of course, He would have to be a God of the dead, like Horus, say. That makes sense.
We don’t understand the present very well because most of us are never truly in it most of the time. Sin cuts us off from the present, but only in that present is God to be found. Only grace connects us most of the time with either. I think that this is why we can get so confused.
Excuse, me, that would be Osiris that is Horus in the dead (past) form.
I’m so grateful to be living in these times when the spirit of Yah is moving on his people and restoring us to His word. What a privilege and an honor to be among those who will carry it forward to the next generation. Thank you Skip I truly hope you will continue in this stream for awhile.
Carrying this out one step further….would not making Yeshua HaMashiach into an ‘idol’ instead of looking at the actions of the One He chose to go forth with the Word – also be considered idol worship? Just thinking outloud here….
Pam, the single metaphor Jesus used to describe his pending death is found in John 3:14 and 15. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness…”. He went on to identify his own flesh with that “serpent”. Now if one does a search in the Scriptures find out what happened to that bronze serpent. Hezekiah had it destroyed because it had become the object of worship…
Just wondering if Rosanne and others in Florida are doing ok. So far the people I know are managing. How is everyone in this group??
Rosanne is safe. I am unable to fly home so I an stuck, now, in Virginia, coming from Singapore. I won’t get home for 5 days. There is a lot of exterior damage at our house and a leaking roof. I feel terrible that I can’t get there to help. We have no power. Please pray that Rosanne will be able to deal with all this. Thanks.
Praying. …
You and Rosanne are in our prayers!!!
Idol to me could be anything that keeps my attention diverted from YHVH. If i am focused on an issue, I need to take it to Him otherwise I will be attempting to do it myself and all the traps start closing in. Physical paintings and statues are easy to identify, where i put my attention is way more subtle. Just a thought…
In regard to hurricanes, I believe this is an area where our Heavenly Father allows them just as in the story of Job. Again, where is our attention? I have family there so did I put them in YHVH’s hands or did I worry? At best I was somewhere in between.
I think this one broke my brain.??
What would the original people would have understood on this matter? Weren’t they coming out of Egypt?
They have seen so many idols in Egypt… so many gods represented by “likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth”.
This is the plain meaning…
On the other hand, HaShem said afterwards that no image can represent Him…
“You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.” Deuteronomy 4:15-20
So that’s it. He clearly says so… not even the sun, the moon or the stars… nothing
Yah back in the deep end of the pool. I love Heschel he gets to the heart of things. I actually was informed of this perspective in a personal conversation with YHVH. Really! I wrote a recent post on it titled “who is the artist?” on my blog worksofwords.live However on the first occasion back in 1991 (forgive me if I have mentioned this before yet it was so formative of my understanding of the person of our creator). I had just finished painting one of my minimal abstract expressionst pieces while standing a top the 38 foot water tank tower I used as a home and studio. It is in the valley of the moon 10′ away from a babbling brook in the Vinyards and oak students hills of Sonoma County California. Google Earth 1363 Dawn Hill Road Kenwood California for a visual treat. At any rate as the sun was setting I maveled at the incredible beauty abut me and exclaimed to God,” you are so creative this world is so amazingly beautiful.” I was rather astonished but not suprized when I heard that still small but comanding voice that Isiah promises we will hear “behind us when ever we turn to the left or right ” say to me clearly “you think that’s something, I created that which can create”. Now that is something informative don’t you think?
Ideas can be idols. When I was younger in the LORD I was wound up by the inability to hold all the ideas i learned about God, and the related inability to remember all the things i needed to remember in order to be obedient and pleasing to God. It was scary, because i couldn’t hold all the ideas when i needed them- always a failure! In the long tough journey to this point i have been learning to rest in Him and His greatness and love, and finally beginning to relax that He is actively leading and is able to communicate Himself to me. Now it’s more about being present, not projecting to past or future images (!). And courage and joy seem to be companions to this different position. The immensity and mystery of Life is more alive and I don’t need to understand and control it all to because He Lives.