Idolatry -- Part 1.
P. Ben
August, 2015.
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Idolatry is a post-flood phenomenon owing its origins to the
attempt on the part of man to lend certain attributes of God to a corruptible
creature. The attributes ought to be distinguished from the nature of God which
is Light and Love. The attributes presume relationships and created entities
over which divine justice characterized by power (lion), stability (ox),
swiftness (eagle) and intelligible (man) can set things judicially right on
earth. Judaism is the declaration of the attributes of God but not the nature
of God who abode within the veil- unapproachable but not unknown. Christianity
reveals the nature of God in the Person of Christ. Attributes relate to
government while nature brings in fellowship.
Romans chapter one reveals the economy of the nations. Two
events are declared- substituting God (v21-27) and setting aside God (v28-32).
The former which is connected with idolatry brings in bodily uncleanness and
same gender perversions. The latter which does not involve idolatry but rather
departure from truth brings in violence.*
*Here (v28) the knowledge of God is not replaced by the
corruptible creature- instead it is making the house empty by driving out every
trace of divine revelation. Further, it is not fornication but ‘ponyria’ (wickedness) in v29.
Idolatry involves the assigning to corruptible man, birds,
quadrupeds and reptiles the attributes of God. Fishes are not mentioned in v23,
leaving the idolaters to pervert only the providential attributes of God over
an ordered earth. In the visions of Ezekiel, the attributes of divine justice
are shown to be the heads of an ordered creation- man, lion, ox and eagle. This
is cherubic bringing in judgment on the entities based according to their
pre-ordained responsibilities (sparkling as a burnished brass-Ezek 1:7).*
*Seraphic (Isaiah 6) is bringing in judgment on the entities
based not on pre-ordained responsibilities but according to a fresh revelation
of the nature of God, for ‘Seraphic’ is burnings. In Egypt, the judgments were
cherubic and providential but at Sinai it is seraphic for it brought in not
just the revelation of God- the burning bush but the burnings (testing) of the
people, a baptism by fire (Ex 3:12).
It is true indeed that the gentiles have given themselves to
the worship of these creatures themselves when in fact they formed only the
throne of God. The winged lions and the strong headed bulls embellished on the
relief of many ancient artifacts prove only the ignorance of these nations
since they had no proper conception of Him who sat above these creatures (Ezek
1:26). The cherubic qualities relate to an ordered earth leaving out the sea
and its creatures, for there is no mention of fish as one of the cherubic
faces*.
*The serpent is but a corrupted manifestation of an
attribute relating to that of a beast of the field (Genesis 3:1, 14). The
serpent is the inverse of an ox- the divine attribute of stability as
contrasted with unstable meanderings of the economies of men in the absence of
government. It crawled not from the beginning but following the curse. It is
providential power of God given to man becoming by and by Satanic- the staff of
God fell from Moses’ hands to become a serpent though in Christ the power is
restored not only by bruising its head but taking it by the tail.
God’s providential power through man does not own the fishes
(anarchic tribes of the earth) but brings into its sphere the ordered earth of
civilization. Nebuchadnezzar*, the king who presided over the first amalgamated
polity on earth established by God who had left the temple to take up His
throne in the heavens- was left with men, beasts and fowls (Dan 2:38) but no
fishes. The dispersed anarchy of the world was conveniently put outside the
sphere of providence when speaking in terms of delegated power. In Christ, we
have God’s power extended over the fishes too (Ps 8).
*The whole period of
gentiles begin with Nebuchadnezzar and ends with Belshazzar (in type).
Belshazzar (‘the heart melteth, and the knees smite
together’-Nahum 2:10) brings in the last great gentile power- Gog advancing
over the world which had hitherto became anarchic with the recent demise of the
antichristian power. In Habakkuk, Gog takes the character of
Idolatry began after the flood and not before it; for the
flood necessarily instilled in man the knowledge of divine attributes in
judgment*. This knowledge of the divine attributes became in time^ an object of
deification themselves. Aaron made the molten calf and proclaimed, ‘To-morrow
is a feast to Jehovah’ (Ex 32). The calf~ which is an attribute of Jehovah in
divine justice (refer Rev 4:7) is itself worshipped as Jehovah.
* We have in a figure the Jewish elect in the last days tossed
about in a world of judgment (ark went on the face of the waters) but delivered
finally to enter a millennial world, where fishes too are delivered to the hand
of Noah (Gen 9:2).
^The connivance of myth and fact in explaining the evolution
of gods as being the outcome of providence is horrific- ‘and I cast it into the
fire, and there came out this calf’ was the reply of Aaron (Ex 32:24) but the
deliberate chiseling and the efforts he took to produce the idol (v 4) finds no
mention. The maker of the idol construes his idol to have been formed by forces
outside himself.
~In Ezekiel it is not a calf but an ox as the cherubic face.
Further, in Revelation it is the union of cherubic and seraphic
characteristics-the four faces plus the six wings. At Sinai where the seraphic
attribute was venerated as a god itself- the calf stood for seraphic while the
ox stood for cherubic.
Idolatry in one sense is perversion of the Noah’s ark. For
in the ark was man, birds, quadrupeds and reptiles- the figures of an ordered
earth with no anarchy (fishes).
(To be continued in the Lord’s will)
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