Tag: idolatry

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When Jesus Was Tested for Idolatry

Even Jesus faced a real temptation regarding exclusive worship

Jesus really tempted

In previous posts we have seen how Abraham was tested for whether he had an idol, and now we turn to see how Jesus himself was tempted to worship another god.

How could it be that the Son of God could be tempted to worship anyone but God? He is divine himself and has lived for all eternity in the Father’s presence. Even so, he did face a real temptation in this regard.

It happened in his 40-day wilderness trial. After two unsuccessful temptations, Satan took Jesus “to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” Then he brazenly offered: “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me” (Mat. 4:8–9, italics added). So Jesus faced an undisguised test regarding exclusive worship.

How could Jesus be tempted?

It raises many questions. How could this offer tempt Jesus? How are we similarly tempted? What does this teach about the nature of God, and mankind? What does this teach about God’s command to worship him exclusively?

Regarding the first question: Was Satan’s offer a ridiculous miscalculation, a gambit that had no chance of appealing to Jesus? No, Satan knows much about human nature. This was his ultimate chance to advance his rebellion against God, so he was surely exercising all his cunning powers.

The key to understanding this temptation is to remember that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, which meant his human nature was susceptible to every temptation common to man. Hebrews 4:15 says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

Nothing about Satan’s offer could appeal to Jesus in his divine nature, for “God cannot be tempted with evil” (Jam. 1:13). And even as Satan appealed to Jesus’ human nature, he did not offer himself as the bait, as though anything about him could inspire Jesus to worship. No, the key word in understanding this temptation is glory.

Glory

The narrative reads, “The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’” (Mat. 4:8–9, italics added). What Satan knew could appeal to Jesus’ humanity was glory.

This is what mankind wants. Glory drives sports. When men and women train for the Olympics, for example, they push their limits in work and pain, and their reason for doing so is not merely to stand on a platform and have precious metal hung around their neck and hear their national anthem. There are easier ways to hear anthems and quicker ways to get gold.

What athletes want is glory. Not just the glory of applause, but the glory of greatness, of being the best, of displaying their talent for all to see and extol. They want the glory of competition, the glory of courage and sacrifice, the glory of passion and ultimate effort, the glory of teamwork and sharing arenas with other great athletes.

They want the glory of being watched by millions on television, the glory of their names inscribed in Olympic history. They want the glory of winning, setting records, nearing perfection. They want the glory of making family, friends, and hometown proud. People will do almost anything for glory.

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Why People Do Not Believe in the True God

They do not believe in God because they do not want him to exist

Not Believe in God

We saw in the previous post that just because people receive objective evidence of the one true God does not mean they follow him. In fact, the Bible teaches that precisely the opposite happens.

Apart from God’s intervention the fallen human heart recoils from the one true God. Rather than worship God as he is and change as he requires, fallen people create substitute gods that suit their desires. In Romans 1, the apostle Paul said that people

“by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” (Rom. 1:18–23)

Three surprising facts

Notice three key truths about the turn from God to idolatry. First, verses 19–20 say all people know from objective evidence that the one true God who created all things exists.

Second, verse 18 says they respond by “suppressing” the truth. They do not want to deal with God as he truly is, so they push reality about God from their consciousness.

Third, verse 23 says they exchange what they know to be true about God for idols. They create gods to substitute for the true God they spurn. This is what Israel did with the golden calf. This is what Abraham did until God appeared to him in Ur.

And this encounter brought Abraham’s first great test. Would he now give exclusive worship and devotion to the one true God? Abraham’s actions show he passed the test. He obeyed God by leaving Ur. When he came to the Promised Land, he built altars of worship and called on the name of the Lord (Gen. 12:7–8; 13:4, 18). In the remainder of his story, there is no hint of idolatry.

Will you follow in Abraham’s steps?

If you are not yet a Christian, you face the same test Abraham did. In your heart of hearts, even if you have never encountered God in an extraordinary way, you know he exists. You have been guilty of suppressing what you know of him and exchanging devotion to him for devotion to other things you have made ultimate instead, such as money, sex, music, career, family, friends, romance, movies, sports, food, hobbies, education, the beauty or build or health of your body, and so on.

The question is, When you encounter the truths about Jesus Christ, will you surrender your idols? Will you make him most important? God calls you to worship and serve him exclusively. He alone is worthy, and therefore he is a jealous God.

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The Savior for Every Kind of Idolator

The definition of idolatry includes far more than the worship of statues

Definition of Idolatry

In the crisis at the foot of Mount Sinai, what saved people was a mediator. Instead of jumping at the privilege of having God’s nation descend from his line, Moses interceded for the guilty, and God mercifully relented.

Today what saves us from God’s wrath against those who love false gods is another mediator who is infinitely greater, the one and only mediator between God and mankind, Jesus Christ. He alone can be our mediator, for he alone died on the cross for our failure to worship God exclusively. We all need Jesus to mediate our relationship with God, for all are guilty of idolatry in one form or another.

Idolatry without statues

In some cultures, idolatry involves blatantly honoring statues bearing names of false gods. It is obvious and deliberate. But in other cultures, idolatry is subtle, a matter of the heart, committed without statues but fundamentally the same.

Colossians 3:5 teaches that idolatry is essentially about love: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (italics added). This verse equates covetousness and greed—a matter of the heart and its loves—with idolatry.

Elsewhere the New Testament likewise speaks of betraying God in a way that involves the heart and our excessive love of what God has created, admonishing Christians, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

One’s ultimate concern

In his book Counterfeit Gods, Timothy Keller defines idolatry as anyone or anything that becomes our ultimate concern, ultimate love, instead of God. If our highest love centers not on God but on something he created, we commit idolatry. We do not worship him exclusively.

Over your lifetime, what have been your ultimate concerns in place of God? Is something or someone presently pushing him from his rightful place as your chief love?

Because Jesus is your mediator, you have forgiveness through faith in him. Because Jesus is your mediator, he calls you to repent of betraying God. God’s command to worship him exclusively is a critical test.

Israel failed it. Abraham passed, and to him we turn in the next post.

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Idolatry, Betrayal, and Divine Jealousy

Idolatry is not merely the stumbling of an immature son; it is the betrayal of a spouse.

idolatry betrayal divine jealousy

In the previous post we saw that Israel began worshiping a golden calf at the very time that God was enacting his covenant with them through Moses on the top of Mount Sinai.

At the top of the mountain, God reported the adultery to Moses. With the fury of a husband betrayed on his wedding night, God announced, “I have seen these people, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation” (Exo. 32:9–10).

God was ready to start over. Although he would fulfill his promise to Abraham by using his descendant Moses to begin a new Israel, he had lost patience with that faithless generation.

This was so because in the context of worship a different metaphor describes the relationship. In the context of worship, God was not like a father training his young son; rather, on the basis of the covenant just sealed in the covenant meal, this was a marriage. Idolatry is not merely the stumbling of an immature son; it is the betrayal of a spouse. Idolatry is adultery, the one thing a marriage should not abide.

What sex is to marriage, worship is to a relationship with God. Therefore idolatry could break the covenant.

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In Bed with Another God

Israel’s worship of the golden calf reveals the disposition of every human heart

golden calf

Exodus 20:18–20 says that after God spoke the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, the people were terrified and said they could not bear to hear more. So Moses climbed the mountain again to meet further with the Lord.

The first thing God said to Moses again concerned idolatry: “You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold” (Exo. 20:22–24, ESV). Just in case someone had missed the point, God repeated what was most important to him.

Worship took center stage in what followed. After God elaborated on the Ten Commandments (Exo. 21–23), he called Israel’s elders to worship him in a covenant-making meal (24:1). After that, Moses again ascended the mountain for his famous 40-day meeting with the Lord, which focused on God’s instructions for Israel’s worship, which involved detailed plans to create a tabernacle and to consecrate a priesthood qualified to mediate for the people (Exo. 25–31). Worship was the pure consummation of marriage between God and Israel.

Wasting no time in finding an idol

Meanwhile at the foot of Mount Sinai, Israel was making eyes at another god. Impatient with Moses, the leaders beckoned Aaron, “Come, make us gods who will go before us” (Exo. 32:1), and he complied. From their jewelry he molded a golden calf. Aroused, the leaders proclaimed, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” They offered sacrifices to the calf and celebrated an idolatrous festival.

God’s betrothed people were in bed with another god. Their betrayal could not be more appalling. This was Israel’s defining moment, and it was a disaster. They had bombed the test of exclusive worship.

This story reveals how quickly the fallen human heart turns to other gods. The Golden Calf is not just a sad story of Israel’s gross idolatry; it is the story of you and me and every human’s readiness to move God from his rightful place in one’s heart and replace him with some other ultimate devotion: work, money, romance, sex, family, friends, homeland, hobbies, sports, power, comfort, politics, the stock market, gambling, pornography—any created thing. God is rightly jealous that we should love him more than any such thing.

Jesus commanded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37–38)

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What Marriage Teaches about Worship

God’s jealousy makes perfect sense

God's jealousy

I never knew my grandfathers. My paternal grandfather died before I was born, and my maternal grandfather was a mystery figure. He was alive, but we never saw him, never conversed on the phone, never talked about him, never hung photos of him on the wall. He did not reside with my grandmother, who lived an hour away. My parents did not divulge where he lived or why he did not live with my grandmother, and I did not ask. At some point I learned my grandparents had been divorced.

Actually I did see my grandfather once when I was around 10. He came to our home along with others from my mother’s family. I watched him with curiosity but did not speak with him. He was there with a woman who was not identified. I did not learn why my grandparents divorced until I was around 30. My grandfather did well enough in business that he and my grandmother employed a housekeeper. She was the unidentified woman at the family get-together when I was 10. My grandparents divorced because—well, you guessed it.

What a marriage must not tolerate

A husband and wife forbear many things in each other: irritating habits, stubborn flaws, and countless offenses. In love they overlook them. Their marriage vows require that they forbear all wrongs. All wrongs except one. What marriage should not abide is adultery. Romance and marriage are exclusive. Sexual relations are exclusive. If not, the end is near.

What sexual relations are to marriage, worship is to our relationship with God. He requires that we reserve worship exclusively for him, and he is right in doing so, for he alone is worthy.

Ten Commandments

At Mount Sinai God gave the Ten Commandments to the nation he had graciously delivered out of Egypt. The first two of those commands put first things first:

“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.” (Exo. 20:3–5)

Early in his relationship with Israel God clearly stated his nature. The message was blunt. I am a jealous God. Worship me exclusively. Do not even think about betraying me.

And God says the same to us. We live in a world of tests and temptations. Will we faithfully honor God above everything he created? In upcoming posts of this series we will examine how Israel, Abraham, and Jesus faced this test in different ways. And thereby we will learn how we can avoid spiritual adultery.