Don’t steal God’s Identity!
Exodus 20:4-6 & 32:1-8
A couple for years ago Cathie went to do a big shop at a local supermarket. She went to the checkout with a huge cart load of groceries and produced her debit card to pay – then there was a problem, the card was rejected and Cathie was left embarrassed and without food for the week. So she ‘phoned the bank and it turned out that someone had stolen our identity and emptied our account.
It is devastating to have your identity stolen.
While Moses was on top of Mt Horeb receiving the law from God, the people of Israel were keeping busy – you can read the account of what they were up to in Exodus 32:1-8. As Moses is being told not to make any kind of physical representation of God his friends are beavering away making a model calf out of gold and then worshiping it! Someone had stolen God’s identity, how do you think he may have felt about that?
The nature of idolatry
The people of Israel had grown up with a sense of their own uniqueness, they knew that they were special to God. In a world where little gods inhabited every grove and gully and a gaggle of bigger gods inhabited the sun, moon and stars, their father Abraham had taught them that there was only one God. They knew he was invisible, that there was no way you could represent him in painting or sculpture.
But they had lived in polytheistic Egypt for several generations surrounded by images of gods and goddesses and the acid-rain of Egyptian idolatry had soaked into their hearts. It was very hard for them to hold on to their faith in someone invisible when they were surrounded by very visible and beautiful alternatives. It seemed natural to them to worship something solid, something that seemed more real.
So here are two kinds of idolatry:
The idolatry of the Egyptians, those who are not God’s people: where models of gods and goddesses were set up in temples and homes and people bowed down and worshipped them. I call this Mr Potato Head religion – you invent your own God and you worship it in your own way. This kind of idolatry is highly popular today except that people usually dispense with the actual idol and make up a god in their head.
Then there is the idolatry of the people of God: in this instance the true God, Yahweh, was made visible as a model of a calf cast in gold. In other words they took the Egyptian idea, combined it with their own religious ideas and produced a fusion of the two (4). This is called syncretism, where you take the truth and mix it with a lie and worship the result. This is still popular and all over the world Christians are taking what God has given them and mixing it with other ideas to produce a cocktail that they like better.
The result was highly successful. The nervous Israelites gained new strength and comfort from the presence of a god in their midst, they were confident enough to organise a public celebration (6). So what could be wrong with this?
There are guys in scrapyards all over Britain practicing syncretism. They take the front half of a crashed car and weld it to the back half of another car of the same make. The result looks great but it is potentially lethal; it is the same when it comes to God:
First, the behaviour of the people of God went quickly downhill (6b). Isn’t it strange how the Gods we create always let us do what we want?
Secondly, you are stealing God’s identity – imagine finding your passport in someone else’s bag and seeing that the face in your passport photograph is not your face – you would be shocked! That person could commit a criminal offence and you would get the blame. Well the Israelites had changed the photo in God’s passport: it was not God’s face, it was a cow’s face. The problem is that God gets the blame every time his people misbehave.
Thirdly, it is an insult to the Creator of the universe. Imagine me taking Cathie out for a romantic dinner; over the dessert I produce a list from my pocket. I then come clean, “I like you very much, Cathie”, I tell her, “But I would actually love you very deeply if you made the following changes”. I follow this with a long list of things from the shape of her face to the colour of her hair. What would she think of me? How would she feel? Exactly – I would end up with dessert all over my face! We do this to God when we invent our own little gods or we mix the real God with other stuff that we like better. It is an insult, and you just do not insult the creator of the universe!
But there is another reason why we should not make an image of God: because God has already made one and it close to each one of us. God can use it to measure our love for him because the way we treat this image will depend on how much we love him.
Where to find God’s image
Come with me on a journey through time and space… back to the creation of the world.
Genesis 1:26-27
Every valuable banknote carries a watermark – an intricate design which is built into the fabric of the paper which lets us know that the note is genuine; it really is worth what it says. Like a watermark, God’s image is built into the fabric of every human being – this is what makes you valuable – it means that your life is sacred.
When you watch people worshiping statues or paintings you cannot help but notice that the images are treated with deep reverence and respect. They are garlanded with flowers, people actually kneel down and bow to them. If you want to offend these people, just insult their idol.
Look around you and everywhere you will see images of God that he himself has made. What does that say about how we ought to treat one-another? Could it be that the way we love one another is a perfect indication of how much we really love him? Yes, it is, Jesus linked the two directly when he was asked to sum up the teaching of the Old Testament law:
Mark 12:29-31
We ought to take a moment to let that sink in. However much you think you love God, the reality is shown most clearly in the way you treat his image. If you love God then you will love those around you, speak well of them, believe the best about them, and do whatever you can to help them. That is worship.
Of course, you and I would never be so crude as to make an idol to worship – so what does it mean to worship an idol today? An idol is anything that we treasure more than God and that keeps you from loving and serving him. Let’s take this deeper: an idol is anything that you love more than the human beings around you and that stops you from loving and serving them.
But it is hard to love people isn’t it? The British writer Somerset Maugham once wrote, “Do not love animals, they don’t last long enough; don’t love humans, they last too long”. It is difficult to love because so many people are un-lovable and because we ourselves find that we have a limited supply of love to share with others. If the people around you are really marked with God’s image you would think that they would be easier to love, wouldn’t you?
Here’s the problem; we are made in the image of God, but his watermark is masked by our sinfulness. As a result it is impossible for us to live up to God’s standard: Jesus tells us to love God with all our hearts and our fellow human beings as much as we love ourselves and we already know that we can’t. It is no use trying to turn over a new leaf, or try a little harder from now on; we have been through that before and we know that we will fail.
The true image
What if I did take Cathie out for that romantic dinner; What if I said, “I am only going to love you if you change completely”. Yet this is what we are saying to God if we insist on stealing his identity or altering his character to suit ourselves. God wants us to love him as he is… how can we do that, how do we know what he is?
Colossians 1:15-23
If I am a pale image of God whose lustre has been masked, marred and miss-shapen by sin, Jesus is the true image of God, unstained by any impurity whatsoever. Jesus reveals God as he actually is: he is “the visible image of the invisible God”.
So if you want to know what God is like you only have to look at Jesus: the person you see in the gospels is God in action: look at him and worship him and you will not go wrong. But look especially at Jesus on the cross. His death is the fullest expression of the nature of the real God in the whole of human history (19-22). On the cross God’s justice in condemning sin and his mercy in forgiving the sinner are revealed simultaneously. On the cross God’s wrath against sin and his love for the sinner are demonstrated in the same moment. The qualities of God’s nature that we sometimes feel are contradictory were revealed together – and that is why the cross is at the centre of Christian worship. Christ is the image of the invisible God and the cross is its most powerful expression.
With the cross before our eyes it is very difficult to fall into idolatry.
Look at that passage again (20-23): Jesus’ death made peace; once we were enemies, now we are friends; if you continue to believe. Jesus life was focused on one single aim: to reconcile us to God and to bring us into a special new relationship with him. He did this by dying on the cross and it works for us as we believe in him (23).
Actually this verse tells us two things:
What if you are not yet a Christian or you are not sure what you are, it tells you to believe. When I first started dating Cathie our relationship was fairly superficial, but as we got to know one another we began to tell each other things that we would have told no-one else. Do you know what had happened? We had learned to trust each other, that’s how all friendships begin. God invites you to be his friend: so you have to trust him – accept him as he really is, turn away from the false pictures of him in your head (your idols), and trust him with your life. At that moment spiritual life begins!
But what if you are a Christian, maybe a seriously beaten up one? This tells you to keep on believing no matter what has happened. Maybe you are like the people of Israel and the acid rain of idolatry in our culture has diluted your faith and rotted your heart. Well it stops here!
Keep on believing.