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 Bible
students soon learn that idolatry is not confined to graven
images and pagan people. MacKnight shows why this is so in
commenting on 1 Cor. 8:4 “The Greek word eidolon,
translated idol, signifies an image formed in the mind and which
exists nowhere else.” (Apostolical Epistles) Of all the idols
formed by the inventive imaginations of men, none are more
popular or dangerous than those existing as perverted concepts
of the true God. Many religionists pay lip service to the “one
God and Father of all” of Eph. 3:16, but imagine Him to be a
kind of God that does not exist. As the idolatrous Gentiles of
Rom. 1, they exchange the glory of the incorruptible God —
whether for graven or mental images is academic. Because the
true God is immutable (Ps. 102:27; Jas. 1:17), He is what He has
always been, eternally consistent with His true nature as
revealed in His word. Therefore, any imagined god that differs
from this God is false and nonexistent.
For
instance, there are those who conceive of a fiendish sort of a
god that sanctions suffering, poverty, wars and other calamities
that befall men. Even among his professed friends this god is
pictured as one who sometimes robs parents of infant children or
otherwise brings tragedies to our loved ones. This is not the
God of the Bible! It is contrary to His very nature. Because God
will not directly intervene to counteract the free moral agency
of man or His own eternal laws (called laws of nature), He is
foolishly charged with much evil. God will not force parents to
keep their children from playing on busy streets any more than
He will keep a man from getting drunk. Why
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then, is God blamed when the drunk runs down
the child in the street? God is love; He is a good, righteous
and merciful Father (1 Jn. 4:16; Ps. 145:7-9). It is impossible
for Him to do anything that is wrong or contrary to His nature.
To picture Him otherwise is to see but an idol; a false god.
Others
hold to a distorted image of God as one approving all kinds of
religion as practiced by men. To them and their imagined god.
Bible truth is not only relative, it is subordinate to such
things as honesty, sincerity, and feelings; faith is purely
subjective; right is right as men see it. Serving such a god
makes for an easy and comfortable religion — just enough to
satisfy the demands of a weak conscience in a carnal mind. But
this god too, is as false as Baal. The God who cannot lie
teaches that He is honored and served only in the doing of His
will (Matt. 7:21). Man only chooses whether, not how he
will serve God. Nothing is more worthy of man’s confidence and
acceptance than the words of his Creator! —” even He who is
able to save and destroy”. What can any man trust more than
what He says?
So,
in these and many other ways, God is idolized by
professed believers, even if unwittingly. True faith in the true
God and salvation itself is made dependent on knowing His
word (Rom. 10:17; Jn. 8:32). Imagined gods may give a false and
temporary sense of security, but they make poor partners for
facing death and eternity.
Dan S. Shipley
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