Idolatry

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Colossians 2.8)

John Calvin has little patience for the philosophers in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Those endowed with this great gift from God of higher rational thought utilize it in order to create idols no less than the most irrational of beings. The philosophers will worship even an unknown god, which is a known absurdity. Here are the brightest of human minds failing, or rather fighting not to see what even blind beasts are able to see; the revelation of God in everything.

In a chat the other night I was told that we as Christians are often making something quite complicated which is not complicated at all. We spend much of our time attempting to persuade and convict others of something which they already know for certain, which is the existence and nature of our glorious God. While I do not want to deny the necessity of means such as preaching and teaching sound doctrine and apologetics, there is a great deal of truth in this. We may wrongfully take it upon ourselves to do what is the work of God alone.

How many people take what they have of God and try to twist it into their own form? How many indulge in creating idols daily? Humanity is inclined to attempt to set itself on a pedestal above its Creator. God, the self, and the world are all interconnected in such a way that the misconception of one results in the misconception of the other two, regardless of which is misconceived. Thus a rejection and a suppression of God the Truth in His creation, in Christ, in the Word, and in the Imago Dei is the quickest way to lose sight of oneself and the world as well as (of course) God as they truly are.

I think it likely that all of us, believers and unbelievers alike, are guilty of idol worship to an extent. How many believers do you know who make assertions about God which are in no way based upon Scripture? How often do you do so yourself? If we do not have a proper view of God, we do not have a proper view of anything else. An age of the demonization of sound doctrine as something which only cold scholars practice cannot produce anything other than the type of confusion and evil we see all around us. All knowing is theologizing.

There is nothing new under the sun. The Apostle Paul knew the results of a failed Christology and witnessed them in his day. He warns us what will happen should we step off of our commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in everything we do. May this be an encouragement and a warning for all of us.