Summary
We live in a world of choices, and religion is just one of many “products” on offer. You can even bundle your religions together, mixing some aspects of one religion with parts of another, to have your own custom belief system. In the ancient world, this idea was just as common.
But Christianity does not allow this “Pick ‘n Mix” approach to worship of God. The First Commandment, pronounced by God from Mount Sinai, reminds us that God requires exclusive worship of him. To refuse to worship him is sin. To worship God amongst others is sin. Our allegiance and our worship belongs to God alone – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Our Passage Explained
Immediately after reminding the Israelites that he was the God who had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, God announced his First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (v.3).
Firstly, this commandment forbids idolatry. While we think of idolatry as primarily the worship of images of wood and stone (and this is true), those physical images are just physical representations of an inner false desire. More broadly, idolatry is the worship of any god who is not the true and living God.
Idols are much broader than just (literal) religious figures, they are anything which takes the place of God as the highest priority in our life. Many of the ancient world’s idols were actually a physical representation of a sinful desire, such as fertility gods which were often connected with sexual immorality.
Paul identifies idolatry and immorality as being linked (Romans 1:18-32). Any sort of immoral act is an act of idolatry, a worship of something like money, sex, power, or control instead of God.
Forbidding idolatry forbade the Israelites from worshiping any other god. They were not to worship the gods of Egypt, decisively beaten by God. They were not to worship the gods of Canaan, where they were about to settle.
The First Commandment also forbids atheism. The very fact that God discloses his existence and demands exclusive worship and allegiance means that denying God’s existence and Creator’s rights is a sin, and violates this commandment.
The Israelites were not to live atheistic lives, ignoring or denying God’s existence. He was their God, their Divine King. They owed him worship and allegiance by right as Creator, and as their Covenant King.
Thirdly, the worship of God is without restriction in duration or extent. God is not a localised deity responsible for the maintenance of part of the Middle East, but the Creator of all things. Heaven is his throne, and the earth his footstool (Isaiah 66:1). There is nowhere we can flee from God’s presence (Psalm 139:7-12). God transcends Creation, it cannot contain him (1 Kings 8:27).
The Israelites were not to worship God in the land he was to give them, then to worship other deities in other lands when they travelled there for trade or pleasure. They were not to worship God for some matters, and another pagan god for other matters (or for insurance).
Fourth, this commandment is not just a corporate commandment, referring only to the people of Israel as a whole. The commandment is given to “you” in the second person singular. That means that each and every person was individually responsible to obey the commandment. It is not the general response of God’s people required, but the collective obedience of every individual, without exception, of God’s command to worship him alone.
Our Passage Applied
Just as was the case with Israel, we too must worship only God alone. We cannot mix the worship of God with other religions; a bit of Buddhism on Monday, some Atheism on Tuesday, and a dash of Christianity on Sunday. God demands, and is owed as our Creator, our complete and undivided worship.
We cannot worship God in one area of our lives, or one location, and then worship another deity in another part of our lives. God is present everywhere, and so every place and every space is “before [God]”. God is entitled to, and may demand, exclusive worship over every area of every person’s life, in every location, in every time. To do anything else is treason against God.
Neither can or should we try and live our life in a “practical atheistic” way, acknowledging God with our lips but denying him with our attitude, our actions, and our lifestyle.
Instead, positively speaking, the First Commandment directs us to acknowledge God as our Maker and Sustainer. To each individually honour and acknowledge him as God over every part of our lives, offering him praise and worship for his very nature.
We should do this because he is our Creator, but also because God is our Redeemer. God, in Christ, reconciled us to him while we were sinners. God himself showed mercy to us, delivering us from slavery to sin.
Only God is “the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God” and to him we owe “honour and glory forever and ever” (1 Timothy 1:17). He alone is worthy of honour and praise, obedience and submission.
