Revisit: The “I” in “Image” vs. the “I” in “Idolatry”

Image from lylemook.com

[First posted in 2014. This article makes us rethink our understanding of the word ‘idolatry’.  In antiquity, it was simply the sin of worshipping another, whether a god of one’s imagination or anything that takes the place of the True God. What did they know, they were ignorant until the True God started revealing Himself.  Were they excused?  Wouldn’t you be if there was no way to know the One True God since He had not yet revealed Himself except perhaps in His created world? And even so, one would simply be guessing.

Think another way:  from biblical times on to our day, worship may not even be the issue at all.  

• What or who takes pre-eminence in my life?
• Who makes the decision —
  • to worship whom or what,
  • or not to worship at all,
  • particularly in this day and age of the worldwideweb
  • when there is no more reason and no excuse to be ignorant of any subject
  • except by choice?

The title gives the clue.—Admin1].

———————-

Forget the New Testament teaching that every person born in this world is tainted with “original sin” inherited from the first couple in Eden; hence everyone is helpless and cannot save himself, that’s why he needs the Christian Savior. That faulty teaching removes personal responsibility and personal choice from man, making him hopeless in utter depravity and incapable of making right choices. It ignores the truth that man, being the only created being endowed with free will, is made in the image of God—the “I” in Image that endows him with the ability to make Godlike choices despite  the disobedience of the first couple for which only the first couple is accountable, not their progeny.

We’ve written articles about this subject so if you’re so inclined please check out the following posts:

• The Creator 5a – How is Man in God’s “Image” or “Likeness?
• The Creator – 6a – Making humans in God’s Image
• The “I” in Image – is humankind really in His likeness?
• TSTL: Original Sin

Pay close attention to what is taught in  the Hebrew Scriptures (renamed Old Testament which is supposedly the foundation of the New Testament).  The Tanakh/Tanach teaches that man is born with two inclinations:

• one that leans toward choosing to do Right,
• another that leans toward choosing the opposite of Right.

To quote from our post:

In every individual there is that balance of the evil inclination, yetzer hara as the Jewish interpreters term it, with the good inclination.  It is all and always a matter of individual choice.

 Contrary to Christian teaching, we are not born condemned to nonexistent hell because we inherited original sin from Adam and Eve; each individual is  free to choose between the two inclinations within him/her-self that he/she constantly faces and struggles with. The potential to do good, to do what is right, balances the potential to do just the opposite. 

The “I, me and myself” tends to predominate unless it has been conditioned and disciplined or coerced to submit to another. 

As long as that power to choose has not been stripped from us by another authority, we are each individually responsible for each and every choice that we make.

What or who determines what is right? Who else but the God of Righteousness who is also the Revelator on Sinai, the God of Israel, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures.

“We are fully endowed to be able to know the truth. All we must do is make the effort,” is a timely reminder from Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski.

[EF] Deuteronomy/Davarim 30

Micah 6:8

It hath been told thee, O man, what is good,

and what YHWH doth require of thee:

only to do justly,

and to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with thy God.

Free will is a gift from God, given only to humankind.  The angelic spirits were not endowed with freedom of choice, surprised?  (So no possibility of fallen angels; don’t ever say “the devil made me do it.”).   How privileged indeed is man to be made in the ‘image” of God, the only Being who exercises free will, that is,  until He decided to gift it to humankind.

Question:  is there anything the Almighty God cannot do?  

Answer: Yes, only that which He restrains HIMself from doing . . . and one would be— never to interfere with nor violate man’s free will.  He could surround man with external influences to help man make the right choice;  He could also allow man to be tempted to test him as He did with the first couple but ultimately that choice is still for man to make.

So the “I” in Image chooses to do right.

———————

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski elaborates (Growing Each Day, Aish.com):

He created him [Adam] in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

Since God is not corporeal, the term “image of God” obviously refers to humanity’s capacity for Godliness, i.e. to share in the Divine attributes of rational thinking, spirituality, sanctity, creativity – attributes that distinguish us from all other living things. . .

The serpent seduced Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge by convincing them that doing so would enable them to become God-like (ibid. 3:5). Why did they succumb to this argument, since they already knew that they were created betzelem Elokim, with the capacity to be God-like?

That unique endowment did not disappear from the so-called “fall”, it is still in every human being born since the first man/woman; neither is it overpowered except when man chooses to give in to the other inclination that provides the balance, since to exercise freedom of the will there should be two equal competing influences within as well as without.

————————-

If the “I” in the “Image” tends toward Godliness, to doing what is right; the “I” in idolatry, leans toward doing just the opposite.

In essence, idolatry is the choice to follow another “god” that is not the One True God, YHWH.

Ponder this:

•  Who makes the choice to follow someone or something other than God?  “I”, me, myself.
• So when “I’ make the choice, “I” am guilty of idolatry.
•  How so?  “I” follow my inclination to disobey God, therefore “I” make myself some kind of a god, one that competes with God.
• In effect, when “I” decide to drop the True God and replace Him with an idol,

—-“I” am not really worshipping that idol,

—-“I” have dared to defy God and by doing so,

—-“I” have made myself the competing idol with God.

Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz in A Taste of Torah considers “habitual sinful behavior” as “idolatry of another sort” and he is right.  

• When “I” indulge in habitual sinful behavior,
• any sin that “I” keep doing over and over,
• who is the “I” serving?  
• I, me and myself, nobody else.
• “I” serve my interest first and foremost, over and above anyone else,
• over and above God Himself!

Who is God competing with in my life?

 “I”, me!

“I” have become my idol.

 NSB@S6K