8/12/2019 1990 Issue 5 - Law and Liberation: The First Commandment - Counsel of Chalcedon
1/4
GOD AND NONE ELSE
THE
FffiST
COMMANDMENT
Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. (Ex. 20:3). This is
the first
of
the Ten
Commandments spoken by God.
It cannot stand in any position
other than the first. Not only does
it
form the basis on which the
whole structure of the Law of
God is built, but it is also the
foundation of every sphere
of
created life. In keeping with the
principle of beginning with God,
stated in the fliSt article of this
series,
it
is necessary to consider
the speaker.
THE
LORD
THY
GOD
What is requ-ired by the flrst
commandment cannot be properly
prescribed but by the One who
clearly identifies Himself in the
preamble, particularly in the
words: I
am
the LORD thy
God. In the light
of
the written
word of God, this identification
carries with it the inexhaustible
and immeasurable depths
of
God
by which He is
rightfully entitled
to exclusive allegiance. Only a
few of the attributes of the LORD
our God need be considered here
in order to arrive at a Biblical
interpretation of the frrst
commandment. The transcendent,
self-contained, self existent and
independent God is the only God.
Beside
Him
there is no other god
and He will not give His glory to
another. I
am
the LORD, and
there is none else, there is no
God
beside me ... (lsa. 45:
5)
. I am
the LORD: that is my name: and
my glory will I not give
to
another, ... (Isa. 42:8).
He is the Creator who summoned
His creation into being out
of
nothing by the word ofHis
power. .. [T]he worlds were
framed by the word of God, so
that things which are seen were
not made of things which do
Y OWEN FOURIE
A
South
African Business Man
appear. (Heb, 11 :3). No
w o n e r ~
then, that the Psalmist
proclaims: The earth is the
LORD'S, and the fulness thereof;
the world, and they that dwell
therein. (Psalm 24:1). The
heavens are thine, the earth also
is thine: as for the world and the
fulness thereof, thou has founded
them. (Psm. 89:11). Indeed, He
possessed the entire universe;
and while being above and
beyond it,
He
is also present
everywhere in t ..Do not I fill
heaven and earth: saith the
LORD. (Jer. 23:24). Since He
ft lls His whole creation, He sees
all
things and He knows all
things. Neither is there any
creature that is not manifest in his
sight:
but
all things are naked and
opened unto the eyes of him with
whom
we
have to do. (Hebs.
4:13).
doest thou? (Dan.4:35). He is
the ever-living God- .. the
King eternal, immortal, ...
I
Tim. 1:17). He is the Vanquisher
of Satan, sin, and death; and
He
is
the
Triune God who has
commissioned all believers to
proclaim His authority and
dominion to
all
nations. And
Jesus came
and
spake unto them,
saying, all power is given unto
me in
heaven and
in
earth.
Go
ye
therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name
of
the
Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost: Teaching them
to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you: and lo, I
am with you alway, even unto
the
end
of the world.
(Matt
28:18-20)
What is signillcant in this brief
exposition of the identity of God
is His jurisdiction.
This God is the absolutely JURISDICTION
sovereign LORD over His whole
creation. And all the inhabitants How far does God's authority
of
the e rth are reputed as and dominion extend? What is
nothing: and he doeth according the spread of the territory in
to his will
in
the army
of
heaven, which His law applies? Since He
and among the inhabitants of the is the only God,
it
is obvious that
earth: and none can stay his there is territory and
no
hand,
or
say unto him, What more.
That
domain is coextensive
The Counsel of Chalcedon June 199 Page 9
8/12/2019 1990 Issue 5 - Law and Liberation: The First Commandment - Counsel of Chalcedon
2/4
withwhat God has called into
being and possessed with perfect
and complete knowledge,
namely, the heavens, the earth .
and all its inhabitants - in short,
the entire universe. The very
word "universe" precludes the
idea of other territories or areas of
life over which God
has
no
claim.
In
1895 the term
"multiverse" was used to deny
God and His jurisdiction, but the
word ;.universe" remains .
immovably in our vocabulary and
it witnesses to God's teiritorial
sovereignty.
Since God is eternal, His
jurisdiction also extends over all
ages, which means that the
Decalogue is not restricted in its
relevance
to
the first recipients -
the children
of
Israel. The
enforcement
of
the Law
of
God
by the Lord Jesus Christ and the
apostle Paul makes it clear that it
applies beyond the time and
geographical confines of Old
Testament Israel. " ..Till heaven
and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall
in
no wise pass from
the law ..." (Matt. 5:18, see
verses 17-20). "Do we then make
void the law through faith? God
forbid: Yea, we establish the
law." (Rom. 3:31). " ..[L]ove is
the fulfilling [not the replacing]
of
the law." (Roms. 13:10, see
verses 8-10).
Such absolutely sovereign
Lordship over the whole universe
in
all
its ages is necessarily
exclusive; and, in perfect
consistency, God forbids
anything that would detract from
the acknowledgement of His
authorityand domilrion.
Redeemer, theWR God,
acting by eternal design, prepares
a people for His worship and
service in all ages from the
beginning of the world to
its
end.
The :Redeemed of the LORD,
correctly taught, can have no
problem with his foundational
command of the only God
proclaiming His totally sovereign
and exclusive Lordship over life
as
a whole arid
in
all its parts.
They have been redeemed from
bondage and sin
to
serve the
living God. They have been
liberated from the law and rule of
sin and death
to
the liberty
of
sons and daughters under the law
and
rule
of
their loving Father.
Since there is only one God and
one territory, no one else can
claiin jurisdiction apart from
Him,
nor can there be any neutral
area.
n
spite of this, therem
such assertions.
FUTILE TERRITORI L
CLAIMS OF OTHER GODS
Any problem with the Divine
right expressed in the first
commandment has its roots in the
fallen nature
of
man in whose
rebellious mind the frrst
temptation to be
as
God (Gen.
3:5)
is
ceaselessly entertained.
With such a mind, man would
quickly dispose
of
God, His
revelation ofHimself, and
His
claim, in order to put himself first
and to establish
his
independent
territorial rights with the counter
command: "God, keep out "
n
this process, man has built up a
remarkable array of other gods,
but the attempt to declare
territorial sovereignty for himself
and his other gods on territory
"Thou shalt have no other gods already sovereignly held by God
before me." This is true Almighty, will ultimately prove to
totalitarianism rightfully and be as futile as it would be to
properly asserted by the Almighty foolishly insist that it is night
Creator-Redeemer God beside when'the midday sun is in
whom there are no other gods. evidence everywhere. Here is a
As the Creator, God can and does God-given fact: whether in a state
claim absolute sovereignty over of grate or in a state of sin,
all His creatures. As the God's creatures cannot escape the
Page 1 June 199 The Counsel of Chalcedon
reality
of
being subject to
His
law
in the territory He
has
created.He
possessed the entire universe
further than science will ever
enable us to see,
and
His law is
over all. Whether as a curse or as
a blessing, His law cannot be .
evaded; therefore
the
Law
of
God
has implications for the whole of
life. For the same reason, the first
commandment
is
foundational not
only to
all
the succeeding
commandments but also
to
ever}
sphere oflife.
reality of the Fall of man and
his state of sin means that there
are other gods. These are m 41-
made and Satan-suggested gods
that are not gods; nevertheless,
fallen man pays homage to them.
What are these other gods?
OTHER GODS VAIN
IMAGINATIONS
From the many Biblical passages
dealing with the subject of
idolatry, it
is
clear that these other
gods were idols
of
wood, stone,
gold, and silver found in the
heathen nations of the ancient
world. At times the people
of
the
LORD would foolishly worship
idols and incur the
wrath
of God
who would abandon them to their
sin.
''And thereye shall serve.
gods, the work of men's hands,
wood and stone, which neither
see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell."
(Deut. 4:28). It is important
to
note those words "the work
of
men's hands.' ' What a
man
makes with his hands
is
certainly
the product
of
forethought
of
the
mind - and in the matter of
idolatry it is the fruit
of
vain,
corrupt, and rebellious
imagination. " ..[W]hen they
knew God, they glorified him not
as God, neither were thankful;
but became vain in their
imaginations, and their foolish
heart
was
darkened. r o f ~ s s i n g
themselves
to be
wise,
they
become fools, and changed' he
glory of the incorruptible God
into an image made like
to
8/12/2019 1990 Issue 5 - Law and Liberation: The First Commandment - Counsel of Chalcedon
3/4
corruptible man ... (Roms.
1:21-23).
In other
words, fallen
man rebelliously and deliberately
suppresses the truth
of God
in
favour of his imagined version
of
God, a
god
that can be totally
comprehended, completely
contained
by
his mind,
and
subject to him. Idols
of
wood
and
stone
and
precious metals
do
still
exist,
but
more to the fore today ,
than handcrafted objects
of
worship
are the
gods
of
ideology,
philosophy, and false theology
born in
the minds
of
men
who
have
not begun
with God
in
their
thinking
but with
themselves and
their situations.
THE ONLY CORRECTIVE
In
Colossians
2:8
the Apostle
Paul wrote: Beware lest any
man
spoil you through philosophy
and
vain deceit, after the tradition
of
men, after the rudiments
of
the
world,
and not
after Christ Any
t e c h i n ~
that detracts from the
real De1ty and the real humanity
of
the
Lord
Jesus Christ
and
the
uniqueness
of His
Person and
His Work, is the teaching
of
another god.
In
A.D.
45
the
Formula
of
Chalcedon declared: Therefore,
following the holy Fathers,
we
all
with
one
accord teach
men
to
acknowledge one
and
the same
Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at
once complete
in
Godhead and
complete in manhood , trulyGod
and truly man, ... recognized in
two natures, without confusion,
without change, without division,
without separation; the
distinction
of
natures being
in
no
way annulled by the union,but
rather the characteristics
of
each
nature being preserved
and
coming together to form one
person ...
In
this statement,
which the Christian Church
would
do
well to reclaim,
acclaim,
and
proclaim, there is
the clearest assertion
of
the fact
that only
in the
one
~ r s o n of
Christ is there a perfect union
of
the Divine and human natures,
yet
without confusion. Even
in
Christ, the Deity remained Deity,
and
the
human
nature remained
human. In
no way did
the Divine
become human nor could the
human become Divine, and that is
the
key to
a pro per understanding
of
true religion as opposed
to
false religion and every
claim of
the
other
gods.
The
formula of Chalcedon stands
as a bulwark against the ancient
concept of
God
and
men
existing
in one
great chain
or
ladder
of
being. Falsehood sees the Diety
or dieties
on
the higher parts
of
the ladder while
man
occupies the
lower
regions
of
the same ladder,
and in the process of time men
may be
deified.
The
truth,
as
discerned
and
declared at
Chalcedon in faithfulness
to
the
Holy
Scripture, is
that
there is
discontinuity between God
and
man
in
the matter
of
being.
The
Creator-Redeemer God who has
revealed Himself supremely in
the Lord
Jesus Christ is the
uncreated Being, but
man
is a
created being. This is the Creator- .
creature distinction that rules
out
any thought that
man,
despite the
fact
that
he
can
have
communion
with God
through Christ alone,
can ever become Divine. This
means
that
it
will
never
be right
for
men, whether individually
or
corporately, to
act
as God
over
other human beings; yet that is
precisely what has happened as a
result
of
the Fall.
MAN AS GOD
MAKING
GODS
to
God is
sinfully
turned
into
homage
to man-made
gods.
Who or
what
are
these other
gods?
To justify its denial
of
the Creator
God and
to deify man,
Humanism
has
spawned
a deeply
religious faith
in the
unprovable
theory ofEvolution, one of its
manufactured gods. Alongside
Evolution there are the related
gods of Chance and Luck. In this
way the absolutely sovereign,
predestinating, Creator-Redeemer
God
is supposedly eliminated
in
favour
of
an existence
of
uninterpreted, meaningless,
purposeless, isolated
brute
facts.
Such
circumstances require the
invention
of
another
god
the
modem political state -
to
supply
order, control and a plan: man's
predestination of man from the
cradle to
the
grave by which the
Biblical (Roms. 13:1-7)
limitations are greatly exceeded.
A key aspect of that plan is the
education of the young who are
taught
to
begin,
not with
the
Creator-God,
but with man and
his environment
in
all
their
thinking and
in
every subject.
This is vital for Humanism
because
the
god
who
possesses
the
minds of
children procures its
own future. With such a
program, is it
any
wonder that
humanistic
men and
nations arise
to stake
out
totalitarian claims,
daring to be as
God and
forbidding the existence
of any
other gods
in
a dog-eat-dog
situation?
Of
course,
even
the dogs
band
Humanism, whereby
man
together
in
the
face of
a
common
becomes a
god
or
acts as God, enemy.
The
remaining stumbling
was born
in
the
Fall
of
Adam and block to
the establishment
of any
Eve. Now in the great factory of humanistic Utopia is the Christian
Humanism, the mind of fallen Faith that steadfastly proclaims
man; all sorts
of
other gods re the territorial rights of the Creator-
being produced because
man Redeemer
God.
Many
heresies
cannot escape from his have
been sent
to corrup t this
creaturehood. As a creature
of
faith and none
more
devious
than
God
Almighty he
must render
the
god
of Liberation Theology
allegiance,
but
what is rightly
due
with its
Marxist
ideology
The Counsel
of
Chalcedon
une
1990 Page
8/12/2019 1990 Issue 5 - Law and Liberation: The First Commandment - Counsel of Chalcedon
4/4
conveyed in Biblical terminology,
however, its deception cannot
endure for
it
presents a wholly
inadequate god who is ~ k l y
seen to be but a poor replacement
for the only God. nLiberation
Theology, "God" and "Jesus
Christ" are simply symbols for
the People. God is merely a
concept and Christ
an
''event" in
the present struggle of the People
against the repressive structures
of Christian-rooted Western
Capitalism ordained and
sustained by the Creator-God .
(decadence apart). God is
an
incomplete, suffering hoping
being who is caught up with man
in the process of history; and,
subject to history, this god moves
towards an unordained future.
God is completely identified with
the People. He is God the
worker, Christ the labourer, the
revolutionary, or the freedom
fighter. The
PeoJ?le
become God;
they become therr own liberators
executing the divine plan of
salvation. The voice
of
the People
is the voice of God. Remember
the Formula
of
Chalcedon
There are the blood brother gods
of liberation Theology too. They
are Chaos, Ungodly Revolution,
and Anarchy, and.they are
all
the
forerunners of the god
of
Humanistic Totalitarianism which
actually invokes chaos,
revolution and anarchy
in
the vain
process towards a Utopia of
absolute equality in everything .
Then mankind will live beyond
good and evil, right and wrong,
law and order, family life,
property, and religion.
Working towards that Utopia,
too, is the god
of
the New Age
Movement with its sign of
Aquarius, the water-carrier,
which promises true cleansing .
and puri.fjcation of such
proportions as shall wash away
the scourge ofOrthodox
Christianity .The message
of
the
New Age is clear: all is one, all is
God we are God. This
movement, which is presently
being popularized in the
advertising campaigns
of
big
business, declares that Lucifer,
commonly taken to
be
Satan, is
. he true Son
of
God, and
all
who
refuse to be initiated by him into
the New Age are threatened with
extermination.
. CONCLUSION
Now let all these other gods be
silent The Almighty Creator
Redeemer God has spoken.
"Thou shalt have no other gods
before me." For the LORD is
great, and greatly to
be
praised:
he is to
be
feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the nations are
idols: but the LORD made the
heavens." (Psalm 96:4-5).
"Look unto me, and
be
ye saved,
ALL THE ENDS OF THE
EARTH; FOR I AM GOD, AND
THERE
IS
NONE ELSE." ( sa.
45:22).
A BOOK REVIEW
BY
BYROI : S:\APP
FORBIDDEN ALLIANCES,
George Gillespie, Presbyterian
Heritage Publications, P.
0.
Box
180922, Dallas, Texas 75218,
$2.50
God has made man to be a social
being. Prior to Eve's creation
God said, "It is not good for the
man to be alone." (Gen. 2:18b).
God made Eve. Even if God has
given one the gift of singleness
there still remains the need for
fellowship and friendship. Herein
we are reminded
of
the
fellowship
of
the Triune God
within the Trinity itself.
Amqpg the many decisions that
one ti)tist make following
regeneration and conversion is,
"With whom will I be a friend?"
After all,
we
are not taken out of
the world.
At
the same time we
Page 12 June 1990 The Counsel
of
Chalcedon
are to guard ourselves from evil
influences in the world
as
well
as
from Satan himself (John 17:15).
Presbyterian Heritage
Publications has done the
Christian community a great
service in reprinting this short
work on Forbidden Alliances. It
is
taken from
the
1846 edition
of
The Works of Mr. Georee
Gi11esPie
and was originally
published in
1649 Do
not think
this material is dated
or
written in
language that is
of
a bygone day.
Indeed; the need for material on
this subject is perhaps greater
today than when it was first
written. Also, the work
has
been
well edited and is written in a
style and print that will attract
today's reader.
The author begins on this
premise: The Christian is allied
to
Christ, frrst and foremost. This
alliance must govern all out other
alliances. Within the framework
of
Scripture, Mr. Gillespie shows
the Chrisitan how
his
chief
'Friend' has laid out principles
and warnings that are to guide us
regarding whom we should
many, join in close business
partnerships and ventures, or join
in
denominational affiliation. He
looks honestly at Scripture and
provides a wealth
of
Scripture
verses that allows the reader to
study
and
apply to his own life.
Mr. Gillespie wrote this book
against the background of a
historical period (the English
Civil War) when Christians were
extremely o n e m e d about this
very issue. The author is familiar
with the arguments that
opponents
raised
He deals with
the arguments clearly, concisely,
and above all,
Scripturally .Naturally, the author
does not believe the Christian is
to move into a monastery and
separate himself from the world.
Where he believes the line
to
be
drawn
I will let you discover
as
you read the
book
Con t, page 21
Recommended