Begging the Issue

Idolatry, Images, and the Meaning of Exodus 20

Reformed Baptist Church, if I were to meet my end this evening. Your heart attack there, buddy. I was paying attention to him. Actually, I think we should ask if you don't make it through the evening after a situation like that.

Why'd you put him on my side? He volunteered. Thank you. And I will warn you, when we get close to 12 minutes, you can turn around before that happens again.

I will. I'll stand back there.

Mr. Madrid, is it your position that the distinction between Lotria and Dulia would have been a valid excuse had a Jewish man been found in his tent bowing before a statue of an ancestor and when brought before Moses had claimed that he was not giving the statue or the ancestor Lotria, but only the lesser concept of Dulia?

No, it would not be my position. Okay. If that is not a valid concept in the case of someone before Moses, what has changed that it would be a valid concept today?

Well, a lot has changed, Jim. See, at the time of Moses, if we go back to the book of Exodus, we see that the Israelites had a particular problem with worshipping idols. And so the revelation from God in Exodus 20 was a prohibition, not simply of worshipping graven images, but worshipping anything that would be a false god in place of God himself.

So in that particular context, it would be especially problematic, given what had just happened with the golden calf and all of the dangers and inclinations towards idolatry. But what we have to recognize, Jim, is that since that time, not only has God revealed himself more and more fully, but the church in the church age has contemplated and understood the meaning of these passages and also the meaning of what the incarnation is all about.

So that, although it would be problematic for somebody in the time of Moses, as the great eastern father, St. John Damascene, said, Christ is the icon, the image of the invisible God. So he showed us through the incarnation that the ability now to depict heavenly realities is no longer something that would be dangerous in the way that it would have been at the time of Moses.

Modern Idolatry and the Limits of the Argument from Context

So is it your position that we don't have the same problems and propensities with idolatry today that the Jews had so long ago?

No, quite the contrary, Jim. I would say that we have all the same propensities and tendencies toward idolatry, but ours tend to be somewhat different. Let me ask, any Catholics in the audience here worshiping statues?

No. I don't worship statues. I don't know any Catholic who worships statues. But I do know people who have a lot of different false gods. There are people perhaps in the room tonight, perhaps some of you, your false god is Internet pornography.

Maybe the false god is NASDAQ, worshipped every day on the big board. There are people who place all sorts of things, alcohol, new cars. There are so many different ways in which we can worship a false god.

So today, yes, Jim, we have all the same inclinations and all the same temptations that they did at that time. It just so happens that at the time that Exodus 20 was written, the particular propensity that the Israelites had dealt with graven images.

That is no longer propensity for anyone that I know or anyone that I've ever heard of living in the modern era.

The Ten Commandments and How They Apply Today

So the commands of God in the ten sayings and the ten commandments are contextually determined as to whether we are to be applying them today or how we're to apply them today?

Not exactly contextually conditioned, but rather we have to understand the way in which a passage applies to any person at any given time. I'm not done. So in the case of Exodus 20, the application there is specifically with regard to bowing down to and serving idols, false gods.

But the general context of the passage, Exodus 20 that you cited, deals with idolatry in any form. He just gave it a particular form as an example of what the Israelites had to avoid.

Angels, Prayer, and the Mystical Body of Christ

Pat, do you know of any references to Christians invoking the names of angels in prayer in the inspired scriptures?

In the inspired scriptures, none comes to mind right offhand. Are angels members of the body of Christ? Angels are members of the body of Christ in the sense that they are part of the communion in heaven, but they are not members of the body of Christ in the way in which you and I are because we have been baptized into the body of Christ.

So the mystical body of Christ, in the sense that we're speaking of in the New Testament, does not extend to angels.