God's Rival: About Tattoos

I knew that if I meditated on scripture long enough that God would inspire me! I have to admit that I have a personal bias given to me by society at an early age: I hate tattoos! For me, it wasn't a moral issue, but in my younger years mostly sleazy women and cavorting sailors had tattoos. When I saw a tattoo what came to mind was sleaze, drunkenness, rebellion and carousing. That's still firmly ingrained somewhere in my gray matter. However, today, although I realize that even sweet little grandmothers have tattoos, I still cling to what I have always believed.

Rather than beautiful artwork, I see tattoos as a corruption of beautiful skin. I've seen so many before and after photos of tattoos, that to me it's obvious that the canvas is much prettier before it's painted! However, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Rather than demanding that everybody do what I prefer, I look at what Holy Scripture says.!

Jeremiah 10:2 "Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen..."
Lev. 19:28  “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.”

First off, scripture does not say "Thou shalt not get a tattoo or you'll go to hell"! It's more a way to please God! We're told in the Lord's prayer that "His will be done on earth as it is in heaven".  Since we'll have regenerated perfect bodies in heaven, there will be no tattoos there. So what are we to do? Practice being in heaven by doing God's will here on earth. Marking the skin is not in God's will, and it's not a whim. He has reasons for commanding that we don't copy the pagans!

Pagans are not only those who have no God, but worship false Gods. "The First Suggestion", I mean COMMANDMENT, says "Thou shalt have no other God's before me".  Christians don't have a problem with worshiping another God. We're syncretic. Many Christians unknowingly worship other God's before (or alongside) the One True God.

The astute Christian will say I don't worship Buddha, Confuscious, Muhammad or even Ascended Masters, let alone wood carvings, gold images or other works of the hands! However, it's not the man-made images God cares about, but ultimately what's important to us!

If a man carves an image in stone, then bows to it, God's not jealous of the stone, but of you!

Exodus 20:5b "...I the Lord thy God am a jealous God..."

Any discerning person can detect that God is not jealous of a mere stone because he could turn them into bread if he desired. He's jealous of his creation. It's not the stone which man worships, but the hand who carved the stone. "Image worship" is  inevitably the worship of "The Self". We are doing what pleases us. We do what we want to do!

Deuteronomy 12:8 "Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes."

Worshiping another god alongside God is doing "whatsoever is right in his (our) own eyes". Therein lies the problem!

Let's go back to the Garden of Eden for clarification. The true first commandment, chronologically was "Don't eat of this tree", referring to "The Other Tree" , the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". Why? Because a more important tree is standing right there in the midst of the Garden. It's the "Tree of Life". Adam and Eve chose to stand by another tree when the only tree they needed was right there longing for communion. "The Tree of Life" is Jesus pre-incarnate. Adam and Eve didn't deny their Creator, they listened to the serpent, symbolic of Satan. They had another God alongside The Voice (God). They didn't worship that tree, but came there to please themselves. They sought beauty, wisdom and wealth. Their desire was for pleasure. In effect they weren't worshiping the serpent because he's satisfied with mankind worshiping their own Self! The worship of "The Self" is called "of the flesh".

Circumcision is a statement that mankind makes a covenant with God. He agreed in Old Testament times, to have only one God and it's signified by cutting off the flesh or the foreskin:

Genesis 17:11 "And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you."

Since mankind seems committed to the cutting of the flesh, God, a jealous God, desired that man cut off the flesh for him! It represents denying The Self and worshiping God alone.

Deuteronomy 10:16 "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. 30:6 And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

This is carried over into The New Testament. It's not the foreskin of the penis which is significant to God. he wants "the flesh" removed from the heart! It is his desire that you be not as the pagans are nor adorn your foremost idol; Yourself! God is shown love by what's in your heart. You may say "But I still love God!" That's true, but are you honoring his will? You have another god alongside him!

In effect man by painting their bodies, cutting them, applying studs and piercings, etc. are adorning their favorite god, "The Self". God is jealous of you! Rather than trying to please him, vain people are doing what's right in their idol's eyes; their Self!

Vesta, Muhammad and all the trivial gods weren't there in the Garden to steal God's thunder, but the Self was there, and God was and still is hurt because The Self became man's god!

The lusts of the flesh are spoken of by Paul:

Romans 1:25 "Who (the disobedient) changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever."

The "creature" is me. It's you. We all entangle ourselves in self-worship. Rather than serving The Creator, we bow to his creation. Although we were made in God's image as an act of grace, we return that gift by worshiping what God made. The most important thing God made is us and ultimately, whatever it is that we desire and have pleasure in, is to satisfy our own "Selfs". There are many gods than God that God is jealous of and they are us!

"Self-esteem" is not a problem for mankind! We all worship our self and God said "no man hateth his own flesh" (Ephesians 5:29). In effect God is saying "No one hates their own rival god; themselves"!  This passage from scripture tells how to topple that god as Dagon was toppled in the presence of God:

James 4:7 "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up."

We lift ourselves up! That's called "self-esteem" by the babblers. Letting the Lord lift you up is Christ esteem. In effect it's toppling the god of the flesh, your pleasing of the Self, and bowing down to the Almighty God who will lift you up! You don't have to paint that idol to make it pretty for him, but the natural skin he gave you before it was contaminated as the pagans do, is sufficient for him!

Don't worry so much about adorning the flesh. It's temporal and isn't important. That god will die once, maybe twice, but Jesus will always be there desiring that you adore him rather than adorn yourself. What's the best reason NOT to get a tattoo or piercing? It's an act of love for God whose will it is that you obey his will! That's enough for me! I don't care what famous or professional person has body markings. They too are deceived. They too listen to the serpent and do his will. Listen to God!