The First Commandment (Exodus 20:3) "Thou shalt have no other gods before me.""Before" me (paniym; Hebrew) ; means "in my face". Some translate it to mean "besides" me. Either way, you get the point! God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5). The "other gods" are those in competition with God ('acher; Hebrew). Therefore, let's write this again:
"You shall not have any competitive god in my face"! (Herrin Translation). What this actually means is that no man should value anything over God. He comes first and only he is to be worshiped; remembering that he is a jealous God. We're made in his image and like us, God is jealous of the competition. Not only that, but just as flirtations are "in our face", flirtations with other gods is "in his face"!
At this point in scripture (the Mosaic era), the reader should ask "Is that a new command?" Well, it is the first time that it was written in stone, but it was always there. It is the first commandment in two aspects: chronologically and priority!
Back on day 7 of creation God made the first command:
Genesis 2:16 "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."God made the first command for one reason: to establish his authority. His desire was to have obedience from his creation. In effect, this passage implies "I am God whom you must obey!" Since God made it clear he's in authority, it's obvious to Adam that he who created him was and is God! As God (singular), there are no others.
1. Deuteronomy 4:35 "Unto thee it was shown, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him. 39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else."Therefore, in effect the First Commandment was said long before it was ever written! When the Lord God commanded "thou shalt not eat", he was implying "thou shalt have no other Gods before me". Why? Because eating of the forbidden fruit is pleasing your own god; "the self".
My contention is that the "other gods" of whom God is jealous is not graven images, but each of everyone's individual identities; the "other selfs".
First off, idols are toys to God! He has the power to totally destroy them anytime he desires!
Micah 5:13 "Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands."It's not the image of which God is jealous. It's you! It's you on your knees to those idols! Think about it! Adam and Eve could have stood under the Tree of Life and eaten of it! That Tree of Life is symbolic of Jesus:
Revelation 2:7 "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God."The Tree of Life which at one time stood in the paradise called the Garden of Eden, now stands in the paradise of God. There is no doubt Jesus who now is in Paradise and was the same Tree of Life back in the Garden! That's important! Rather than Adam and Eve standing under Jesus they stood beneath Satan, represented by the serpent. They were not worshiping the serpent. They were merely doing what they really wanted to do! To pleasure "the self"!
Genesis 3:6 "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."What is it that this tree was good for: 1) food, 2) beauty, and 3) wisdom. Who is it that gets these? Adam and Eve. God was jealous because Adam and Eve were not standing under the Tree of Life (Jesus), but chose to stand under the "other god" (The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). It wasn't the serpent of whom God was jealous; it was because Adam and Eve each chose to pleasure them selves rather than God. They were in effect "the other gods before him"!
God exemplified even more who it was who that caused the jealousy:
Genesis 3:5 "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."How more obvious can it be? Adam and Eve were the "other gods" besides him! It was two individual selfs who were Gods.
Romans 5:12 "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:"Mankind's problem is boiled down to one point: People do what they want to do! They put their desires first! They bow to their god; their self!
Adam and Eve had one problem: They failed to do what God told them to do, but did what they wanted to do! Rather than worshiping God, they worshiped their two selves; their "other gods"! Because we are guilty as a result of their actions (Romans 5:12 above), we are guilty of their same sins. We all worship our individual selfs! We are our own gods besides God!
Note that Adam and Eve still respected God; just not enough to obey him. They saw no problem with communing with God even while they worshiped their own self's. That's what "before" (or besides) God means. It's claiming God, but worshiping the self in his face. That makes him a jealous God! That's fornicating with the self! Why shouldn't God be jealous? He created and loves us, but we place our self's first.
After they pleasured their god by eating of the desirable fruit, they felt shame. Nakedness represents shame and they covered their flesh, and not coincidentally, the most sensitive flesh to pleasure, with fig leaves. The flesh is mankind's idol because idols are material things. In most primitive religions the sexual organs represent pleasure and pleasure are what legions of so-called gods provide. Because of the pleasure principle Adam and Eve's "flesh" became their idol. In the face of God and in their shame they covered the epicenter of pleasure; their idol, with fig leaves.
To save their souls from death, God removed the curtain (fig leaves) and covered their flesh with a sacrifice. For the first time the world experienced death. Animals died and their blood was shed to cover the shame of Adam and Eve. Because God spoke, it was "The Word" who we discovered in John 1 and was the pre-incarnate Jesus! It was Jesus who covered the shame of Adam and Eve with blood. Salvation must always be by the blood!
Hebrews 9:22 "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission."The Word, Jesus, covered the sins of Adam and Eve by the shedding of the blood. It was to cover the flesh, represented by the genitals of man and woman. We find later that when God made a covenant with Abraham, to seal the deal, the foreskin of the men was cut-off (Genesis 21:4). Why? The foreskin represents cutting off the flesh. Whereas Adam's flesh was covered by the blood, and Isaac's was done by removal of what offends, after Jesus came, it's "the flesh" which is handed over to God!
Romans 12:1 "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."What is it that men must sacrifice for God? It's our bodies. It's our own lives! It's our god; or self! Because God promised Abraham prosperity the deal was sealed with cutting of the flesh. It was giving a little part of the self as being symbolic of the whole flesh. Because Jesus promises us his eternal prosperity, we cut off the entire idol; the flesh. We sacrifice our self in thanks to Jesus for his shed blood!
Romans 8:1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."This passage sums up our living sacrifice. We have no guilt when we quit worshiping the "other god besides him" (our self which is our flesh). We become subjects of the spirit when we give up our individual selfs! We let God topple the idol of self just as he did Dagon (1 Samuel 5:3). With the flesh incapacitated by the spirit, the flesh is made the sacrifice. By now you must understand that it's YOU which YOU must sacrifice because you are "the other god besides God"!
That's what salvation is all about and what baptism symbolizes!
2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."To become a Christian the man (or woman) sacrifices their god, "the self". That "self" is the old person that he was before the new he becomes. Jesus blood covers our shame (us) with his own (his creation) just as he did with Adam and Eve. He made new persons of their old self's. He still covers our idols as well. Our self becomes something new. It's a new creation and we quit worshiping the old!
"The flesh" is the idol which represents "the other god", our self. What is it that our idol likes to satisfy the self?
Galatians 5:19 "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."These are some of the fruits hanging on "The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil". They are many! The things of the flesh are things that pleasure the self. It's doing what you want to do in place of God's will! It's making an idol of your self!
Becoming a Christian means something allegedly happened. You sacrificed yourself! You gave up the things of your flesh; the things your god likes to do and became a new person, supposedly. You gave your self to God as a living sacrifice to appease the One True God. Yet you likely have withheld your sacrifice. You still do what you want to do. You still appease your self with pleasure by bringing your other god things he likes! You continue to worship another god besides God, yet Satan has deceived you into believing you're secure while your idol is still standing tall.
If you do these things of the flesh just maybe the other god is still alive! After all, you continue to appease him by doing things your self enjoys! It's all about you and not much about God!
I bet you're guilty of many self-gratifications. How about fornication? Hatred? Strife? Anger? Drunkenness? These are all things I still see "Christians" doing without even wearing the secrecy of fig leaves! Strife is a big one. We find from Acts 2:1 that for the Holy Spirit to be present, all must be of one accord! That's without strife, anger, hatred, envyings and even gossip which is taking pride in doing those things! Do you wonder why the Holy Ghost seems to not be with you? It's because the self is still with you and your idol the flesh is not yet toppled, just wobbling some, but still standing!
The solution to pushing the self over the cliff?
1 John 2:4 "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. 6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."New persons do new things. Old persons keep on doing what they always did: appeasing their self. New persons walk just as Jesus walks. That is how the self is toppled along with his flesh!
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