Idols

Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
1 John 5:21

This is the last verse in 1 John. It has always struck me as an abrupt ending to the book. And this is a book that, at first blush, is not focused on idolatry. So why does John seemingly shift gears in the last sentence of his letter?

Isaiah, now there is a book that hits the topic of idols. Just take a look at Isaiah 41. The idols are made by craftsmen from the materials he has chosen. See Isaiah 40:18-25.  The idols are strengthened by nailing them down, held together by the skill of the craftsman's soldering.but the idol has no power to speak, either in providing insight into the past or declaring what is to come. the idol has no power to act.

Idols are not always so blatant as a craved piece of wood overlaid with gold. Our culture has more idols of the mind. A person's ideas about God, unless they have the foundation of God's revelation of Himself, are idols, false gods, the work of a thought craftsman. The person may craft their own concept of God, or they may buy into the ideas of someone they know, or someone they heard on the radio, or someone who has written a book.

But God, the true God, reveals Himself in His Word. See Isaiah 40:6-17. All flesh is like grass. Man's ideas too - they fade and fail. But the word of our God stands. His revelation of Himself is faithful and sure. It doesn't, like the idols, need nails to hold it firm in place. The nails that pierced the Word made flesh demonstrate how firm God's revelation of His love and His atoning sacrifice are. They do not fade like grass. They endure.

Here is where I now begin to see why John ends his letter as he does. "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." The contrast between the idols of thought constructs of mortal men and God revealed in the word of life that John introduces in 1 John 1 is the contrast between God and idols.

John's exhortation to keep ourselves from idols makes sense alongside the life from the Father that was made manifest in His Son Jesus, in the Light that overpowers the darkness, in the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from sin. It makes sense alongside the false claims that we have not sinned. "If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

It is an appropriate exhortation from one who cares with the love of God himself for those to whom he is writing.

Keep yourselves from idols.

Thorns

A crown of thorns. Menacing. Malicious. Mocking. Piercing. Painful.

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
How pale Thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish, which once was bright as morn!

See Adam in the garden.  It was a garden without thorns. It was a garden marked with harmony, beauty, and bounty. It was a garden of open communion and conversation between creation and Creator, between man and his Maker.

But into the harmony comes dissonance and discord. Not content to exercise dominion over creation in the context of loving submission to the Creator, the poisonous seed of rebellion sprouts and invades the beautiful garden. Its fruit is death and brokenness. Thorns.

Casting aside their crowns as royal offspring, Adam and Eve grasp dust and sweat and thorns.

But from eternity past God planned an interposition of life into this spinning vortex of death. The hand of God reaches in rescue.  He reaches into this broken world to ransom, to redeem each of us who have sold ourselves as slaves to destruction. His hand does not hold gold or silver as the redemption price. Rather his hands are scarred by nails. And on his head, a crown. But this is not the royal diadem of power. It is thorns: menacing, malicious and mocking. It is the thorns that invaded and spoiled the garden, now twisted into a crown and roughly, violently pushed onto the head of Jesus. It is the crown that we grasped with Adam in the garden. Our crown, our punishment on his head.

Surely he has borne our griefs

    and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

    smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

    he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

    and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

    we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

    the iniquity of us all.

 

In A Relationship

I saw it recently on my Facebook feed.  A friend had posted that he was now in a relationship. Relationship...what does it mean?  Like some other things in the world of Facebook, it may have a slightly different meaning than in the real world.In Facebook land, it typically has a romantic or sexual connotation. 

Another example: think of the term, "friend".  What is a friend?  In Facebook nation, it can be merely an acquaintance. But what does the Bible say? Here are a few verses that demonstrate a Biblical understanding:

Exodus 33:11
Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

We see a closeness and honesty of communication. God is speaking. He speaks to Moses looking him in the eye.

And another:

John 15:13-17
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

This is the relationship that matters. There is a friend that laid down his life for you.

Do you recall that relationship that you had with him, that first love?

Revelation 2:3-5
I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Friend, Jesus calls you to remember your first love. Remember and love him, because he first loved you.