"Here Are Your Gods"

Faithful Discipleship in Idolatrous Times

Christopher J.H. Wright, Christopher J. H. Wright

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780830853359
• eBook ISBN: 9780830853366
• Subtopic: Religion

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When the Israelites exclaimed, "Here are your gods!" at the sight of the golden calf, they were attempting to hold on to the God of their history while fashioning idols for their own purposes. In today's Western world, plenty of shiny false gods still hold power—idols of prosperity, nationalism, and self-interest. Christians desperately need to name and expose these idols. We must retrieve the biblical emphasis on idolatry and apply it anew in our journey of following Jesus.

In "Here Are Your Gods," Old Testament scholar Christopher J. H. Wright combines a biblical study of idolatry with practical discipleship. He calls readers to consider connections between Old Testament patterns and today's culture, especially recurring temptations to trust in political power.

Now as much as ever, we need a biblically informed understanding of the many ways humans make gods for themselves, the danger of idols, and how God calls us to join him in the battle against idolatry as part of his ongoing mission to be known and worshiped by all peoples.

PART ONE

THE LORD GOD AND OTHER GODS IN THE BIBLE

MONOTHEISM AND MISSION. Two vast words that you will not actually find in the Bible, yet they embrace massive biblical teaching: that there is only one true living God, the God revealed as Yahweh in the Old Testament and incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth in the New; and that this God revealed in the Bible is on mission, that is to say, he is working out his own sovereign plan and purpose for the whole creation through the whole of human history and calls his whole redeemed people to participate with him in that mission.

Each of these words, monotheism and mission, is inseparably tied to the other.

Biblical monotheism is necessarily missional. That is because the one true living God of the biblical revelation wills to be known and worshiped throughout his whole creation and by all the nations of humanity. That divine will to be known constitutes and generates the mission of God, through biblical history and to the end of human history.

And biblical mission is necessarily monotheistic. That is because God’s people are commissioned to call people of all nations to the worship of this one living Creator and Redeemer God, and to join all creation in giving this one God the praise and glory that is due to him alone.1

What about all the other gods that populate the pages of the Bible and surround us still today in many forms? In the four chapters of part one we will examine how the Bible handles the phenomenon of human beings worshiping many alleged deities other than the God of Israel. What exactly are they? What should be a missional response to this phenomenon? What should we be doing in relation to idols and gods?

It has long seemed to me that the biblical category of idolatry—when it is even considered at all—is often handled or dismissed with shallow understanding and simplistic responses. Yet surely it is a fundamental, though negative, aspect of a fully biblical and missional account of biblical monotheism. For that reason, we should make an effort to grapple with how the Bible handles the subject, as a vital part of authentic and sensitive Christian mission.

CHAPTER ONE

THE PARADOX OF THE GODS

ARE THE “OTHER GODS” that we read about in the Bible something or nothing?

A statue is real enough. A carved or molten image has three-dimensional existence in the real world. But what about the god or gods those images supposedly represent? Are they real? Do they exist? Are they something or nothing? What did Israel believe about the gods in relation to its own God, Yahweh?

That last question has vexed the minds of Old Testament theologians for many decades. With monotheism defined, in the generic categories of human religion, as the belief that only one divine entity exists, along with the consequent denial of the existence of any other deities whatsoever, the search was on for the process by which and the time by when Israel could be said to have achieved monotheism in that sense. Clearly Israelites expressed their commitment to Yahweh in some very exclusive terms. But did that mean that Israelites categorically denied the existence of the other gods whom they were forbidden to worship?

The classic answer given within the guild of Old Testament scholarship has been the evolutionary or developmental one summarized, repackaged, and reissued by Robert Gnuse.1 With variations as to the precise dating of the transitions, this view reconstructs the religious history of Israel as proceeding from (1) polytheism (as conceded in Josh 24:14), through (2) henotheism (or mono-Yahwism, the demand for exclusive worship of Yahweh by Israel, while accepting the existence of the gods of other nations), to (3) true monotheism (the explicit denial of the existence of any other gods than Yahweh) as a final and fairly late conclusion of the process.

According to some scholars, the first and second stages span most of the Old Testament history of Israel. That is, they argue, originally Israelite religion was virtually indistinguishable from Canaanite religion. Then for centuries the major drive within Israel was merely to get Israel to be loyal to its national covenant with Yahweh and not “go after other gods.” The other gods that they might be tempted to go after were clearly presumed to exist. Yair Hoffman, for example, argues that even in the Deuteronomic traditions, the characteristic phrase ʾĕlōhîm ăḥērîm, “other gods,” presumes, rather than denies, their existence as gods. “The phrase . . . although reflecting some idea of otherness, does not certify that these deities were considered an utterly different essence from the God of Israel. . . . They are other gods since they are not ours.”2 Finally, only in the late exile (to which Is 40–55 is assigned), did anyone in Israel say in so many words that no other god than Yahweh even existed.3 Only at that final stage was it envisaged that the category of deity was a house with one sole and exclusive occupant—Yahweh.

On this view, the answer to our question about whether, in the religion of Israel, other gods actually existed depends on the point in the chronological development of Israel at which the question is asked. Suppose you could have approached an Israelite and asked, “Do you believe that there are other gods as well as Yahweh?” For a long period, the answer you would have received (according to the critical consensus) would have been, “Of course. There are many gods. Yahweh is one of the gods and a very powerful one, so we’re rather glad he’s our god.” Then, when the more exclusive ideas of a national covenant were introduced and emphasized by the prophets and the reforming Deuteronomistic party, the answer would have been, “Yes, other nations have their own gods, but Yahweh is the only God that Israel must worship, or we will face the consequences of his anger.” That view clashed with a more liberal, popular polytheism for a long time. Finally, however, with the triumph of the “official” Yahwistic party in the late exilic and postexilic period, the answer eventually would have been a firm, “No, Yahweh alone is ‘the God,’ and other gods have no real existence at all. All so-called gods are actually nonentities.”

Such a neat linear view, however, is almost certainly just that—too neat. It is far too simple to put the question (or its answer) in a simple binary form: Do other gods exist, or do they not exist? Are they something or nothing? The issue is more complex and depends on the predicate of such questions (that is to say, to what does the word god refer to?). What needs to be added to the question is “Do other gods exist within the same order of existence that Yahweh does?” “Are they the same ‘thing’ as Yahweh is [the same divine ‘something’]? Or are they not what Yahweh is [‘no-thing,’ i.e., no-divine-thing]?”

Now, we can tell from reading multiple Old Testament texts that the essence of Israelite monotheism lies in what Israel affirmed dynamically about Yahweh (namely, that Yahweh alone is the universal Creator, the sovereign Ruler of all histories, the Judge of all nations, and the Savior of people from all nations who turn to him), not primarily in what it denied about other gods. Nevertheless, what the Old Testament affirms about Yahweh has unavoidable negative consequences for whatever may be claimed about other gods. Commenting particularly on Deuteronomy, and disputing Nathan MacDonald’s argument that the book does not deny the existence of other gods (and is therefore not formally monotheistic, in terms of the Enlightenment categories that MacDonald rightly rejects as irrelevant and damaging in Old Testament study), Richard Bauckham makes the following carefully nuanced point (the references are to Deuteronomy):

What Israel is able to recognize about Yahweh, from his acts for Israel, that distinguishes Yahweh from the gods of the nations is that he is “the God” or “the god of gods.” This means primarily that he has unrivalled power throughout the cosmos. The earth, the heavens and the heaven of heavens belong to him (10:14). By contrast, the gods of the nations are impotent nonentities, who cannot protect and deliver even their own peoples. This is the message of the song of Moses (see especially 32:37-39). The need to distinguish among “the gods” between the one who is supreme (Yahweh) and the others who are not just subordinate but powerless, creates, on the one hand, the usages “the God” and “the god of gods,” and, on the other hand, the contemptuous “non-god” (32:17: הלא אל; 32:21: לא אל), and “their mere puffs of air” (32:21: הבליהם). Though called gods, the other gods do not really deserve the term, because they are not effective divinities acting with power in the world. Yahweh alone is the God with supreme power . . . (32:39). . . . It is not enough to observe that Deuteronomy does not deny the existence of other gods. We should also recognize that, once we do attend to the ontological implications that MacDonald admits Deuteronomy’s “doctrine of God” must have, this theology is driving an ontological division through the midst of the old category “gods” such that Yahweh appears in a class of his own.4

So, coming back to the question, are the gods something or nothing? If the question is asked in relation to Yahweh, the answer has to be nothing. Nothing whatsoever compares with Yahweh or stands in the same category as he does. Yahweh is not one of a generic category—“the gods.” Yahweh alone is the God, in what Bauckham calls “transcendent uniqueness.”5 With reference to Yair Hoffman’s point above: while it may be true to say that the phrase “other gods” does not by itself imply that “these deities were considered an utterly different essence from the God of Israel,” nevertheless what is said about Yahweh makes it categorically clear that he is of an utterly different essence from them. “Yahweh, he is the God; there is no other beside him” (Deut 4:35, my translation).

But if the question is asked in relation to those who worship the other gods—whether the nations who claimed them as their own national deities, or even if asked in relation to the temptation that Israel faced to go after them—then the answer can certainly be something. The gods of the nations, with their names, statues, myths, and cults, clearly did have an existence in the life, culture, and history of those who treated them as their gods. It is not nonsense to form sentences such as “Marduk was a god worshiped by the people of Babylon.” Only excessive pedantry would complain that since Marduk did not have any real divine existence it is meaningless to say that anybody worshiped him. In the context of such a sentence (and all similar descriptions of human religions), it makes understandable sense to talk about other gods as something—something that exists in the world of human experience. In other words, it is not impossible, theologically or in ordinary discourse, to answer the question “Are other gods something or nothing?” with the paradox “Both.” They are nothing in relation to Yahweh; they are something in relation to their worshipers.

This is precisely the paradox that Paul carefully articulates in his res...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part One: The Lord God and Other Gods in the Bible
• Part Two: Political Idolatry Then and Now
• Part Three: God's People in an Idolatrous World
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Scripture Index
• Praise for Here are Your Gods
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright