Deeper by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012070/REL023000/REL012000
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2021-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

By no means do the answers to these questions necessarily reveal idols in our hearts. But they’re intended to help draw to the surface what may be competing for our hearts’ deepest loyalty, quietly displacing Christ and the comprehensive comfort of the gospel. Idolatry is the folly of asking a gift to be a giver.

And here’s the point I want to make: These are justification questions. Idolatry is simply pseudo justification. It is asking a created thing rather than the Creator to render a verdict over me. We think, As long as I get that, then I’ll have arrived; then I can handle anything. The problem is that unlike the gospel, idols nurture an insatiable itch. The more we scratch, the more the itch spreads. Pursuing the idol causes the idol to keep moving just further out of reach. In that rare instance where we do in fact attain the idol we’ve longed for, we will be astonished at how empty and hollow it is. All of this world’s fraudulent pseudo justifications are shiny on the outside but only bring misery when attained. They are like baited fish hooks: when bit down on, they only bring pain.

Anyone remotely in touch with reality walks this earth acutely aware of the deep inadequacy within, the sense of not measuring up. And we medicate that deep, nagging sense of insufficiency through the swelling bank account, the perfect face, the sculpted body, the number of social media followers, the reputation, the beautiful spouse, the famous friends, the sense of humor, the appearance of intelligence, the political outmaneuvering and one-upmanship, the sexual exploits, or even the upstanding moral resume. We feel our nakedness and seek to be “clothed” by these accomplishments. We seek to be justified by these things. And as surely as the Galatians claimed Christ as their Savior but slipped in circumcision as a justification enhancement and thereby emptied the gospel of its power, so we claim Christ as our Savior but slip in our own favorite idol and thereby empty the gospel of its power.

Every idol is man-made. Every false justification is generated by us. But God himself has come to us with a justification of his own doing. It is the atoning verdict of Jesus Christ. We can only receive it. To add to it is therefore to subtract from it. We simply breathe it in with a heart posture of trusting faith. And thereby God justifies us—God himself. Our okay-ness, our record, our identity, our significance, are no longer in our hands, not even a little.

It was Martin Luther who opened my eyes to this. More than once throughout his writings he points out that the first of the Ten Commandments is the prohibition of idolatry: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). Luther explains that the first commandment is in essence a call to justification by faith; that is, justification by God. Negatively, we are to avoid idolatry. Positively, we are to trust in God. An idol, after all, is not simply a matter of what we worship but, more deeply, what we trust (Ps.

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