Stephen
Terry, Director
To Serve and to Save
Commentary
for the February 27, 2021 Sabbath School Lesson
"The carpenter
measures with a line
and makes an outline with a marker;
he roughs it out with
chisels
and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in human
form,
human form in all its glory,
that it may dwell in a shrine.
He cut down cedars,
or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among
the trees of the forest,
or planted a pine, and the rain made it
grow.
It is used as fuel for
burning;
some of it he takes and warms himself,
he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a
god and worships it;
he makes an idol and bows down to it.
Half of the wood he
burns in the fire;
over it he prepares his meal,
he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself
and says,
"Ah! I am warm; I see the fire."
From the rest he makes
a god, his idol;
he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and
says,
"Save me! You are my god!"
They know nothing,
they understand nothing;
their eyes are plastered over so they
cannot see,
and their minds closed so they cannot
understand.
No one stops to think,
no one has the knowledge or understanding
to say,
"Half of it I used for
fuel;
I even baked bread over its coals,
I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a
detestable thing from what is left?
Shall I bow down to a block of wood?"
Such a person feeds on
ashes; a deluded heart misleads him;
he cannot save himself, or say,
"Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"
Isaiah 44:13-20, NIV
Unfortunately, our
lesson quarterly seems to go "off the rails" this week. I do not know if this
is the result of the lesson author's efforts or the editor's, but the extent of
the derailment argues strongly for origination with the author. Whoever is
responsible, they seem to be more concerned with going to great lengths to show
that the naming of Cyrus the Great a century and a half before the fact as some
sort of a miraculous prophecy. Instead of seeing, as most scholars do, that
this argues strongly for multiple authors for the book of Isaiah, just as the
narrative about the death of Moses argues strongly that he did not write all
the Pentateuch. The author seems intent on unnecessarily making the point that
Isaiah has a single author. Perhaps this lesson was constrained by a desire to
make every sentence written and every word spoken by Ellen White infallible. If
so, this is a sad commentary on the scholarship within Seventh-day Adventism.
As the lesson states, the naming of Cyrus is equivalent to George Washington namin[ST1] g Dwight David
Eisenhower as supreme European commander during World War II. Far from bolstering
the idea, it shows how incredibly unlikely it is. Further, it is inconsistent with
the rest of the Bible, where no such exact naming occurs. Even Jesus is not
named so precisely. Instead of being referred to by the prophet Isaiah as
Jesus, he is called "Immanuel" or "God with Us."[i] Even the gospels do not
appear to take this as any sort of a precise naming for Jesus. As Matthew writes,
Joseph was instructed by an angel to call the boy, Jesus, the Greek for Joshua.
Then he goes on to say that this fulfils Isaiah's prophecy about Immanuel. In other
words, Jesus was not named Immanuel but was Immanuel. How is that you say?
Simply that Jesus was God incarnate. Immanuel was not his name. It was his
being.
Why am I concerned about
the lesson author's transgression on this point? It misses the real point of the
passages that are the foundation for this week's lesson. Isaiah is dealing with
something that has been a rotten vine running throughout Israel's history and
continued bearing evil fruit up to the Babylonian captivity. All the nations
surrounding the Jews worshipped idols and did so faithfully. The Jews had been commanded
at Sinai not to do that, not to even make such images. The history of images in
Israel is somewhat confused. While images were proscribed, the tabernacle and
to a greater extent later, the temple had several images. Interestingly, some
try to cavil the point by saying these images were not worshipped but were
simply aids to worship. This is ironic since this is exactly what our Catholic brethren
assert about the statuary in their churches, statues that some Protestants
refer to as idols. However, the terse language in the Decalogue seems to show
that such images should not be associated with worship at all. How we reconcile
that with the temple and tabernacle imagery, I cannot say. Sometimes God, as portrayed
by scripture, seems schizophrenic. But that may not originate with God so much
as with those portraying him in their writings. Jesus, whom we remember was God
incarnate, pointed out that some of the rules that were handed down from Moses
were not God's will but were the result of the inability of the people to
exercise compassion and empathy. It may be something similar with the
proscription of images in worship.
For some reason, while
the nations around them were loyal to their idols, Israel found it hard to be
loyal to an invisible God. Time and again, they borrowed images and altars from
the other nations around them and worshipped those images, kicking God to the curb.
Why would they do this when other nations did not abandon their gods? If we
look at it with the perspective of dualism, we might say that they did this because
the Devil worked hard to make it happen. Of course, he made no such efforts to
get the other nations to change because they were already worshipping idols
instead of God. But even without that dualism, it seems strange to do as the passage
from Isaiah at the beginning of this commentary says. Taking a piece of wood
and placing it in the fire to cook breakfast and then carving a separate piece
from the same tree into an image and bowing down to it in worship does not make
sense. The tree could not even save itself. A logical argument if ever there
was one. It was so logical in fact that centuries later it was used by the priests
against Jesus.[ii]
The notable difference was that while no log ever rose again from the ashes of
its destruction, Jesus rose from the grave despite all logic and science saying
that was improbable.
The reason the lesson
went off the rails is that it perpetuates the myth that the messages about idolatry
no longer matter because many are not carving statues to be a part of our
worship services. But are we? Have we not perpetuated the idea that the Jesus
of the Bible is a blond, blue-eyed Caucasian? Do we not, two millennia later,
still construct many of our churches on the model of the Roman basilica as
though that were essential to worship? Do many of us not wear images of the
cross as though that somehow enhances our relationship to God. Recently, the Amazon
Prime video series, "Carnival Row," guessed what it would be like in a fantasy
world if their savior were hung on a gibbet instead of a cross. In that world,
people hung gibbets in their homes and wore them around their necks. This made
a profound, if macabre, point about images and their relationship to worship. A
recent meme on social media addressed the same point with Jesus asking, "What
made you think I like crosses?"
Imagery aside, perhaps
a more engaging point is to ask ourselves what do we replace a relationship
with God with? We all know those who are more attached to a particular sports
team or political party than to anything else in their lives, even more than their
families in some cases. For instance, a study published by the National Institutes
of Health found a correlation between domestic violence toward intimate
partners and friends when a local football team suffers an upset loss.[iii] And with politics, we see
the evidence in the violent assault on the Capitol in Washington, DC on January
6, 2021, by supporters of a losing candidate. Both are arguments that we still value
some things more than God, but these idols are ones we have created in our
minds instead of with a whittling knife and a block of wood. A measure of that
value is when we pray that God will cause our team or our political party to
win against the "enemy" team or party. This is only a corporate version of "God,
smite my brother, for he is wrong, and I am right!" Could you imagine what heaven
would be like with such a spirit?
Perhaps this is why
the spirit behind idolatry is of such great concern. If primacy shows
importance, the fact that proper worship and idolatry are at the very beginning
of the commandments should tell us something about our tendency to fall into
temptation in those areas and God's concern about it. Our lesson quarterly
should have addressed this instead of trying to create an apologetic for Ellen
White, especially since her infallibility is not a test of fellowship in the Seventh-day
Adventist Church. Whereas, per Fundamental Belief Number 19, obedience to the Decalogue
very well can be. We should not sacrifice the greater message of the Bible in
our efforts to preserve the infallibility of the "lesser light" of Ellen White.[iv] The time that remains is too
short for such diversions.