"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."
How many times have we heard, and of ourselves professed that God is number one in our lives? I would say that we have all done so and even now claim such a thing. I know what people mean when they say this and I'm not doubting the sincerity therof, but the question must be asked is "first" what the commandment requires? Now, I had been thinking about the first commandment and of it's meaning, pondering why it was bothering me to say that, "Jesus is number one in my life." Is it not the proper place for Him to be primary in my life? Or is there something else in the first commandment that this phrase just does not capture, and inadvertently takes away from?
I do not believe this to be a superflous excercise in hermeneutics, but rather a fine tuning of our view of God and of what He requires of us to love Him. We need to examine what categories we are talking about when we say that He has the first place. The order of priorities for some maybe look like this:
First Place- God
Second- Wife
Third- Children
Fourth- Myself
Fifth- Others
Upon a first glance there is nothing wrong with this chart, though perhaps one might argue of the sequence of the places between second and fifth, etc. But for all intensive purposes, for the Christian the first always belongs to God. Look at it closer, and re examine it in light of the first commandment. "You shall have no other gods before Me".
Literally, it means no other gods before, beside, above, etc. basically no other gods in my presence. I used the term catergories before to let the reader know that we must make catergories in this matter. Because he implications of a subject being put into a number (into a count) means that it is being numbered among like items. For example if I made a grocery list of eggs, meat, bread, corn, butter, toothpaste, hair brush, floss, etc. Though not all of them are foods or hygenic items what they do have in common is that they are all found in the grocery store, therefore they are listed as items to purchase from there. But if the item is not something that is in that category then it would not be listed as something to get from a grocery, like for example a wife. A wife is not something that is not purchased in a grocery, (this absurd comparison is needed to make the distinction between the categories), she is entirely "other" in her nature, value, and being than those things there in the grocery, and to purchase a wife from there is an impossiblity, and were one to do it, it would be a serely moral violation.
Now, let us go back to the first commandment and our list above. Our numbered list is a category of priorities, and not groceries. These are matters that are life changing and are of great moral value. Let us therefore see if the list does justice to the first commandment. Does it fulfill the great commandment to love God with all the heart, soul, strength, and mind? Does it accomplish for us that God is to have no rival, no equal, no other gods but Him in our lives? I would submit to you that it does not, and utterly fails at this point. It is wanting in that it reduces The Lord as only one in many. The person saying it unwittingly testifies that God is only another priority among many, and though He may be the first and preeminent, He is still just another of the same category.
I must ask the question to the reader that if God is number one in your life, what is second? And if there is a second, how far is second from first? Do we not then automatically put God among many gods when we accept Him into a numbering system? We miss the superiority of God above His creatures, we entirely obliterate the truth that He is wholly "other" than His creation and outside of it. His is not a just a priority to be numbered among others. He cannot be catergorized into a list of anything, to do so is to make Him comparable to a creature. This is idolatry, no matter how subtle it is. We must see that He must be all in all. He is not One among many no matter how preeminent we say He is among the others. He just simply will not have any rivals in His presence. Therfore the reason that it bothered me to say that God was number one in my life is because it ultimately detracted from His person and "otherness". It made Him a God among many gods, or a priority among many priorities. He is not just a priority, and not just number one in a persons life. He requires that He be the life of that person, the All in All, by which all the priorities and details of that person are measured, weighed, and accomplished unto.
Grace and peace to you,
Gil
Copyright 2004 Gil So