"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me"

The practical implications of this are very important. On the surface we may probably imagine that this negative form of the commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," does not apply to us. AS long as we have an eye for that coarser form of idolatry found among the nations of heathendom, bowing themselves before idols of gold and silver, of wood and stone, worshipping the powers of nature, the beasts of the field and creeping things, we may say that we are no idolaters. The first commandment in its negative form has lost its significance for us, Its positive implication may perhaps be still of value. It may serve to remind us that we must always and with all our heart and mind and soul and strength serve the living God. But idolaters, servers of other gods, we surely are not. About this, however, we will change our mind as soon as we understand that we always serve some god. Hence, in as far as we are not delivered from sin, from the inclination of our sinful nature, we are exactly inclined to idolatry; that is, we are inclined to rule out the true God and to place something next to Him in which we trust and on which we rely. Nor is it difficult to discover this tendency to idolatry in our practical life as believers in the world. How often in prosperity do we not place our own strength and ingenuity, conditions and circumstances, next to the living God, or instead of Him. Or, how frequently in distress, in trouble or adversity, in sickness and suffering, do we fix our eye on men, on things, on means, next to the Lord of life and death. All this, according to the Catechism, is idolatry. Next to the Lord there is nothing. He is God, and God alone. Beside Him there is no Savior. All things and every creature are but means in His hand. And therefore, to place our trust in things or creatures is to rob the living God of His glory and is to serve idols.

We may notice too that emphatically the first commandment reveals God to us as a personal Being. He is a Being with intellect and will. He confronts us not as a vague, impersonal power, but as a Person, that speaks to you, that reveals His will to you, that demands that you shall love Him. And in relation to Him as you stand as a rational and moral being, Whose Word you hear, Whose will you are obliged to obey, to Whom you must devote yourselves with all your heart and mind and soul and strength. He is a God whom you may know, to Whom you may speak, to Whom you make your needs known, before Whom you may pour out your hearts, in Whom you may trust, and with Whom you may have fellowship. He speaks of thou and me: Thou shalt have no other gods before me." He is, therefore, not a vague, impersonal power, such as the wind, or the power of electricity. Now should you ever speak of Him as "a kind of Providence," or in similar terms. Neither should we confuse or identify Him with the world, as Pantheism does, and say that God is all, and the world is God. He is an Ego, a Person, a distinct Being. He is the Lord your God.

But the basic principle of the first commandment, in distinction from all the others, is that it reveals to us that God is One, and that He is God alone. There is no God beside Him. And this means, in the first place, that God is a simple Being: He is not composed of parts. You cannot divide Him. All His virtues are essentially one in Him. In fact, He is His virtues. God is infinite in virtues and perfections, such as power and wisdom, righteousness and mercy, justice and grace, love and truth. But all these perfections are in God essentially the same. You cannot present them as being in conflict one with another. You dare not say, for instance, that God is just, but that He is also merciful. On the contrary, you should say that God's mercy is always a just mercy, and His justice is ever a merciful justice. You may not say that God is filled with wrath against the wicked, but that He is also a God of love. You should say: God is love: therefore, He is filled with holy wrath against all the workers of iniquity. Nor is it possible to divide and separate the virtues of God. If you should argue thus: "I like a God of love and mercy, but I must have nothing of a God that is righteous and just, that damns sinners into everlasting perdition," you do not love God at all. You make your own god and worship an idol. God is one. His love is also His wrath. His grace is also His righteousness. His mercy is inseparable from His justice.

...But that God is One also signifies that He is God alone. There is no Go beside Him. God does not belong to a class or a category of beings. There are no gods. God is not a god; He is God. We say that a rose is a flower. There are many flowers, and the rose is one of them. We say that Mr. Jones is a man. There are many men, and Mr. Jones is one of them. But you cannot say: The Lord is god; there are many gods, and Jehovah is one of them. This is the implication of the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." This commandment cannot mean that there are indeed other gods, but that you shall not offer them your worship or put your confidence in them. It does not even mean that among all gods the Lord is supreme, that He is the highest above all gods. Such indeed was and still is the philosophy of the heathen, whether cultured or uncivilized. They say indeed: "We all have our gods. You have you god, and so have we. And we prefer our own." This is not the language of Scripture. Nor will the believing Christian ever speak thus. The believer is intolerant. He claims: "God is GOD. He is God alone. There is nothing beside, above, or next to Him, or even under Him, that can be called or may be worshipped as God. The idol is nothing. It is a figment of man's own evil imagination." Such is the implication of the first commandment.

This implies further that God alone is the Lord: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord." That He is Lord, and one Lord, implies that He is the sole and absolute Proprietor of all things: "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." He is the Creator of the heavens and of the earth and of all things they contain. He is their only Possessor, to do with them according to His good pleasure. This signifies too that He alone has all authority, that His is the sole prerogative to determine what the creature shall do and what purpose he shall serve. He is the only lawgiver, Whose will is the criterion for the whole universe and for every creature. Besides, it means that He is the sole Judge, that judges all the world with equity. Moreover, it implies that His is all the power, and that He governs all things according to His eternal good pleasure. No creature is exempt from His control. Nothing betides in heaven or in earth, but by His will. For mark you well, He is not a Lord, but the Lord. He is not merely supreme Lord, but simply Lord, Lord over all, and Lord alone. Even as you cannot divide God's virtues, so you cannot split His Lordship. Lord is He, not only over the good things, but also over the evil; not only of the righteous, but also of the wicked; not only of life, but also of death; not only of prosperity, but also of adversity; not only of peace, but also of war. All things are absolutely under His Lordship, and under His alone: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." This He can say because He is God alone, and God is the Lord.

Such, then, are the implications of the first commandment. 

God is One, and there is no God beside Him.

Now, when we are saved by grace, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and, in principle delivered from the power of sin and death, so that we stand in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, we embrace the this truth of God and confess it from the heart. Then indeed we respond to this language of the law: "Yea, Jehovah, Thou art my God, and Thou art God alone. There is none beside Thee. Thou art Lord. And I know and confess Thee as my Lord, my Sovereign, my King forever. And Thou hast redeemed me, delivered me out of the power of sin and death, to clothe me with righteousness and life." And then the prayer rises from our heart and from our lips: "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" And the answer comes from the first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." And this commandment we love, even as it comes to us in its negative, or prohibitive, form. For, on the one hand, we deeply feel that the motions of sin are still in our members, and that therefore we are always inclined to seek and to serve other gods. And, on the other hand, we understand that the positive meaning of this commandment is that we shall know and acknowledge and worship the one only true God, and Him alone.


Herman Hoeksema 
The Triple Knowledge, III: 134-138   

The Triple Knowledge is available at http://rfpa.org/