The Epistle of Jeremiah (found sometimes as Baruch 6), Mat 6:21; Numbers 21:4-9, 4 Kingdoms/2 Kings 18:4, Jer 2:13, 1 Cor 8 and 10, Philippians 3:18-19, Col 3:5
The Epistle of Jeremiah is an ancient work, written to encourage God’s people in the Dispersion in Babylon (and elsewhere) to remain true to the only real God. Throughout its 73 verses run two refrains: “Therefore, Do not fear them,” and “How can anyone, then, suppose [the idols] to be gods?” These refrains, of course, come at the end of plain words concerning the dead and helpless quality of idols worshipped in the foreign lands, and lead the hearers to ridicule these manufactured figures, and the “gods” whom they represent. From the get-go, the exiled believer in the true God is told to remind himself or herself, “One must worship You, O Lord!”, and is strengthened by the assurance that God has supplied even His people in their exile with guardian angels, through whom He searches their hearts.
Of course, educated pagans would argue that they are not actually worshipping the idols, but the mighty powers that they represent. But the prophet implies that these so-called deities are just as lifeless as the statues placed in the pagan temples—decorated and clothed by people, supplied with accessories to make them appear mighty and warlike, illumined by lamps while left to gather dust, be blackened by the temple smoke, and prone to rot and rust unless tended meticulously. The very sacrifices brought to them feed the priests and their families, who have no sense of their holiness, and allow all kinds of abominations in the temples where they are found. These imaginary gods have no ability to defend kings, to enrich their worshippers, to rescue those in trouble, to restore sight, to give mercy to the widow, or to show beneficence to the orphan. Indeed, even those who engage in ritual in their temples dishonor them by the way that they comport themselves, including the behavior of the temple prostitutes, who, on being chosen for the sacred sexual acts, mock those other women who have been passed over. Beneath the gold and silver is mere wood, the “works of men’s hands,” which can be burned along with anything else in a time of war.
In contrast to these lifeless shams, all the elements of the world respond to the command and will of the true God –from lightning, to the clouds, to the heavenly bodies, to the animals. Even God’s creation is superior to these idols, then, which show God no honor, and can do nothing worthwhile, except perhaps to provide a perch for birds who desecrate them. They are not alive, but are “like a dead man cast into darkness.” When the people of God consider well the final end of these idols, they must come to understand that there is only one God, and that these imagined powers are not to be feared, or even owned, despite the fashion of the pagans with whom the righteous live. This, then, is a summary of the arguments in the Epistle of Jeremiah. Again, in order to receive the passion and direct appeal of the prophet, I urge my listeners and readers to read this entire short book!
We have already noticed the ridicule aimed at idols in Daniel’s Bel and the Dragon, and the triumph of the Three Young Men cast into the furnace for refusing to worship the king’s statue. The Epistle of Jeremiah continues this long line of invective which is also found prominently in the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, where idols are exposed as “less than nothing,” and even earlier with Elijah, who laughed at the idea of a false god who could not answer prayer because he was occupied at the toilet. The Epistle of Jeremiah’s special character is to put in rational terms why false gods should be dismissed, and makes clear why no reasonable person should follow them, despite public pressure. In ancient manuscripts, the book is placed in various spots—grouped with other writings associated with Jeremiah, or included as the sixth chapter to Baruch, Jeremiah’s secretary. These locations are apt because the book is consonant with these other books’ prophetic exaltation of the true God. And the theme continues into the New Testament, as well, when St. Paul reminds his readers that “an idol is nothing” (1 Corinthian 8:4), but also warns that behind the idols *lurk demons, with whom Christians should have no business at all (1 Cor 10:14-21)!
Living as we do in a society that is not surrounded, as were the ancient Israelites, or early Christians, by pagan statues or images, it may be difficult at first to grasp the passionate discrediting of idolatry in the pages of the Old Testament, and especially in the Readable Books, which were written at a time when God’s ancient people lived abroad. However, our New Testament reminds us that idolatry need not be so obvious as the mere reverence of a statue and the god or goddess that it represents. Col 3:5 reminds us that “covetousness”—that is, undue concentration upon wanting riches or prestige or possessions of others—is idolatry: “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness (which is idolatry).” The apostle goes on to warn us, “On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.” Philippians 3:18-19 offers a similar expansion: “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.” Both texts fill in what Jesus taught in his parable regarding where we set our affections, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt 6:21). Idolatry, then, is the adoration of anything so that it displaces the “pearl of great price”— God Himself. It can come in the form of greed, lusting for what others have, seeking primarily after the bodily comforts or sexual pleasures of this life, and so on. Things that are good in themselves can tie us up in an infantile and distorting idolatry, just as the good elements of wood, gold, and silver have been used to trap human beings into misdirecting their worship towards idols. I can worship fame, reputation, art, music, freedom, my nationality, my understanding of current events, my country, my place in the church, even my spouse, when I forget that these are creatures, and not the Creator. Where is my true treasure? The closer we come to God, the more subtle may be the enemy’s seductions, so that we hardly notice that we have slipped into an unordered adoration of something that is good when loved appropriately. This can happen on an individual level, or on a group level, as we see with the imprisoning ideologies of our day, from delusions about sexuality on one side of the political spectrum to so-called Christian nationalism, whether in Russia or in our own country.
We thank God that these words from the Epistle of Jeremiah have the power to jolt us back into reality: Music cannot save, my spouse cannot cure me, art cannot ultimately satisfy my inner being, a political leader is never the Messiah, civil freedom is variously understood and fleeting, my tasks in church life are not needed by God, and so on. If I have forgotten that these are all gifts, meant to take their modest place as directed by God’s instruction, then perhaps I am slipping into idolatry, and need to hear the words, “Therefore do not give them reverence” and “Why do suppose these are the ultimate things?”
Orthodox have sometimes been accused of idolatry because of the strong place of icons in our worship, and because our Protestant friends do not understand the teaching of St. John of Damascus that a difference has taken place with Jesus’ Incarnation, allowing us now to represent holy things pictorially, in a way that was forbidden to the ancient Hebrews. Frequently, such well-meaning friends point to the story of the serpent on the pole, in Numbers 21:4-9, to which the wandering Hebrews looked when bitten by snakes in the wilderness, and were healed. They remind us of how by the time of the kings, this Nehushtan, or image of the snake, became a snare for the Israelites, and they came to actually worship it. So in 2 Kings 18:4, the godly King Hezekiah institutes a salutary reform, banning all idolatry from his land, and destroying this image, which the people had magically invested with all kinds of power and mystery. The people underwent a kind of spiritual chemotherapy, burning away all the distortions, so that they would return to the only true God.
Of course it is true that good things can be used by the Enemy to lead us astray: after all, this is all the raw material that he has, since everything that we know has been created by God as good. Evil is simply a distortion of good—something in the wrong place, the wrong quantity, or given the wrong importance. We have already seen this by looking at natural idols that we can esteem in our hearts. It is important, though, to remember that it was God Himself who told Moses to erect this serpent on the pole, and that it had a saving purpose, when understood as the medicine of the healing God. Jesus even uses the imagery to speak of Himself, as if to explain that the most significant purpose of that image was to point forward to His death on the cross, which saves from more then mere snakebites. The use of the image was not evil, but instituted by God; the subsequent silliness and superstition of those who worshipped the Nehushtan, along with other pagan gods, was! The first few commandments were also known by these Israelites: have no other gods beside me; do not make for yourself any graven images. These should have chastened the Israelites in subsequent generations, and reminded them to remember faithfully the experience of their ancestors in Numbers so that they would continue to give glory to God, and not to a mere pole with an image on it. Instead, they allowed themselves to be seduced by a childish and dangerous facsimile of greatness, and forgot the living God.
We may think of how the prophet Jeremiah explained the idolatry of his day, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer 2:13). But those who worshipped the Nehushtan committed three evils, for they used as raw material for their idolatry something special that God Himself had given for their good!
In the same way, icons are not in themselves idols, but meant to serve a wonderful purpose when we see through them to the image of God in the saints, and the perfect image of God in Christ, who became the perfect human being among us, sanctifying all things for our use. The icons are palpable reminders for us of that host of WITNESSES spoken about in Hebrews—witnesses to the LORD Jesus and to the Triune God, not heroes in their own strength. May the Epistle of Jeremiah continue to sound in our ears so that we never transform, in our own minds, a good into a god—whether this is a physical thing, or a loyalty, our profession, an ideology, or another person. And may we remember that it is not the thing in itself that is evil, but what we make of it when we allow that thing to usurp God Himself in our hearts and minds. Accompanying us is not only an angel to search our hearts (though we thank God for our guardian angels), but God present Himself in the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. And so, like the encouragement in the epistle of Jeremiah, we say, “One must worship You, O Lord” –but even more, “We delight to worship You, O Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for you are the pearl of great price, the joy of all hearts, the One by whom we live and move and have our being!”
Edith M. Humphrey 