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for man to entertain degrading thoughts of the incorruptible God, without bringing about
an immediate repercussion, and degrading himself. This is the tragic story of Rom. 1:
"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness . . . . . to dishonour their own
bodies" (Rom. 1: 24).
This `change' therefore, of verse 23, is not only explained in verse 25 as the exchange
of the truth for the lie, but as a "giving up" by man, of God, otherwise the "also" in
verse 24 would have no place. "God also gave them up." The man who wrote this
terrible indictment of Gentile degradation knew that his own people Israel, with greater
advantages than the Gentiles possessed, had gone the same evil way. In fact Psa. 106:
contains the very expression found in Rom. 1: 23, together with several parallels with the
rest of Rom. 1:
"They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image. Thus they changed
their (correct reading is `My') glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. They
forgat God their Saviour . . . . . they joined themselves also unto Baal-peor, and ate the
sacrifices of the dead. Thus they provoked Him to anger with their inventions: and the
plague brake in upon them" (Psa. 106: 19-29).
The argument of Rom. 1: follows the same sequence:
"They changed the glory . . . . . dishonoured their own bodies . . . . . inventors of evil
things" (Rom. 1: 23, 24, 30).
To tabulate the prohibitions to idolatry contained in the law, or the repeated lapses of
which the history of Israel is replete, would make more demands on our limited space
than we can afford. The reader however can supplement the above notes by his own
reading. We are not at the moment writing a discourse upon idolatry, we are concerned
with the subject as it is associated with the goal of God which has the restoration of the
image and likeness of God in man in view. There is however a more serious view
presented by the Scriptures, than that idolatry degrades the worshipper who was made in
the image of God. Idolatry is a cunningly disguised attack upon the supreme office of
Christ. The exchange, we read, was the exchange of "the truth" for "the lie". Satan
originates nothing. He imitates, substitutes, counterfeits. He takes a truth and distorts it
to his own evil ends.
God is invisible, God is Spirit, God is omnipotent. Man by his very constitution needs
imagery. The `Invisible things' of the Creator are `clearly seen' by those who
intelligently behold the works of His hands. "The heavens declare the glory of God."
When God uses human speech He stoops from the realm of pure thought to the world of
imagery. Every attribute revealed is revealed in human terms. This essential need of
human nature is fully met by Christ. He is the Word, the Form, the Image of the Invisible
God. They that have seen Him have seen the Father. They that come to God, Who is
Invisible and Spirit, come to the Father through Christ. Idolatry taking advantage of the
basic need of human nature for an Image to interpret the Invisible, foisted upon man the
crude and licentious imagery of idolatry, `the lie' thereby occupying the place that alone
belongs to Christ, the Image of the Invisible God, Who is Himself "The Truth". There
are two agents through which the `Invisible' God may be `seen' by man. The one is