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No.2.
The Lie in
Rom. 1:
pp. 79, 80
The second of the references to the lie to which we make reference is Rom. 1: 25:
"Who changed the truth of God into a (the) lie, and worshipped and served the
creature more than the Creator, Who is blessed for ever."
"Since they changed the truth of God for the lie." The result of this exchange is, that
those who make this exchange now worship and serve the creature or created thing rather
than the Creator. The creature seems to specify one created thing as being the object of
fallen man's worship, and the suggestion of the serpent in Eden points to man himself:
"ye shall be as Elohim (God as Creator)" (Gen. 3: 5). From that point on, until the
climax is reached in the worship of the Man of Sin, man has put himself first in all his
thoughts and schemes. Sometimes this has been distorted by the fact that man has made
himself gods in the likeness of "birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things"
(Rom. 1: 23), but such gods were `man-like' in their conduct, desires and the forms of
worship employed. As has been said "God made man in His own image, and ever since
man has made God in his own image".
But the thought of creature-worship is not yet exhausted. For in worshipping man,
and creating man-like gods, man has followed the injunction of Satan to be `like God'.
So that in worshipping himself and gods made in his own image, man has in reality
been worshipping Satan, and in submitting to Satan has based his whole way of life upon
the lie.
They `worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator'. While the A.V. is
correct in its thought here, the word for `more than' (para) is rather illuminating. It
signifies `alongside, leaving on one side'. It is not only those who `worship and serve the
creature more than the Creator'; but also those who do so alongside the Creator. God's
demands are total, and to seek to worship the creature (in whatever form) is in fact to
leave God on one side. This is made clear in the first two Commandments:
"I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me (before My face). Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt
not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God
. . . . ." (Exod. 20: 2-5).
"Thou shalt have no other gods before My face." The expression `before My face' or
before the Lord elsewhere has the significance of being in rebellion. Gen. 10: 9 speaking
of Nimrod says:
"He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the
mighty hunter before the Lord."