Is Worshiping Jesus Idolatry?

January 29 2021 - 16 Shevat 5781

The Prohibition of Idolatry in the Ten Commandments

The information that God gave us about Him was designed to teach us how to relate to Him correctly. Take a careful look at Shemos (Exodus) 20:4-5: "You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the heavens above, which is on the earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth. You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them."

Let me ask a question: does this mean that if I wanted to worship an element of nature, that would I be permitted to? The verse only prohibits me from making a graven image, but I did not make trees, for example, so perhaps this verse permits me to worship trees. Do we stick to a tight and literal reading of God's instructions, or do we try to use them to see things from His perspective, in-as-much as that is possible?

The same can be applied to human beings, who "are on the earth below." The clear reason for this prohibition is that God cannot be fathomed, and associating God with his creation is seen by God Himself as the very worst thing that a human being can do. I don't resolve the conflict by saying that God decided to take on the form of a man, because it violates the end goal of this prohibition.

Putting Words in God's Mouth

It is possible that people had put words in God's mouth by writing texts in which God became a man.

Perhaps this is what Devarim (Deuteronomy) 13 and 18 are alluding to:

Devarim 13:1-4:

Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you happens, [and he] says, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them," you shall not heed the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream; for the Lord, your God, is testing you, to know whether you really love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.

Devarim 18:20-22:

But the prophet who intentionally speaks a word in My name, which I did not command him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. Now if you say to yourself, "How will we know the word that the Lord did not speak?" If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not occur and does not come about, that is the thing the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it wantonly; you shall not be afraid of him.

Christians Reject Idolatry

The interesting thing about this is all is that Christians understand what idolatry is. According to the What Christians Want To Know website, an "idol is anything that gets between us and God, and it is whatever we worship more than God or instead of God." Christians offer this correct definition of idolatry without realizing that this is exactly what they are doing with Jesus! They resolve the contradiction by saying that Jesus is God, but when they look at him they see a human being with a human face and a human figure. This prevents them from understanding the full glory of God because they begin to identify and empathize with God as a human being with human experiences (see Point 2 in Why Do Jews Reject the Trinity?). They have committed idolatry in their hearts and minds by limiting God to the experiences of a human being. They turn to Christian Scripture to support their view, such as Philippians 2:5-8:

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Whatever perceived benefits the Trinity offers people by bringing God (literally) closer to them, it sacrifices in understanding His true nature, which in turn has the adverse effect of distancing them from Him. To use a metaphor, it seems to bring Him an inch closer while pushing Him a mile away.

Conclusion

What is most interesting, and quite scary, is that Christians place a greater emphasis on their relationship with "the Son" than with "the Father." The central focal point of their relationship with God is experienced through Jesus and not through "the Father." This indicates that they have resigned "the Father" a lofty, remote, and inaccessible state and rely on the Son to get them there. While the standard formulation of the Trinity explains that the Persons in the Godhead are equal to each other, it clearly seems that "the Father" is assigned a superior position to "the Son" in that He is distant, and can only be reached through a medium. If the Son had not become flesh, would he too have been too distant to reach? (see Point 1 in Why Do Jews Reject the Trinity?)

The point is that there are many different ways to do something wrong, and there are only a few ways to do something right, and praying to a figure of a human being is wrong.