Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God.
Turn neither toward idols nor toward fashioning molten gods for yourselves, for the command rests on the Lord's own authority as God. The voice speaking in this chapter is Christ veiled in the pillar of cloud, setting forth the same high standard found in His New Testament teachings. The prohibition belongs to the call for the people to be holy because God is holy. In its setting it is joined to honoring father and mother and to keeping the Sabbaths. There it stands together with justice toward others, so that brethren are to be oppressed in no way and divine gifts are to be shared, with the gleanings of harvest field, orchard, and vineyard treated as the Lord's portion to relieve the needs of the poor and the stranger.
The holiness it requires is necessary in order to be accepted and approved by God. That holiness is not membership in a particular church but individual union with Christ as personal Saviour and growing up to the full stature of Christ. It means practicing godliness in every circumstance, not only toward one's own group but toward all who need mercy and relief. Responsibility is first learned as a blessing to members of one's own family and then to fellow men, by acting out love to neighbors as to self, by striving daily against selfishness and self-centeredness, and by cultivating the attributes of Jesus, which are the attributes of God. The lesson was given for the benefit of future generations, calling those who have received the great gift in Jesus to love one another as Christ has loved them.
Turn neither toward idols nor toward fashioning molten gods for yourselves, for the command rests on the Lord's own authority as God. The voice speaking in this chapter is Christ veiled in the pillar of cloud, setting forth the same high standard found in His New Testament teachings. The prohibition belongs to the call for the people to be holy because God is holy. In its setting it is joined to honoring father and mother and to keeping the Sabbaths. There it stands together with justice toward others, so that brethren are to be oppressed in no way and divine gifts are to be shared, with the gleanings of harvest field, orchard, and vineyard treated as the Lord's portion to relieve the needs of the poor and the stranger.
The holiness it requires is necessary in order to be accepted and approved by God. That holiness is not membership in a particular church but individual union with Christ as personal Saviour and growing up to the full stature of Christ. It means practicing godliness in every circumstance, not only toward one's own group but toward all who need mercy and relief. Responsibility is first learned as a blessing to members of one's own family and then to fellow men, by acting out love to neighbors as to self, by striving daily against selfishness and self-centeredness, and by cultivating the attributes of Jesus, which are the attributes of God. The lesson was given for the benefit of future generations, calling those who have received the great gift in Jesus to love one another as Christ has loved them.