The first commandment: no other gods
The first commandment requires us to know and acknowledge God as the only true God and our God, and to worship and glorify him accordingly; it forbids denying him, failing to glorify him, and giving his glory to anything else. It is a life lived before the face of the God who sees all things.
This week's questions
Which is the first commandment? The first commandment is, Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Question 45
What is required in the first commandment? The first commandment requireth us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly.
Question 46
What is forbidden in the first commandment? The first commandment forbiddeth the denying, or not worshipping and glorifying the true God as God, and our God; and the giving of that worship and glory to any other, which is due to him alone.
Question 47
What are we specially taught by these words, 'before me', in the first commandment? These words, before me, in the first commandment teach us, that God, who seeth all things, taketh notice of, and is much displeased with, the sin of having any other God.
Question 48
The first commandment comes straight after the preface we heard last week, the words of the God who brought his people out. From here on, every commandment brings two questions: what does it require, and what does it forbid? The first names the One we worship; the second, next week, the way we are to worship him.
To know, acknowledge, worship and glorify
Question 46 has four verbs, and the last returns to Question 1. First, to know: David charged his son, "As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind" (1 Chronicles 28:9). Then to acknowledge: renewing the covenant, Israel declared that the LORD was their God (Deuteronomy 26:17). It is not enough to grant that a true God exists; the answer says ‘and our God’. Then to worship and glorify him, as Jesus answered the tempter in the wilderness:
“Away from Me, Satan!” Jesus told him. “For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”
Matthew 4:10
Denying, forgetting, and giving his glory away
Question 47 names three sins. The first is denial, like the fool of the first proof text who says in his heart that there is no God (Psalm 14:1). The second is knowing God and yet not glorifying him as God or giving him thanks (Romans 1:21). This sin lives among believers too: to say we believe in God while making our plans and living our days without him. In another proof text God calls, "Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it" (Psalm 81:10), but his people would not listen (Psalm 81:11). The third is giving to something else the glory that is his alone:
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.
Romans 1:25
Idols are not only made of wood and stone. Ezekiel speaks of men who "have set up idols in their hearts" (Ezekiel 14:3), and Paul calls greed idolatry (Colossians 3:5). The Heidelberg Catechism defines idolatry: "instead of the one true God who has revealed himself in his Word, or along with the same, to conceive or have something else on which to place our trust" Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 95. Luther's Small Catechism explains the commandment in one line: "We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things" Small Catechism, First Commandment; and in his Large Catechism Luther says that whatever we set our heart on and trust in is, in truth, our god Luther, Large Catechism. Money, success, others' approval, and, in Korea as elsewhere, fortune-telling can all become what the heart leans on; the Larger Catechism lists among the sins forbidden here "ascribing the praise of any good we either are, have, or can do, to fortune" Larger Catechism, Q. 105. On living among other faiths see Before Korea's religions and culture, and on ancestral rites, Can Christians take part in ancestral rites (jesa)?
All the churches confess that God alone is to be worshipped. The same answer also forbids "praying, or giving any religious worship, to saints, angels, or any other creatures". Catholic and Orthodox Christians distinguish the worship due to God alone from the honour they give the saints; of icons, too, the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 ruled that they may be honoured but not given the true worship that belongs to the divine nature alone Second Council of Nicaea. Both ask the saints' prayers; the Catholic Catechism teaches that the saints pray for us through Christ Catechism, 956. Lutherans honour the saints' memory as examples of faith, but do not call upon them Augsburg Confession, Art. 21.
Before his face
‘Before me’ is in Hebrew ‘before my face’ (), as the Larger Catechism also explains Larger Catechism, Q. 106. Ezekiel was shown an idol standing at the north entrance of the Altar Gate (Ezekiel 8:5): in God's own house, right before him. The psalmist knows that God would discover any turning to a foreign god, "since He knows the secrets of the heart" (Psalm 44:21). Yet this gaze is not a watchman's. It is the gaze of the One who has searched and known us and whose hand holds us fast wherever we go (Psalm 139:1-12). The Larger Catechism adds that these words persuade us to do whatever we do in God's service as in his sight. See also Who is God? and Why Christianity and not another religion?
To ponder this week
What am I counting on this week, besides God, to hold me up? It is asked not to condemn you but to turn you back to him. When a worry rises, ask what it fears to lose, and tell God about that very thing. The One who brought you out is more to be trusted than anything you could hold.
Practice
- Practice 1 of 6
According to Question 46, what does the first commandment require?
- Practice 2 of 6
What does Question 47 say the first commandment forbids?
- Practice 3 of 6
How does Question 95 of the Heidelberg Catechism define idolatry?
- Practice 4 of 6
Which proof text of Question 48 teaches that God sees the sin of having any other god?
- Practice 5 of 6
Which of these does the Larger Catechism's Question 105 list among the sins forbidden in the first commandment?
- Practice 6 of 6
How does Luther's Small Catechism explain the first commandment?
Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.
Related topics
Source
- Martin Luther, Large Catechism 1529 — Spring 1529. Luther's fuller catechism for pastors and heads of households, drawn from his catechism sermons of 1528 in Wittenberg: the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, baptism and the Supper, opening out the Small Catechism's short answers. It numbers the commandments in the Lutheran way, so that the Reformed fourth is its third and the Reformed fifth its fourth. On the first commandment it teaches that whatever a heart sets itself on and trusts in is its god.
- Second Council of Nicaea, Definition on the Holy Images 787 — Defined that icons may be venerated while worship belongs to God alone; received by the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Its definition allows images of Christ, of the Mother of God, of the angels and of all the saints to be set up and honoured, but not given the true worship (latreia) that belongs to the divine nature alone; for the honour given to an image passes to its prototype, and whoever venerates the image venerates the one it shows.
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church 956 — 1992. On the saints' prayers for us: the saints in heaven, being near to Christ, go on praying to the Father on our behalf, and they pray through Christ, the only mediator.
Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds, the Westminster Shorter Catechism and the Reformed confessions, the Fathers and classic commentary. They teach the Catechism as the Reformed churches' own, a week at a time, and present both sides where the Reformed differ, and other traditions' views, fairly. Scripture quotations: BSB.