When Worship In the Name of God Becomes Idolatrous – Part 2

Luther:  IDOLATRY AMONG CHRISTIANS

From this it follows that among us Christians all those people are idolatrous—and to them the prophets’ denunciations are truly applicable—who have invented or are following new ways of worshiping God, without his commission or command, simply out of their own pious inclination and, as they say, good intentions.

“Of course,” they say, “with their worship the children of Israel served idols, and not the true God; but in our churches we serve the true God and the one Lord Jesus Christ. For we have nothing to do with idols.” I answer: That is what the children of Israel said too. They all declared that their entire worship was devoted to the true God. They certainly would not allow anyone to call it the worshiping of idols any more than our clergy would allow it. On this account they killed and persecuted all the true prophets. For they too would truly have nothing to do with idols, as the histories tell us.

For thus we read in Judges 17[:2–3] that the mother of Micah, when he had taken from her the eleven hundred pieces of silver and again returned them, said to him, “Blessed be my son by the Lord. I vowed this silver to the Lord, that my son should take the silver and have a graven image and a molten image made of it,” etc. Here one learns clearly and certainly that the mother is thinking of the true God, to whom she has vowed the silver, to have a graven image and a molten image made of it. For she does not say, “I have vowed this silver to an idol,” but to the “Lord,” a word which is known among all the Jews to mean the one true God.86. Nevertheless ... it is all sheer idolatry.

Again how strange was the fall of that wondrous man Gideon, in Judges 8[:22–27]. To the children of Israel who desired that he and his children should rule over them he said, “I will not rule over you, and my children will not rule over you; but the Lord (that is, the true God88) will rule over you.” Yet in that selfsame moment he took the jewels that they gave him and made of them, not a graven image or an altar, but only a priest’s garment.89 His piety also inclined him to want a form of divine worship and service right in his own city. Nevertheless the Scripture says that thereby all Israel committed harlotry, and the house of Gideon went down to destruction because of it. Now this great and holy man was not thinking of any idol, but of the one true God, as his words—so rich in spirit—testify, when he says, “The Lord will rule over you, not I.” By these words he plainly gives honor to God alone and confesses the only true God and will have him alone held as God and Lord.

So, too, we heard above, that King Jeroboam in I Kings 12[:28] does not call his golden calves idols either. He calls them rather the God of Israel, who had brought them up out of Egypt. This is of course the one true God, for no idol had brought them up out of Egypt. Nor was it his intention to worship idols. Rather, because he feared (as the text says [I Kings 12:26–27]) that the people would fall away from him to the king of Judah if they were to engage in worship of God only at Jerusalem, he simply invented a worship service of his own in order to hold the people to himself. Yet by it he intended worship of the true God who dwelt at Jerusalem, except that it would not be necessary to worship God only at Jerusalem.

Why expend many words on it? God himself confesses that with their worship the children of Israel had in mind no idol, but him alone. He says so in Hosea 2[:16–17], “In that day, says the Lord, you will call me ‘My husband’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more.” Here one must confess that it is true: with their worship the children of Israel had in mind no idol, but the one true God, as God plainly says here in Hosea, “You will no longer call me ‘My Baal.’ ” Now among the people of Israel, Baal-worship was the greatest, commonest, and most glorious form of worship; yet it was utter idolatry, despite the fact that by it they intended to worship the true God.

Therefore it does not help our clergy at all to allege that in their churches and chapters they serve no idol, but only God, the true Lord. For here you learn that it is not enough to say or think, “I am doing it to God’s glory; I have in mind the true God; I mean to be worshiping and serving the only God.” All idolaters say and intend the very same thing. The thinking and intending is not what counts, otherwise those who martyred the apostles and the Christians would also have been God’s servants. For they too thought that they were offering a service to God, as Christ says in John 16[:2]; and St. Paul in Romans 10[:2] bears witness to the Jews that they have a zeal for God, and adds in Acts 26[:7] that with their worship night and day they hope to attain to the promised salvation.

On the contrary let everyone see to it that he is certain his worship and service of God has been instituted by God’s word, and not invented by his own pious notions or good intentions. Whoever engages in a form of worship to which God has not borne witness ought to know that he is serving not the true God but an idol that he has concocted for himself. That is to say, he is serving his own notions and false ideas, and thereby the devil himself; and the words of all the prophets are against him. For the God who would have us establish worship and service of him according to our own choice and inclination—without his commission and word—does not exist.

There is only one God, he who through his word has abundantly established and commissioned all the various stations of life and the forms of worship and service in which it is his will to be served. We should abide by this and not turn aside from it either to the right or to the left,90 doing neither more nor less, making it neither worse nor better. Otherwise there will be no end of idolatry, and it will be impossible to distinguish between true worship and idolatry, since all have the true God in mind, and all use his true Name. To this one and only God be thanks and praise, through Jesus Christ, his Son, our Lord blessed forever. Amen.

Martin Luther, Vol. 35: Luther's works, vol. 35 : Word and Sacrament I (35:268).