In addition to being a 16th century theologian, John Calvin was a prolific writer. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion he remarked that “the human heart is a perpetual forge of idols” (known better by the paraphrase “the human heart is an idol factory”). His point was that people cannot help themselves. They are prone to give credit where it is not due or, as Romans 1:25 puts it, “…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”
A dramatic account of idol worship is in the early chapters of Exodus. By way of the plagues, God exposed the false gods of the Egyptians while categorically triumphing over them with a specific set of judgments. The purpose of dismantling each idol was to undermine the Egyptian pharaoh’s claim to be the nation’s primary deity. The outward sign of pharaoh’s divine identity was a crown prominently displaying an upright cobra.
In addition to the plagues, God showed His people that He, and He only, was the Most High God by destroying pharaoh and his army and by bringing them safely through the Red Sea, a scene that’s unparalleled in all of the Old Testament. Consistently, God reminded Israel “I am the God that brought you out of the land of Egypt.”
While in the wilderness the Israelites sinned by asking Moses to take them back to Egypt, the land of idols. God responded by sending “fiery serpents among the people” so that many died (Num. 21:6). The irony that God sent snakes to kill them for wanting to subject themselves to the wicked, serpent-king doesn’t stop there. When the people cried to the Lord for help, He told Moses to erect a “bronze serpent and set it on a pole” (Num. 21:9) with the instruction for all who wanted to live to look up at it.
The “pole” on which the head of the bronze serpent was mounted could be described as a pike. In other words, when they looked up at it, they would be reminded that God utterly destroyed the serpent-king as one puts the head of a defeated enemy on an upright spear. It was a powerful reminder of how mighty God is and how defeated and dead His enemies were. Even then, later generations made an idol out of the symbol of God’s dominance over idols!
[King Hezekiah] removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan). (2 Kgs. 18:4)
Indeed, the human heart is an idol factory. Once sin entered the world, every man, woman and child was embedded with a propensity for idol worship. If you pull back the curtain, “self” is the real idol in every situation.
Some make an idol out of rule-following. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” (Mt. 23:23). And others make an idol out of liberty. “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God” (1 Pet. 2:16).
What appears to be opposites have the same result. Each says, “Look at me” instead of pointing to God. When you rely on (or reward yourself for) rule-following, you make it an idol. You take credit from God and assign it to yourself. When you take excessive satisfaction in Christian liberty (and judge others that aren’t as “spiritually mature”), you make it an idol. You take credit from God and assign it to yourself. One says, “I am better” and the other, “I know better.” Both are about “self.”
Be aware of your heart’s inclination to forge idols. Guard against the “bronze serpent treatment” of taking a good gift and transforming it into sin. Make a habit of asking yourself if you actions point to yourself or to God.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5)