Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
The congregation of Israel in the desert knew that the sun was hot and bright. yet, God warns them not to worship the sun, or anything else in creation.
"I am a consuming fire," God iterates.
Is God jealous?
He says so, but we really do not know what that means because our human jealousy is petty, self-serving, and immature.
God's is unrelenting, honest, and persistent. God IS and does not back down from who and what God is. God does not share God's godness with anything in the material world.
Is God hot like fire?
It is a metaphor even as the reference of the face of God is a metaphor. God has no face and God is not a manifestation of the laws of physics.
But the metaphor is overshadowed by the reality. The reality is greater than the language used to convey that reality. And that is the point.
The point is that there is no substitute for God and trivialities like those associated with ancient idolatrous practices do not approach the magnitude of God.
Moses is telling people to take God seriously and to remember the covenant.
The covenant was the intervention of God, the holy, mighty, overwhelming, awesome, and consuming one into the affairs of humans. It was the outreach of a God who was Other into the community He was redeeming. It was God breaking through time and space to show the essence of His love to those who could only see the small glimpses of the fire that surrounded Him. It was grace shining through the wall of wrath. It was mercy breaking through the relentless tide of unbending truth.
Don't forget the covenant. It is your lifeline.
Be careful to remember the covenant; it is your point of contact.
Cling to the covenant that clings to you because it is your hope and redemption.
Our God is a holy God and a God who does not share His glory in any way that would diminish or define Him … but He desires to be known, experienced, and worshiped because, in those ways, He chooses to manifest His love and connect with us.
Moses warns the people, "For your own good, do not trivialize God."
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Since you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, take care and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves, in the form of any figure– the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.
And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven.But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron-smelter, out of Egypt, to become a people of his very own possession, as you are now.The LORD was angry with me because of you, and he vowed that I should not cross the Jordan and that I should not enter the good land that the LORD your God is giving for your possession. For I am going to die in this land without crossing over the Jordan, but you are going to cross over to take possession of that good land.
So be careful not to forget the covenant that the LORD your God made with you, and not to make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything that the LORD your God has forbidden you. For the LORD your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God. – Deuteronomy 4:15-24 (NRSV)
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