The portrait is of the Rev. Dr. John Gill.
Please enjoy “The Gospel” from the pen of the Rev. Dr. John Gill. Noted Baptist English Theologian of a bygone era. This is offered by The Duke Consulting Group located at https://www.invertedchristian.com/ Stop by and check us out! We are praying God’s Word will not return void but does accomplish as He wills it to do!
Exodus 20:3
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me"[1]
This is the first command, and is opposed to the polytheism of the Gentiles, the Egyptians, from whom Israel was just come, and whose gods some of them might have had a favorable opinion of and liking to, and had committed idolatry with; and the Canaanites, into whose land they were going;
and to prevent their joining with them in the worship of other gods, this law was given, as well as to be of standing us to them in all generations; for there is but one only living and true God, the former and maker of all things, who only is to be had, owned, acknowledged, served, and worshiped as such; all others have only the name, and are not by nature gods; they are other gods than the true God is;
they are not real, but fictitious deities; they are other or strange gods to the worshipers of them, that cry unto them, for they do not answer them, as Jarchi observes: and now for Israel, who knew the true God, who had appeared unto them, and made himself known to them by his name Jehovah, both by his word and works, whom he had espoused to himself as a choice virgin, to commit idolatry, which is spiritual adultery with other gods, with strange gods, that are no gods, and this before God, in the presence of him, who had took them by the hand when he brought them out of Egypt, and had been a husband to them, must be shocking impiety, monstrous ingratitude, and extremely displeasing to God, and resented by him; and is, as many observe, as if a woman should commit adultery in the presence of her husband, and so the phrase may denote the audaciousness of the action, as well as the wickedness of it; though, as Ben Melech from others observes,
if it was done in secret it would be before the Lord, who is the omniscient God, and nothing can be hid from him: . . . [T]he Septuagint version is, “besides me” no other were to be worshiped with him; God will have no rivals and competitors; though he was worshiped, yet if others were worshiped with him, if others were set before him and worshiped along with him, or it was pretended he was worshiped in them, and even he with a superior and they with an inferior kind of worship; yet this was what he could by no means admit of: the phrase may be rendered “against me”; other gods opposition to him, against his will, contrary to obedience due to him and his precepts: this law, though it supposes and strongly inculcates the unity of the divine Being, the only object of religious adoration,
yet does not oppose the doctrine of the trinity of persons in the Godhead; nor is that any contradiction to it, since though the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, there are not three Gods, but three Persons, and these three are one God, 1 John 5:7.
Think about whom or what you worship?
[1] John Gill, “Exodus 20:3,” John Gill’s Exposition of the Old & New Testament, Vol. I (London: Mathews & Leigh, 1809; reprint, Paris, AR.: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 427-428 (page citations are to the reprint edition).
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