Many of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments and may have been taught them in Sunday School. They seem simple enough for a child to understand—but wait! Often when I consider something “simple” or “over-familiar,” I miss a deeper meaning.
I had thought that way for a long time about the Second Commandment, which tells us not to create idols. It reads: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exodus 20:4).
Whenever I would read that Commandment, I’d think to myself: “Well, I’m pretty much OK on all that. I certainly don’t carve statues or worship them at an altar.” Then I’d remember some relationships where I have almost idolized the other person—I need to be careful about that! Sometimes I’d congratulate myself on not being overly attached to material possessions (Oops—except maybe just a couple!).
Then one day this question hit me: Who’s the “I” that may be creating these idols?
Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that there is only one “I, or Ego” (p. 588), and that is not a mortal me! The one Ego, God, is reflected by all through qualities such as intelligence, honesty, and order. So, couldn’t the claim of an individual “me” with a limited personal sense be a kind of idol? Mrs. Eddy writes, “The first idolatry was faith in matter” (Science and Health, p. 146).
In First Corinthians 8:4, we read, “We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one”—one God, one kingdom of God. I want my thoughts to be focused on that spiritual kingdom, not on an erroneous concept of myself as separate from God! As I thought about it, I realized that I could uphold the Second Commandment by rejecting any sense of a mortal, material “I” separate from the one I AM, God, and recognizing Him as the only creator. If we’re doing this consistently, aren’t we also striving to obey the First Commandment to have no other gods? And doesn’t this approach help keep us from taking God’s name in vain, the Third Commandment?
Man—the real, spiritual man—is the loved image and likeness of God—God’s expression. Let’s work to “put off the old man with his deeds” (Colossians 3:9)—in other words, to put aside a sense of ourselves as mortal, and to know the original, spiritual man, free from creating or believing in idols of any kind!
