Reality and Idols

“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” --Psalm 115:3-8

A statue. It looks like a human; it is given the features of a personal being and it is made in our fashion. It has eyes and ears and mouth; it has the illusion of motion and facial expression. The best sculptures look alert and expressive, as if they were really alive--but it's all a facade. The carefully crafted cheek bones have never smiled and their eyes receive no light--the statue is dead and cold inside, human expression decorates a rock. 

When it comes to the meaning of life, humans believe a lot of lies. First, they think that they are very much alive. This is rarely ever questioned outside of philosophy or deep depression. Second, they believe that their five senses are the means to experience life--the scientific method and proofs through data and evidence-- thirdly, they believe that their senses were designed to serve themselves: I have taste receptors so I can detect poison, I have eyes so that I can see my prey, my sense of hearing allows me to listen for predators, and so on.

 If some don't think quite that much, they at least use their faculties in that way: I am hungry so I eat. I see what I want so I will take it. I think a thought, so I will speak. They use their senses to accomplish their ends. This leads to people justifying all types of evil because they saw, heard, felt, smelled, tasted, something that they desired--and they never question these appetites. 

"Food for the stomach and the stomach for food" --do we ever consider that our bodies were made for something more? 

Now even if we humans do belive that there is something more, that there may possibly be a "spiritual realm", we rarely think of it as interfering with the senses. It is the oil that floats on top of the water and cannot mix, so to speak. Isn't whatever's "up there" spirit? 

And then we start to believe that it is somehow less real. It is the translucent but we are solid. We have life and food and forests and mountainsides and rivers, and heaven has only clouds and halos, and it's hard to ever break free from the mentality that we are more alive.

But this passage says something radically different about the senses and challenges each of the lies we are prone to believe. First, Life is defined by what we worship. It is not something that everyone shares in. "Their idols are silver and gold...those who make them will be like them." We turn into the things we worship. If we praise a dead thing, we will become a dead thing. Just like an idol, we will have eyes and ears and mouths, but they are useless to us--they do not work the way they were indended.

This is how Jesus could say that the Jews "had ears but cannot hear and eyes but cannot see." Just like a statue, these people had the faculties, and yet they were of no value. They were useless. 

Then biblically speaking, what is hearing and and seeing? How is one to know if he really sees and hears? 

The second lie is perhaps a lie because it is a truth that has been chopped in half. Humans Do experience something true about life through their senses. But it works the other way around as well: Humans experience their senses only when they are alive. A dead man has no feeling or eyesight; he cannot without life. So then, regardless of our eyes and nose and mouth, they are useless if we are dead. But if we live, our senses serve their purpose. And if we live according to whom we serve, then we live when we praise the Living God. And then our senses reach their full potential!

This approaches the third truth: our senses were not intended for our own ends, but they were designed to serve God, and anything less is a misuse of what he gave, a waste of design. Are not eyes to seek His face? Are not the ears to listen to His voice? Are not the feet meant to share his gospel? And of course: "Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who puts his trust in Him." 

We humans look and listen and talk and walk around, assuming that we are fully alive (and yet how many of us acually feel that?)--do we ever consider that we were made for more than preserving ourselves until we cant? When we use our senses to glorify God--when we look at nature through the eyes of a thankful creature or listen to God's word with humility, we use what God gave us to its fullest extent. As we worship the Life we become more alive too. Our eyes and noses and mouths are no longer decoration but they are an instrument of God's glory. 

"Do not offer the parts of your body in wickedness but offer yourselves to God, as those who have passed from death to life, and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of holiness."

And that life was made fully manifest in Jesus Christ. Christ is who our eyes have seen and our hands have touched--who was real and physical and alive--who entered into our life to show us what true life really means. 

Because aren't humans just the image? Arent wenjust  the artwork, the statue, the creation? God was not made in the image of man, or fashioned from the human hand, as idols are. But in fact, God fashioned us in his hand, and we are in his likeness. 

"God created man in His own image,
In the image of God He created him; 
male and female He created them." 

What does this mean, to be created in the image of God? It means that the life we have is a mere microcosm of the fullness of life that is God. 

"Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man." We are not the makers, but the made. We are not the fullest reality. We are a mere statue of the Life that created us. We are the thought, we are the representation, we are the mirror. What we do of idols, God did of us. And yet his life is of a different magnitude, because his creation has a life in itself.  It has God's own "breath". The artwork of man crumbles and degenerates. The creations that God made can themselves recreate—they can sustain the life that God infused them with. God's life is so rich, so full and so complete, that even his artwork proliferates itself. And in Christ, the created can enjoy the same degree of life and realness as the Creator. 

Idols are fake because they have no life in them. The God that lives is the real God. He fulfills his promises and displays his power in creation, but idols have nothing in themselves--they are fake. Those who worship idols become like them. But when we worship God, we become real in the sense that Pinocchio became "a real boy" in the end. We live, as we were intended. The spiritual realm rushes into the physical, death is swallowed up by life. God is reality and he brings us fully into that when we believe in him. This is the "new life", the "born again." 

“You who fear the LORD, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield.”