Now we come to the breaking of the law (32:1-20). Why is it that we human beings cannot keep the law, but break it instead? The answer to this question involves an important principle. The principle here is that we break the law because we have idols. Everyone has his own idol. There is no need for us deliberately to try to break the law of God. As long as we have an idol, the first three commandments of the law are already broken. The first three commandments are related to not having any other god, not making images, and not using the Lord’s name in vain. These commandments are all related to God. The fourth commandment concerns the Sabbath, and the last six commandments involve our relationships with others. The first three commandments are broken by everyone who has an idol.
We cannot keep the law because we have idols. If we have God and allow no idols to replace Him, the very God whom we enjoy will become to us the ability to keep His commandments. As a result, we shall keep the law of God.
This principle is seen in John’s writings. Both in the Gospel of John and in the first Epistle of John we are charged to keep the commandments. We are able to fulfill this charge because, according to the New Testament, we have the Lord within us as our enjoyment. Not only is the indwelling Christ who becomes our enjoyment the strength to keep the law, but the enjoyment of Christ is itself the keeping of the law. This means that the indwelling Christ becoming our enjoyment is actually the keeping of the commandments. There is no need for us to try in ourselves to keep the commandments. Our enjoyment of the indwelling Christ spontaneously becomes the keeping of the commandments.
Why are human beings not able to keep the law? People cannot keep the law because they have idols that replace God. But as we have pointed out, if we have God and do not allow idols to replace Him, the God we have and enjoy will be the strength to keep the law. In fact, God Himself as our enjoyment is the real keeping of the law. If we have God in us as our enjoyment, we would never have another god, we would never make an image, and we would not take God’s name in vain. We would rest with God, and we would honor our parents. Furthermore, we would not murder, commit fornication, steal, lie, or bear false witness. And we would not be greedy, covetous. We would keep all the commandments of the law, and this keeping of the law would actually be the experience of the indwelling God becoming our enjoyment. This is the first principle we see in the account in Exodus 32 of the breaking of the law.
In the New Testament we see that the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes were all law-breakers. They broke the law because they were filled with idols. But the disciples of the Lord Jesus could keep the commandments because the Lord had become their enjoyment. Eventually, the disciples, including Peter, John, and James, were filled with the Lord Jesus, and He became their enjoyment. As a result, spontaneously they became keepers of the commandments.
Before the children of Israel received the law, they had already broken it. They broke it through having an idol. They did not have the intention to break the law. They broke the law simply by the fact of having an idol. Therefore, the first principle here is that the law of God is broken whenever people have idols.
Another principle implied in this portion of Exodus concerns what an idol is, or what is the principle of an idol. We see this principle in 32:1-3: “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves unto Aaron, and they said to him: Rise, make for us a god who shall go before us; for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what has become of him. And Aaron said to them, Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. And all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he took the gold from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it into a golden calf.”
Here we see the kind of material that was used to make the idol. An idol, of course, must be made with something material. The material used in making the golden calf in Exodus 32 was the gold of the earrings belonging to the wives, sons, and daughters of the children of Israel. It may be that the only ones without golden earrings were the elderly men. The old men were an exception because they do not care for beautification. I can testify that, as an elderly man, I have no interest in beautifying myself. However, it is common for young men and women and also for older women to beautify themselves. Therefore, in Exodus 32 the gold rings were taken from the ears of the wives, the sons, and the daughters and used to make the idol, the golden calf.
People put on earrings in order to beautify themselves. Today’s culture promotes self-beautification. Men and women spend a great deal of money on items used to beautify themselves.
Self-beautification leads to idolatry. This is the reason the Lord in 33:5 and 6 gave the children of Israel a commandment related to ornaments: “Now Jehovah had said to Moses, Say to the sons of Israel, You stiff-necked people! If I should go up in the midst of you for one moment, I would consume you! And now, put off your ornaments from you, that I may know what I shall do to you. And the sons of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward.” The Lord issued this commandment concerning ornaments because, as the record of chapter thirty-two makes clear, self-beautification leads to idolatry.
Before the children of Israel made the idol of the golden calf, idols were already present among them in a different form, in the form of self-beautification. The wives, the sons, and the daughters of the children of Israel wore gold rings in their ears for the purpose of self-beautification. Here we see the principle that self-beautification is the preliminary form of an idol. Before the gold became the calf, it already existed in the idolatrous form of self-beautification. In the sight of God, self-beautification is an idol. This was the reason the Lord commanded the people in 33:5-6 not to have any ornaments. Those ornaments were preliminary idols. Before the people had the idol of the golden calf, they already had the preliminary idols hanging from their ears.
Now we should be able to see the principle of an idol. The principle of an idol is self-beautification. An idol, therefore, is the consummate expression of a person’s self-beautification.
In this country there are not many idol temples containing images or idols. However, with the people in this country there are idols of another kind—the idols of self-beautification. Self-beautification is popular, prevailing, and strong among the people in the United States. This means that for many Americans self-beautification is a form of idolatry. People in undeveloped countries do not have as much self-beautification, although they may have in their temples idols of wood or stone. Those who live in modern, scientific cultures, on the contrary, do not have that kind of idols. But they have the idols of self-beautification. The idols of self-beautification can be found almost everywhere—in homes, in offices, and in schools.
Do you know what many Americans are worshipping today? They are worshipping the idols of self-beautification. For example, before a young woman goes to work, she may spend a great deal of time beautifying herself. She may even spend more money on items for self-beautification than she does for food. My concern here is to point out the fact that self-beautification leads to idolatry. First the children of Israel wore golden earrings for self-beautification. Then these golden earrings were fashioned by Aaron into the idol of the golden calf.