The Intolerant God of All Comfort Text: Exodus 22:20
Introduction: The Myth of Neutrality
We live in an age that has made an idol out of tolerance, and a god out of neutrality. The high priests of our secular religion tell us that the public square must be naked, stripped of all religious conviction. They preach a gospel of pluralism, which insists that every man may build his own altar to whatever god he pleases, whether that god is named Baal, or Mammon, or Demos, or Self. The one unforgivable sin in this new pantheon is the sin of exclusion, the audacity to claim that there is only one true God and that all other gods are frauds. To make such a claim is to be labeled an intolerant bigot, a dangerous fundamentalist, a theocratic boogeyman who wants to drag us all back to the dark ages.
But the myth of neutrality is just that, a myth. It is a shell game. Every society, every legal code, every civil order is inescapably religious. Every state is theonomic; the only question is, which theos? Which god's law will be the foundation? When a society rejects the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it does not become godless. It simply finds other gods to worship. It will worship the State, or the Market, or the Revolution, or the Autonomous Self. And these new gods are jealous gods. They have their own non-negotiable commandments, their own blasphemy laws, their own inquisitions, and their own sacrificial systems. Our culture is littered with the victims of these sacrifices.
Into this confused and chaotic marketplace of idols, the Word of God speaks with a clarity that is both terrifying and liberating. The law we consider today is a bucket of ice water thrown on the fevered dream of pluralism. It establishes a principle that is central to biblical faith and foundational for a sane society: worship is a capital crime. Not all worship, but the worship of any god other than the one true God. This is not some dusty, irrelevant artifact from an ancient legal code. This is a revelation of the character of God and the nature of reality. It is a declaration that the first commandment is not a friendly suggestion; it is the cornerstone of all civil and personal righteousness. To get God wrong is to get everything wrong.
The Text
"And he who sacrifices to any god, other than to Yahweh alone, shall be devoted to destruction."
(Exodus 22:20 LSB)
The Non-Negotiable Exclusive
The law is stark and absolute. It is not complicated. "He who sacrifices to any god, other than to Yahweh alone..." This is a direct application of the First Commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3). The word "before" means "in My presence" or "in My face." God will not tolerate rivals. He is not the chairman of a celestial committee. He is not the chief deity in a pantheon of lesser gods. He is God, and there is no other.
The act specified here is sacrifice. Why sacrifice? Because sacrifice is the pinnacle of worship. It is the public, tangible, costly act of acknowledging a deity's sovereignty and seeking its favor. In the ancient world, you could tell who a people's gods were by looking at their altars. Sacrifice is where theology hits the pavement. It is the formal, liturgical expression of allegiance. To sacrifice to another god was therefore an act of high treason against Yahweh, the covenant King of Israel.
This law demolishes the modern notion that religion is a private affair, a matter of personal conscience that has no bearing on the public order. The Bible knows nothing of this sacred/secular divide. All of life is religious. To whom you sacrifice determines how you will live, what laws you will make, and what kind of society you will build. A society that sacrifices to Moloch will burn its children. A society that sacrifices to Aphrodite will be consumed by sexual chaos. A society that sacrifices to Mammon will exploit the poor. And a society that sacrifices to the god of Self will disintegrate into anarchy. Public idolatry is not a victimless crime. It is social poison. God commanded Israel to treat it as such because He loved them and desired their flourishing.
Devoted to Destruction
The penalty for this treason is that the idolater "shall be devoted to destruction." The Hebrew word here is herem. This is a technical term with immense theological weight. It does not simply mean "to be executed." It means to be utterly devoted to God for destruction, to be removed from the sphere of common use and handed over to God's consuming holiness. An object or person under herem was beyond redemption. It was an accursed thing, a holy thing in a terrifying sense, set apart for God's judgment.
We see this principle most clearly in the conquest of Canaan. Cities like Jericho were placed under the ban. All the people and all the spoil were herem, devoted to the Lord (Joshua 6:17). When Achan took some of the devoted things for himself, he became herem and brought a curse upon all of Israel. The contagion of idolatry was so virulent that it had to be dealt with through this kind of radical, holy surgery.
Now, our modern sensibilities recoil at this. We hear this and think it barbaric. But this is because we have a thimble-sized view of God's holiness and a beach-ball-sized view of our own importance. We have forgotten that sin is cosmic rebellion. We have forgotten that idolatry is not just a mistaken opinion; it is spiritual adultery. It is an affront to the Creator of the universe. God is not a tame God. He is a consuming fire, and His jealousy for His own name is the foundation of all order and all goodness in the universe. To demand that God tolerate rivals is to demand that He cease to be God. A god who is tolerant of idolatry is an idol himself, fashioned by the hands of sentimental men.
This law was given to the civil magistrate in Israel. It was not a license for private vigilantism. It was a public standard for justice. And before we rush to dismiss this as something only for "that dispensation," we must ask ourselves what the underlying principle, the general equity, of this law is. The principle is that the civil magistrate has a duty to honor the one true God and to suppress public, overt idolatry. The magistrate is God's deacon (Romans 13:4), and he does not bear the sword in vain. His primary duty is to punish evil, and the root of all evil is the worship of false gods. A nation that formally and publicly thumbs its nose at the Almighty has no foundation for justice, law, or liberty.
The Ultimate Sacrifice
This law, like all the laws of God, is a schoolmaster that points us to Christ. It shows us the terrible gravity of our sin. For who among us is not an idolater? We may not bow down to statues of wood and stone, but our hearts are idol factories, as Calvin said. We erect altars to our careers, our comfort, our reputation, our political ideologies, our children, and our own righteousness. We have all sacrificed to other gods. We have all committed high treason against the King of heaven. And therefore, we all stand under the sentence of herem. We are all, by nature, devoted to destruction.
The broad way leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13). The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). We are vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction (Romans 9:22). That is our natural state. That is what we deserve.
But this is where the glorious, scandalous news of the gospel crashes in. The central claim of Christianity is that God, in His infinite mercy, provided a substitute. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, came and stood in our place. He took our treason upon Himself. On the cross, He was made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). He was made herem. He was devoted to destruction in our stead. The full, unmitigated wrath of God against our idolatry was poured out upon Him. He absorbed the curse so that we, the traitors, could receive the blessing.
He was the ultimate and final sacrifice, offered to Yahweh alone. And because of His sacrifice, God can be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus. He does not compromise His holiness. The penalty is paid. The law is satisfied. The traitor is pardoned, adopted, and made a son. This is grace that is truly amazing.
Conclusion: No Other Name
So what does this mean for us? First, it means we must take idolatry with deadly seriousness, starting with our own hearts. We must, by the power of the Spirit, tear down the idols we have erected there. We must repent of our divided allegiances and worship Yahweh alone, in spirit and in truth.
Second, it means that the Church must be a zone of absolute loyalty to Christ the King. We cannot make peace with the idols of the age. We must not bend the knee to the spirit of pluralism. We must preach with loving and bold intolerance that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that there is salvation in no other name. We must declare that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
And third, this gives us a vision for our public life. We do not seek to impose a top-down, coercive theocracy by political manipulation. That is not how the kingdom comes. The kingdom comes as the gospel goes forth, changing hearts. But as hearts are changed, cultures are changed. And as cultures are changed, laws are changed. We labor and pray for the day when the nations of the earth will bring their glory into the New Jerusalem, when kings will be nursing fathers to the church, and when our laws will once again reflect the foundational truth that Yahweh alone is God. This is not a retreat into a pietistic ghetto. This is a postmillennial confidence in the victory of the gospel. Christ has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. He is putting all His enemies under His feet. And one day, all the false gods will be thrown down, and He alone will be exalted. Until that day, our task is clear: sacrifice your life in grateful service to Him, and to Him alone, who was devoted to destruction for you.