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Does the first commandment prove there are other gods?

 Submitted: 10/28/2005
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Question: In the commandments where God says that you shall have no other gods except me, is this proof that there are other gods? Is this why god says he is a jealous god?
Answer: Exodus 20:2-3 begins the Ten Commandments by saying, 'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.'

Does this commandment prove the existance of other gods? Let's read more. Exodus 34:17 says, 'You shall make no molded gods for yourselves.' And Deuteronomy 4:28 says, 'And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.'

There is in reality only one true God, only one who really is God. Jeremiah 10:10 says, 'But the LORD is the true God;
He is the living God and the everlasting King.' All others are pretenders. They may be regarded as gods by some people, but they are actually only creations of man. This is why Paul refers to them this way in 1 Corinthians 8:4-6...

Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God....

What the first commandment is probiting is the worship of the so-called gods, the ones that some worship as gods but which are in reality false and lifeless. Paul explains why they are not to be worshiped when he writes in 1 Corinthians 10:19-22...

What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?

Paul said that there are so-called gods 'in heaven and on earth.' The ones on earth are the carved idols; the heavenly ones are demons. Yes, God is jealous for His people and does not want us bowing down to gods that are false and deceptive. He wants His people to live in truth.



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