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no other gods

“You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (19:4-6)

 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” (20:2-3)

 Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck reflects on the totality of God’s claim upon us:

 Religion is not limited to one single human faculty but embraces the human being as a whole. The relation to God is total and central.  We must love God with all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength. Precisely because God is God he claims us totally, in soul and body, with all our capacities and in all our relations…

 There can be no true service of God without true knowledge… But that knowledge of God penetrates the heart and arouses there an assortment of affections, of fear and hope, sadness and joy, guilt feelings and forgiveness, misery and redemption, as these are pictured to us throughout Scripture but especially in the Psalms. And through the heart it in turn affects the will: faith is manifest in works, in love…

 Head, heart, and hand are all equally — though each in its own way– claimed by religion; it takes the whole person, soul and body, into its service.

 ~ Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 1:268.

 Illustration above: “Har Sinai" by Yoram Raanan .
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