Trading Down

Fundamental to idolatry in biblical terms is the idea of an exchange —swapping the true God for something else. Thus Jeremiah laments that ‘my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols’ (Jer. 2:11; cf. Ps. 106:20), and the apostle Paul comments that ‘they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator’ (Rom. 1:25; cf. v. 21). 

That idolatrous exchange can occur in various ways. Someone might exchange the true God for an alternative ‘deity’, such as the pagan god Baal who proved so tempting for God’s people in Old Testament times. Alternatively, someone might exchange the true God who genuinely blesses for something else supposed to bring blessing, such as sex or money (Eph. 5:5). Or the exchange may amount to modifying God’s character, airbrushing out attributes we deem problematic to make a more convenient God in our image. This last kind of idolatry is hardest to spot, because we can indulge in it while retaining Christian vocabulary. We continue to speak enthusiastically of ‘God’, and even about ‘Christ’ and ‘the gospel’ while all along we are operating with an imitation forged by our own sinful imaginations. When we suppress certain truths about God (e.g. his holy wrath against sin) or distort others (e.g. his love) to produce our own designer deity, then we are guilty of false faith, and are left with a ‘counterfeit God’.

Quoting from Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution by Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach.