What Am I Listening To?

In order to immerse myself more in the Scriptures, I have just started using Crossway’s Hear the Word ESV Audio Bible. I have synced my listening up with the daily texts from the Treasury of Daily Prayer, and todays Old Testament text is Jeremiah 3:6-4:2. As I was listening to the narrator and grading homework, I was struck by the harsh language which the Scriptures use in order to describe idolatry. While I have read this text multiple times beforehand, God charges the Israelites with whoredom; he likens their idolatry to promiscuity so that we can see the severity and perverseness of idolatry.

Sexual immorality is considered a vile sin amongst men. While in our perverseness, we might be willing to take advantage of sexual immorality or temporary weaknesses of another, no one wishes to be considered that one guy or girl whom everyone knows is “easy,” and while we may be willing to take advantage of the failing of another, no one respects that person whom they take advantage of. The human heart may rejoice in despoiling someone, but it recoils and despises the women or man whom it despoils, for it recognizes the vileness of whorishness in another.

That the LORD would equate idolatry with whorishness reflects his severe displeasure with idolatry, and it ought to make all men pause in order to reflect upon their own idolatrous hearts. We ought to ask ourselves whether we value anything above the LORD and his word; do we look to anything aside from the LORD and his word for comfort and assurance in times of trouble; do we trust anything above the LORD? The inevitable answer to these questions is yes, to all of them. We daily despise the LORD and become idolaters, spiritual whores, by valuing and trusting a whole slew of things and people before him. This revelation ought to make us quake.

But thankfully in Jeremiah and in his word as a whole, the LORD does not end there. He freely offers to forgive the idolater and receive him or her as a dearly beloved child if they should confess the grievousness of their sin and receive His forgiveness. He has provided this forgiveness through the means of His Son, Jesus Christ. He freely gives his Son as a substitute in our place in order to justify us through the work of his son. Jesus bears the scorn of being an idolater and the resulting punishment for this sin, and Jesus’s perfect righteousness is accounted to us. He, who was without sin, is reckoned an idolater and sinner, and we, who are without righteousness, are reckoned a saint and God’s dearly beloved child. And He gives us this gift through the means of faith, which receives the promise of Christ’s righteousness; moreover, this faith is itself a gift; it is a gift which is given and sustained through the means of God’s Word and the sacraments.

“We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (English Standard Version. 2001 (2 Co 5:20–21))

Lex semper accusat et Christus solus salvat.