BIBLE COMMENTATORS
John Wesley (1703-1791), the famous Christian commentator
on the Bible, showed the following. In Exodus 20:3, the first
commandment is concerning the object of our worship, Jehovah,
and Him only — “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The
Egyptians and other neighboring nations had many gods, creatures
of their own fancy. This law was pre-fixed because of that
transgression. Jehovah is the God of Israel. Because of this, they
must entirely cleave to him and no other, either of their own
invention or copied from their neighbors. The sin against this
commandment, which we are most in danger of, is giving that
glory to any creature that is due to God only. Pride makes a god
of ourselves; covetousness makes a god of money; and sensuality
makes a god of the belly. Whatever is loved, feared, delighted in,
or depended on more than God is what we make a god of. This
prohibition includes a precept that is the foundation of the whole
law — that we take the Lord for our God, accept Him, adore Him
with humble reverence, and set our affections entirely upon Him.
There is a reason intimated in the last words “before me”. It
intimates that we cannot have any other god; He will know it. It is
a sin that dares Him to His face, which He cannot, will not,
overlook or forgive.
The second commandment is concerning the ordinances of
worship or the way in which God will be worshipped, which is
fitting that He Himself should appoint. Here is the first
prohibition. We are forbidden to worship even the true God by
images. (This was removed from the Ten Commandments by the
pope of Rome during the rule of Emperor Numa Pompilious.)
Then the pope dropped the second commandment from the Bible,
and the third commandment was then called the second. The
fourth was then called the third, and the tenth commandment was
divided into two to keep the number the same. It is from Exodus
20:4,5. First, the Jews (at least after the captivity) thought
themselves forbidden by this to make any image or picture
whatsoever. It is certain it forbids making any image of God, for
to whom can we liken Him (Isa 40:18,25)? It also forbids us from
making images of God in our fancies, as if He were a man as we
are. Our religious worship must be governed by the power of faith,
not by the power of imagination. Secondly, the people must not
bow down to these images or show any sign of honor to them,
much less serve them by sacrifice or any other act of religious
worship.
“For I, the Lord Jehovah, thy God, am a jealous God,
especially in things of this nature.” This intimates the care He has
of His own institutions, His displeasure against idolaters, and His
resentment for everything in His worship that looks like or leads
to idolatry, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generations, severely punishing them.
Nor is it an unrighteous thing with God if the parents died in their
iniquity, and the children tread in their steps. When God comes,
by His judgments, He will reckon with them on the Day of
Judgment, to bring into the account the idolatries their fathers
were guilty of.
“Keeping mercy for thousands of persons, thousands of
generations, of them that love Me and keep My commandments.”
This intimates that the second commandment (which was
removed from the Catholic Bible by Emperor Numa), though in
the letter it is only a prohibition on false worship, includes a
precept of worshipping God in all those ordinances that He hath
instituted. As the first commandment requires the inward worship
of love, desire, joy, and hope, so there is this outward worship of
prayer, praise, and solemn attendance to His word. This mercy
shall extend to thousands, much further than the wrath threatened
to those who hate Him, for that reaches but to the third or fourth
generation.
The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible commentary (1803-
1897) contains the most highly regarded commentators, who have
excellent backgrounds in Christianity through education and
experience in teaching the Bible as professors of theology,
including ministers, reverends, and a director of the National Bible
Society. Their thoughts are also shared by the well known English
Presbyterian minister commentator Mathew Henry. They have all
agreed and provided proof from the Bible that God is only One:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me — in My presence,
beside, or except Me.”
The first four of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3-11),
commonly called the “first table,” describe our duty to God. It is
fitting that this should be first, because man had a Maker to love
before he had a neighbor to love. It cannot be expected that he
should be true to his brother, who is false to his God. The first
commandment concerns the object of worship, JEHOVAH, and
Him only. The worship of creatures is here forbidden. Whatever
comes short of perfect love, gratitude, reverence, or worship
breaks this commandment. The second commandment refers to
the worship we are to render to the Lord our God. It is forbidden
to make any image or picture of the Deity, in any form or for any
purpose, as it is forbidden to worship any creature, image, or
picture. But the spiritual import of this commandment extends
much further. All kinds of superstition are here forbidden, as is the
using of mere human inventions in the worship of God. The third
commandment concerns the manner of worship and that it must
be carried out with all possible reverence and seriousness. All
false oaths are forbidden. All light appealing to God and all
profane cursing are horrid breaches of this commandment. I must
now bring to the attention of the reader that almost the same
comments were made earlier by the commentator Wesley, who
lived from 1703-1791. And he never met Jamieson-Fausset-
Brown, who lived from 1803-1897.
The following are scriptural examples:
• Exodus 15:11: “Who among the gods is like you, O
LORD? Who is like you — majestic in holiness, awesome
in glory, working wonders?”
• Exodus 20:23: “Do not make any gods to be alongside
me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of
gold.”
• Exodus 32:8: “They have been quick to turn away from
what I commanded them and have made themselves an
idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to
it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods,
O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’”
• Exodus 34:14: “Do not worship any other god, for the
LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”
• Deuteronomy 5:7: “You shall have no other gods before
me.”
• Deuteronomy 6:14: “Do not follow other gods, the gods
of the peoples around you.”
• 2 Kings 17:35: “When the LORD made a covenant with
the Israelites, he commanded them: ‘Do not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them or sacrifice
to them.’”
• Psalms 81:9: “You shall have no foreign god among you;
you shall not bow down to an alien god.”
• Isaiah 42:8 “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not
give my glory to another or my praise to idols.”
• Jeremiah 7:9: “Will you steal and murder, commit
adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal ‘idol’ and
follow other gods you have not known.”
• Jeremiah 25:6: “Do not follow other gods to serve and
worship them; do not provoke me to anger with what your
hands have made. Then I will not harm you.”
• Jeremiah 35:15: “Again and again I sent all my servants,
the prophets, to you. They said, ‘Each of you must turn
from your wicked ways and reform your actions; do not
follow other gods to serve them. Then you will live in the
land I have given to you and your fathers.’ But you have
not paid attention or listened to me.”
• Hosea 13:4: “But I am the LORD your God, [who brought
you] out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me,
no Savior except me.”
Peak’s commentary (1865-1929, first published in 1919) on
the Bible is very incisive in its comments as well. It was written
by 61 contributors, who wrote 96 articles totaling 1,014 pages.
“The famous interpolation after ‘three witnesses’ is not printed
in Revised Standard Version and rightly [so]... No respectable Greek
[manuscript] contains it. Appearing first in a late 4th century Latin
text, it entered the Vulgate [the 5th-century Latin version, which
became the common medieval translation] and finally [the] NT
[New Testament] of Erasmus [who produced newly collated
Greek texts and a new Latin version in the 16th century]” (p.
1038).
The Big Book of Bible Difficulties tells us: “This verse has
virtually no support among the early Greek manuscripts... Its
appearance in late Greek manuscripts is based on the fact that
Erasmus was placed under ecclesiastical pressure to include it in
his Greek NT of 1522, having omitted it in his two earlier editions
of 1516 and 1519 because he could not find any Greek
manuscripts which contained it” (Norman Geisler and Thomas
Howe, 2008, p. 540-541).
Theology professors Anthony and Richard Hanson, in their
book Reasonable Belief: A Survey of the Christian Faith, explain
the unwarranted addition to the text this way: “It was added by
some enterprising person or persons in the ancient Church who
felt that the New Testament was sadly deficient in direct witness
to the kind of doctrine of the Trinity which he favored and who
determined to remedy that defect... It is a waste of time to attempt
to read Trinitarian doctrine directly off the pages of the New
Testament” (1980, p. 171).
Still, even the added wording does not by itself proclaim the
Trinity doctrine. The addition, illegitimate though it is, merely
presents the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit as witnesses.
This says nothing about the personhood of all three, since verse 7
shows inanimate water and blood serving as such. Also, the word
“trinity” did not come into common use as a religious term until
after the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., several centuries after the
last books of the New Testament were complete. It is not a biblical
concept.
