In our educated society, I doubt anyone would place their faith in stone or precious metal idols. While we use these sculptures as symbols of our wealth and power, projecting our perceived superiority, we don’t believe these amulets are the real source of our freedom and riches. We certainly don’t seek their protection or pray to them for blessings.
But… the power of our intellect is not strong enough to reach the depths of our deep-seated pride. Human reason, no matter how ingenious and confident, lacks the capacity to heal our pride unless God’s grace of faith accompanies it and elevates it to the summit of the Lord’s Mountain (Isaiah 2.2), where He resides, the gravitational center of our desires and the fulfillment of our happiness.
This temple serves as the source of God’s light, His New Law. This light is vastly different from the traditional human understanding of law. In fact, the old human understanding of law can only establish order and issue commandments, treating them as the very foundations of our rights and freedom. However, it lacks the ability to protect us when someone chooses to disregard and reject these foundations, subjecting us to slavery. The old law’s wineskin is incapable of carrying the power of the New Law because it cannot fulfill the immense scope and perfection demanded by the New Law.
This reliance on commandments poses a grave danger because it’s not an external threat but a force within us that establishes a harsher form of slavery in our souls: it breeds pride. In this chamber, the destructive fire of jealousy burns alive, transforming our freewill into an idol (Isaiah 2.2b) and compelling us to worship it, enslaving us to its covenant against God.
We develop an exceptionally high opinion of ourselves, far surpassing our nature as beings incapable of giving ourselves life and breath. We fix our gaze solely on ourselves, concentrating all our attention on our own selves, and stand as an idol alongside other idols. We fail to comprehend the absurdity of such self-absorption. When the “light” of human reason is disconnected from its true source—God’s grace—it drifts off into the abyss of evil.
The New Law of God is not a collection of commandments. Instead, it is GRACE—God, the original model of our nature, communicating Himself to our reason. It is an invitation to repentance and the renewal of our being into its original nature, capable of loving our neighbor as we love God. This New Law of Our Heavenly Father sows us as good seeds in the land of His kingdom, inviting us to sprout and conquer darkness with the power of our Father’s light. Our roots firmly established in God’s own nature, so much so that nothing, not even death, life, angels, powers, or anything that exists or will come to exist, can sever us from the love of God given to us in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:38–39).
Only at that time will the Father harvest us as ripe fruits and store us in His abundant stores (Matthew 13:30).
