Christian bloggers beware! Could you be guilty of the same First Commandment violation as were the constitutional framers? You are if you allow commenters on your blog to promote or justify non-Christian religions (such as Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism), including atheism and cults (such as Catholicism, Mormonism, and the Jehovah Witnesses).
For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house [or onto your blog], neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. (1 John 1:7-11)
There is only one true God and, therefore, only one standard for good and evil. “To have none other gods, means to have no other law than God’s law….”1 To allow those who post on your blog to promote lifestyles condemned by Yahweh’s2 law (such as homosexuality, women’s liberation, pro-choice, etc.) is another way by which the First Commandment is violated.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (Ephesians 5:11)
First Commandment Basics
I am Yahweh thy God…. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:2-3)
The word “before” in Exodus 20:3 (KJV) seems to imply an inclusion of other gods, indicating primacy but not exclusivity. However, the word is best understood to mean Yahweh will not tolerate other gods before His face. Consequently, the First Commandment is better understood, “thou shall have no other gods besides me”:
Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that Yahweh he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else. (Deuteronomy 4:39)
This claim to exclusivity puts Yahweh in conflict with any person, religion, or political system that acknowledges or serves other gods (Jeremiah 10:10-11). There is no other god but Yahweh—the self-existent, eternal, omnipotent Creator, the exclusive sovereign over His creation, answerable to no one. He is the source of life, all blessings, salvation, and the ultimate judge of those who refuse to recognize and honor Him as the Creator and only God. He is the same God who became poor that we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). By emptying Himself into “the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men … He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8, NASB).
First Commandment monotheism
Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God is one Yahweh: And thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, even Benjamin Franklin, who admitted he was not a Christian, urged his fellow framers to call upon the “God [who] governs in the affairs of man.”3 Although he did not refer to Yahweh by name, there is no doubt to which God he referred:
I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business.4
Shamefully, everyone “except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.”4 Not only did the majority of framers think soliciting God’s assistance unnecessary, they officially rejected Christian monotheism when they adopted Amendment 1’s freedom of religion provision, which protects and facilitates the open worship and proliferation of any and all gods in defiance to the First Commandment. Invariably, a nation follows where its government leads. In the aftermath of Amendment 1, America has become progressively less Christian. We have become the most polytheistic nation to ever exist, with the possible exception of the Roman Empire.
Political pluralism has consequences. It leads directly to polytheism: many moral law-orders; therefore, many gods. Polytheism (all gods are equal) leads to relativism (all moral codes are equal); relativism leads to humanism (man makes his own laws); and humanism leads to statism (the State best represents mankind as the pinnacle of power).5
Should Christians promote Amendment 1 and freedom of religion?
Christians have gotten so caught up in the battle over the misuse of the Establishment Clause – the freedom from religion – that they have overlooked the ungodliness intrinsic in the Free Exercise Clause – the freedom of religion.
Ironically, many Christians hang their religious hats on Amendment 1 as if some great Christian principle is found therein. In fact, it marked the beginning of America’s fall from an exclusive commitment to Yahweh and His law. Upon its adoption, America was transformed from what was predominately one united nation under God to a divided nation under many gods.
Part of the judgment for First Commandment violations is provided in Deuteronomy 13:
If there arise among you a prophet [or your brother, son, daughter, wife, friend, or neighbor, as per verses 16-18] … saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them … that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from Yahweh your God … to thrust thee out of the way which Yahweh thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. (Deuteronomy 13:1-5)
Yahweh does not tolerate the proliferation of other gods, such as found in the First Amendment’s provision for the freedom of religion. Exodus 23:13 admonishes us to not even “mention the name of other gods, neither let them be heard out of thy mouth.”
The First Amendment’s freedom of religion and speech may appear innocuous. But is it harmless to give sodomites, infanticide advocates, and Satanists the right to promote their wicked agendas? Is it harmless to provide a platform for non-Christians and even antichrists to promote their heresies?
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! (Matthew 18:6-7)
It’s naive to think people have not lost their faith to atheists or been converted to cults as a result of providing them the opportunity to proselytize. Christian bloggers need to consider carefully the serious implications of allowing such people to proliferate their agendas on their sites in disobedience to the First Commandment and its judgment.
1. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973) p. 47.
2. YHWH, the English transliteration of the Tetragrammaton, is most often pronounced Yahweh. It is the principal Hebrew name of the God of the Bible and was inspired to appear nearly 7,000 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. In honor of this, His memorial name (Exodus 3:15), and the multitudes of Scriptures that charge us to use, proclaim, swear by, praise, extol, call upon, bless, glorify, and hold fast to His name, we have chosen to memorialize His name by using it in this document. For a more thorough explanation concerning important reasons for using the sacred names of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online.
3. Robert Yates, “Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787,” Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention 1787, entered according to an Act of Congress in the year 1838 (Hawthorne, CA: Omni Publications, 1986) pp. 197-98.
4. Benjamin Franklin, quoted in William Templeton Franklin, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin (London, UK: Henry Colburn, 1818, 3rd ed.) p. 195.
5. Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989) p. 158.