The Lord our God spoke directly to the gathered congregation of Israel at Mt Sinai, telling them of the ten commandments. Of these, the first four spoke of our relations with Him.
The other six commandments spoke about inter-human relations. The arrangement of their sequence indicates that they were all arranged in the order of their importance.
The first commandment is the most important of them all, followed by the second. Our Christianity has diluted and distorted the parameters of their meanings.
The first commandment clearly states, “I am the Lord your God; You shall have no other gods besides me”. There is no ambiguity in that simple statement. Our Christianity starts to err on the Christs’ coming to our planet. An array of different meanings has been advanced to explain his true identity.
A section of our Christianity believes that Christ is the same Almighty God who created the Heavens and the Earth and everything else thereon. They argue that God transformed from His spiritual being into the physical being of man, commonly known as Jesus Christ. He then dwelt among humanity, as one of us in the flesh. After He was crucified by man, He died and His spirit arose and went back into the spiritual realm.
Another section of our Christianity believes that God the Creator and Jesus Christ co-existed as two Gods from the dawn of time. This group uses verses from the start of times, Genesis, to substantiate their claims. They quote from verse 26 of Genesis 1, when God spoke, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”.
They then claim that God the Creator was talking to Jesus Christ in the sense that they were speaking together at creation. Genesis 11:7 also has some plural reference when God confused the then language of man, after they had sought to outshine Him.
It reads: “Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech”. Our scriptures tell us countless times that God had angels around Him whom He used for various missions.
In the Heavens, He obviously always had these angels close by in terms of communications, hence it is most likely that He was just making His intentions known to them, as they were part of His heavenly extension services. On our planet He uses prophets, like Moses, who live among us, to communicate with us, mankind.
A very large group of our Christianity believes that the Godship is composed of three distinct elements fused into one. It speaks of God the Father, God the Son and of God the Holy Spirit. It refers to this as the one-in-three Godhead. The origin of this line of belief is embodied in what is termed as the Holy Trinity Doctrine, as crafted by a clique of individuals during the fourth century during the era of the Roman Empire.
This variation of views in relation to Jesus Christ spreads much further inclusive of other different religions. The confusion is widespread. I subscribe to the view that Jesus Christ was sacrificed by the Heavenly Father to act as the sacrificial lamb for the forgiveness of human sins.
Prior to that, God had instituted some rituals which compelled humanity to kill and sacrifice the flesh and blood of “clean animals” for the cleansing of human sins.
In order to erase such cumbersome ritual requirements, God then put in motion a plan that would bring forth a Son of His whom he could then sacrifice for the cleansing of human sins. This one-off human sacrifice would symbolise His forgiveness of human sins so that he would not continually punish humanity for their sins. Jesus Christ is thus the Redeemer whose life was sacrificed for the redemption of our sins.
The beliefs that Christ and God are one, or that they exist as two Gods co-habitating in the Heavens, or of the three-gods-in-one ideology, or any other creations of other gods, are all in violation of the first and most important of all commandments; that the Lord our God is One God.
In Mark 12:28-31, Jesus Christ was asked, “Which commandment is the first of all?” and Jesus answered: “The first is, hear, O people; the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the ‘one’ Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all mind, and with all your strength”. As Christians we should stand guided by Christ’s own spoken words. He is our patriarch and Saviour.
The second commandment fully states (Exodus 1:4-6): “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity (sins) of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
Clearly the Lord our God has a vengeful anger towards any worship of other persons or man-made things which can appear as a substitutes for worship.
Despite the clarity of the second commandment, we have gone on to make ourselves graven images Jesus Christ nailed to the cross which we then bow down to in worship.
This is in violation of God forbidding us from crafting and bowing down to “any images, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth”.
There is absolutely nothing wrong in keeping such “graven images” in our possession in memory of Jesus Christ, as a souvenir. There is everything wrong when we then bow down in worship to any such memento.
There is also the same practice in relation to the Mother of Jesus Christ, Mary.
We have moulded images depicting her and erecting her ‘graven images’ either inside or outside our churches and periodically taking time to bow down in worship to her, in remembrance to her role in giving birth to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Any sects of our Christianity that practices such a trend is in total violation of the second commandment. There are other examples that go against the word of God.
The Lord our God is one and only to Him should we bow down to worship. Amen.
*Prosper Tingini is the Scribe of the Children of God Missionary Assembly — God’s messengers. Contact details: Mobile & Whatsapp – 0771 260 195. Email address: ptingini@gmail.com