“I am the LORD, and there is no other.”
Isaiah 45:6
Everything in the created order belongs to a class— planets, fish, birds, animals, and humans-but God is in a class of His own. That’s what we mean when we say, “God is holy.” He is set apart from everything else.
John Piper says, “Diamonds are valuable because they are rare and hard to make. God is infinitely valuable because He is the rarest of all beings and cannot be made at all, nor was He ever made. If I were a collector of rare treasures and could somehow have God in my treasury, I would be wealthier than all the collectors of all the rarest treasures that exist outside God.”
God is in a class of His own. That means that anyone or anything that wants to pose as God is stealing the identity that belongs to Him alone. Imagine someone stealing your credit card and then spending thousands of pounds with it. That’s identity theft—taking what belongs to another person and using it as if it were your own.
Whenever anyone or anything in the created order takes the place of first importance, you are dealing with the ultimate identity theft. Only God is God: “I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:6). The great offence of idolatry is that something or someone has the audacity to pose in the place of God.
Do you see why idolatry is such a serious offence against God?
