02 November 2024
When Israel got entangled in the business of the Golden Calf at the foot of Mount Sinai, it wasn't that they worshiped the image of the cow itself. Rather, it was a common form of idolatry that portrayed an invisible god astride the young bull. This showed up again in the shrines Jeroboam built at Bethel and Dan.
Thus, a critical element in the Sin of Jeroboam was to call something "Jehovah" that was most certainly not according to Jehovah's own revelation of Himself. Everyone was aware of this at first. Among the educated upper classes, it remained in common awareness, though it would appear that the peasantry got lost after a couple of generations.
Thus, when someone like Elijah is called "a man of Jehovah", the educated folks knew that it meant something different from the common propaganda about the false "Jehovah" of the shrines. Meanwhile, the common folks completely lost their way. In one particular battle, the northern army demonstrated a superstition about the power of human sacrifice that didn't fool the southern troops.
A primary issue, then, is that Jeroboam was leading the common people astray. He knew, and everyone in the ruling class knew, that they were lying to the nation. They had reduced the one true God of Creation to a mere national deity, and implanted the degraded notion that Jehovah was just one god among others. He wasn't different from the rest.
If you understand the Unseen Realm, this the fundamental sin. This was the thing that got the whole elohim rebellion rolling. It was the sin of Lucifer and the Divine Council members who allied with him: They claimed they all deserved some worship and glory, and God wasn't the only one. God's claim is that He is unique and above all the rest, and He alone is worthy of obeisance (the root Hebrew meaning of worship).
Is it any different today with churchianity? Isn't that the same as the Sin of Jeroboam? We have an educated elite that should know better, but they keep promoting the false image of who Christ is and what He has done.
I've noted already in the past that there has been a huge departure between the Divinity School approach to religion versus the Biblical Studies approach. The former has traditionally labeled the members of that latter as heretics, and keeps them out of standard church teaching. This is why, when someone like Heiser breaks the stereotype of nerdy Biblical Studies folk and gains a popular hearing, you'll find lots of material excoriating him as a heretic. All he's doing is pointing out how the Hebrew people actually thought.
At the end of the previous century we saw the birth of a movement to bring Biblical Studies to the people, and it was harshly suppressed. I saw it first hand. It was eclipsed by yet another exuberant "prophesy" promotion, bringing the lies of Dispensationalism to the fore again. It was fronted by the likes of Hal Lindsey (Late, Great Planet Earth) for a while, and then Tim LaHay (Left Behind) with an even bigger supporting cast. This was the cover for more dastardly moves to morph "church" into an entrepreneurial entertainment model.
I cannot provide documentation, but I was close enough to the inside of some of this to know for a fact that there was a lot of cynicism in the leadership, men and women who knew they were leading the people away from the truth. Their intent was all about the mass manipulation, the power and prestige, and of course the money. Yes, some of them admitted it privately. And there are plenty of insider revelations showing that the big faces in the national news also hid cynical mass deceptions.
Yes, they all had access to the information available from Biblical Studies. They knew they couldn't ride that truth to their own personal glory. In other words, it's the sin of Jeroboam. Surely you don't imagine Jeroboam gave a dog's dookie for the story he was telling in building those shrines? He knew the truth, and he hid it for the sake of politics and money. How is it any different today?
This document is public domain; spread the message.