You Shall Have No Other Gods Before My Faces
Overview | Resource 1 | Resource 2 | Resource 3 | Resource 4
For a full description of these resources and how to use them, read the Introduction to Section D (PDF).
For a printable version of the resources: You Shall Have No Other Gods Before My Faces (PDF).
During Step 2.1 of the BNL process, review the resources and select the descriptors that resonate most with you. Then, transfer them to the Step 2.1 worksheet.
Overview
The commandment, You shall have no other gods before My faces, means that no person except God, and no thing except what comes from God (such as love, mercy, peace, and goodness) is to be loved above all else. The reason is that any person we love above all else is God to us; and any thing we love above all else is divine to us.
Examples of people who can fit this category include the following:
Anyone, including yourself.
Anyone you consider to be particularly powerful.
Examples of things that can fit this category include the following:
Any kind of addiction, sensual appetite or experience, desire, craving, etc.
Your work; “workaholism.”
Material things or possessions—a house, a car, money, a vacation, etc.
Feelings or emotions such as contempt for others; resentment; hatred; destructive forms of anger; certain forms of discouragement, depression, or pessimism; lust; laziness; greed; self-centered fear, anxiety, or worry; unhealthy forms of guilt or shame, etc.
Gossip.
Criticism.
Certain forms or degrees of cynicism, skepticism, pessimism, or negative doubt (looking for what is negative and/or seeking to negate).
Unhealthy pride, conceit, or arrogance.
Perfectionism.
Procrastination.
Vanity.
Pretense, hypocrisy.
Deceit.
False, unproductive thinking.
Thought from self rather than from God.
Loving your neighbor from yourself rather than from God.
Self-centered forms of willfulness.
Self-centered forms of control or domination.
Unfounded jealousy; possessiveness.
A desire for praise, recognition, or approval.
Personal position, advancement, or promotion
An unhealthy wish for power.
Self-absorption; narcissism.
Self-pity (different from genuine compassion for yourself).
A victim mentality.
Etc.
Resource 1: Secrets of Heaven
“You shall have no other gods before My faces.”
Truths must not be thought of [i.e., thought up or generated] from any other source than the Lord.
Notes:
The word “gods” in Scripture symbolically means truths, and in the opposite sense falsities.
The word “face” in Scripture, when used in reference to God, symbolically means God's love. The word “faces,” when used in reference to God, symbolically means love, mercy, peace, and goodness. These things—love, mercy, peace, and goodness—thus refer to the Lord Himself. The Lord is the one in whom these things originate.
This commandment describes such things as must be avoided, because they would destroy and prevent the universal reign of the Lord in each and all the truths contained in the commandments and statutes that were dictated and commanded from Mount Sinai. The first thing that would destroy this commandment is thinking of [i.e., thinking up or generating] truths from some other source than the Lord.
Truths that are from some other source than the Lord are, in general, those truths in which the Lord is not present:
The Lord is not in truths when people...
Deny the Lord and His divinity.
Acknowledge the Lord and still believe that good and truth are not from Him, but from themselves, and who consequently claim righteousness for themselves.
The Lord is not in truths that are taken from the Word of God, especially from its literal sense, and explained in favor of self-rule and self-gain.
In this case these truths are not truths, because they are wrongly explained and thus perverted.
Truths that are not from the Lord are truths in outward form only, but not in inward form or essence.
On the inside they are either empty, false, or evil [i.e., harmful].
Truths in which the Lord is not present are not alive.
There is no life within them from the Lord.
They are truths without life.
There is no life shining through to the outside.
There is something that lies hidden within the words of a person’s speech that is closed to the Lord.
There is a feeling or desire in the words that is hard.
It’s a feeling or desire for what is evil [i.e., harmful].
These truths have a [self-centered] love of self and/or a [self-centered] love of the world within them.
[Editorial note: Emanuel Swedenborg suggests that there is a good and healthy form of self-love, also a good and healthy form of love for the things of the world. He also suggests that if love for ourselves and love for the things of the world become more important to us than loving our neighbor and loving God/the Lord, these two forms of love tend to become selfish, self-centered, and hateful of others and the Lord. Most often, when Swedenborg talks about these two forms of love (which he refers to as “love of self” and “love of the world”) he is talking about the selfish forms of these loves. For purposes of this outline, then, the words “self-centered” are added, to make it clear that it is the selfish forms of these two loves that are being talked about, not the good and healthy forms. For a fuller explanation of this, see Sourcebook Section B, Assumption #4, There are four universal kinds (or levels) of love.]
This love of self and love of the world reign universally with such people.
The Lord is not present within these truths.
Note: Life is from what is good, and what is good is from the Lord.
Notes:
Truths in which the Lord is present are alive.
They are truths of faith.
There is something that lies hidden within the words of a person’s speech that is open to the Lord.
There is a feeling or desire within the words that is soft.
It is a desire or affection for what is good.
These truths come from a love of the Lord and goodwill toward the neighbor.
The Lord is present within these truths.
Love of the Lord and goodwill toward the neighbor reign universally in such a person.
The Scriptures speak of the following:
False Christs and false prophets.
These give great signs and wonders so as to lead even the “elect” into error, if possible.
Many that come in the Lord's name, saying,
“I am.”
“The time is at hand.”
“You shall not make to yourself a graven image....”
A graven or molten image is that which is not from the Lord, but from oneself.
It’s either from a person’s own intellect or self-intelligence (meant by a “graven image”),
Or it’s from a person’s own will (meant by a “molten image”).
Making to yourself a graven image means…
Having either the one or the other of these as a god, or adoring it.
Loving that which proceeds from you above everyone and everything else.
Entirely disbelieving that anything of intelligence and wisdom flows in from the Divine.
Attributing all things to yourself.
Ascribing anything else that happens to you either to fortune or to chance.
Totally denying the Divine Providence in such things.
Supposing that if there is anything of Deity present, it is in the order of nature, and ascribing all things to that order.
Saying with your lips that some Creator God has impressed such things on nature; but still in your heart denying any God above nature.
From the heart attributing everything to yourself and to your own prudence and intelligence, and nothing to the Divine.
Loving yourself, adoring what belongs to yourself, and also desiring to be worshipped by others, even as a god, and being prepared to do so openly if the church did not forbid it.
Hatching out ideas or teachings that are not grounded in truths from the Word, but in self-intelligence.
Inventing or hatching ideas that you wish would be acknowledged as divine, doing so by means of reasoning from self-intelligence.
By “graven images” are meant…
Things that people hatch from their own selves, which they wish would be adored as divine.
Things that are hatched from self-intelligence in which there is nothing of spiritual life, that is, life from the Lord.
Truths in which there is nothing of life.
Evils and falsities, thus things which are of death within.
All things that go forth from self-intelligence.
These are not inwardly truths and goods but falsities and evils.
They proceed from oneself as compared to proceeding from the Lord.
Truths and goods are not within them.
The Scriptures speak of or say the following:
Becoming a fool from knowledge.
Being put to shame by one’s graven images.
Their molten image is a lie.
There is no breath in graven or molten images.
A molten image is the teacher of a lie.
The maker of inventions makes dumb gods and trusts in this.
There is no breath in the midst of them.
Glorying in horrors.
Vanity.
Vanities of strangers.
Most desirable things which will not profit.
Adoring a graven image and bowing yourself down to it.
Casting a graven image.
This refers to false teachings that are from a person's own self.
Overlaying the graven image with gold and casting silver chains.
This refers to a person making false teachings appear true, doing so by means of reasoning.
Being destitute of a religious offering, and choosing wood that will not rot.
Seeking a wise craftsman to prepare a graven image that will not be shaken.
The unclean clothing of the graven images of people’s silver, and the unclean clothing of the molten images of their gold.
These things are compared to a menstruous cloth.
They will be called dung.
Calling yourself and “going” for the sake of yourself.
Sacrificing to the Baals.
Burning incense to graven images.
Making a graven or molten image, an abomination to Jehovah, the work of the hands of the craftsman.
Making yourself a graven image in the shape of any likeness:
The figure of a male or female.
The figure of any beast that is on the earth.
The figure of any winged bird that flies under heaven.
The figure of anything that creeps on the earth, or of a fish that is in the waters under the earth.
Lifting up your eyes to heaven, looking at the sun, moon, and stars—all the army of the heavens—and bowing yourself down to them and serving them.
Forgetting the covenant of Jehovah your God, corrupting yourself, and making yourself a graven image of any figure.
Serving gods—the work of human hands—wood and stone.
Going after other gods.
Provoking the Lord to zeal with strange ones, i.e., with abominations.
Sacrificing to demons.
Moving the Lord to zeal with that which is not God.
Provoking the Lord to anger with vanities.
Being careless.
Making a graven image of any figure.
Adoring another god.
“Nor any likeness...” Making to yourself “any likeness” means any of the following:
Making a semblance of those things that are from the Divine.
Speaking divine things with the mouth,
And doing such things as have been commanded by the Divine,
Thus inducing a belief that you are involved in what is good and true,
Yet at heart thinking completely otherwise,
And willing nothing but what is evil.
Note: Such people are pretenders, hypocrites, and deceivers.
Setting forth a likeness and appearance in outward things, within which there is nothing of the Divine.
Speaking otherwise than as you think,
And doing otherwise than as you will,
In order to gain a reputation (i.e., so that you may appear to be good),
Or so that you may exercise command.
Making pretence of such things as are of goodwill and faith.
Acting from pretence or hypocrisy.
Making a pretence outwardly as a way of dominating.
Worshiping external things.
Not being willing to know anything about the internal things of the church, that is,
Things of faith and love of the Lord.
Things of goodwill toward your neighbor.
Making likenesses of things, bowing down to them, and worshipping them as gods.
Apostacy from divine worship to idolatrous worship.
“Of that which is in the heavens above….” “That which is in the heavens above” means any of the following:
Those things which appear and are seen in spiritual light, that is, goodness and truth which are of faith, goodwill toward your neighbor, and love of the Lord.
Counterfeiting and making a pretense of these things is making a likeness of those things which are in the heavens above.
“Or that which is in the earth beneath...” “That which is in the earth beneath” means…
Those things that appear and are seen in earthly light, that is, civil and moral goodness and truth.
Counterfeiting and making a pretense of these things is making a likeness of things that are in the earth beneath.
“Or of that which is in the waters under the earth.” “That which is in the waters under the earth” means…
Such things as are in the sensuous corporeal, that is, facts which arise most immediately from the experience of the external senses, and also their delights, that is, the delights that are associated with those facts.
Deceiving by means of these is making a likeness of such things as are in the waters under the earth.
Note: This is something that pretenders, hypocrites, and deceivers do.
“You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them.”
This means that no divine worship is to be paid to them.
In other words, there is to be no humbling yourself before them and no submission to them.
“For I Jehovah your God am a zealous God…”
The Lord appears to be angry and wrathful to those who are in falsities and evils, that is, to people who…
Don’t receive the divine truth of the Lord's divine goodness on account of falsity and evil.
Corrupt and destroy that which ought to reign universally in people of the church, namely, the Divine.
Note: Worshiping other gods, or making to yourself a graven image or likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, corrupt the Divine within you.
Adore other gods, graven things, or images.
Worship anything instead of the Divine.
Completely reject the Divine from themselves.
Receive evil continually.
“Of them that hate Me.” This phrase refers to people who…
Absolutely reject the divinity of the Lord.
Are in denial of the Lord’s divinity.
Are in evil and thence in falsity.
Note: To the extent that people are in evil and thence in falsity, to that extent they not only reject the divinity of the Lord, but also hold it in hatred.
Final note:
Sinning against this commandment seems to include loving your neighbor from yourself rather than from the Lord.
Resource 2: The Apocalypse Explained
Making other gods to yourself means the following:
Loving yourself and the world above all else.
Note: That which people love above all else is their god.
Loving yourself in this context means especially…
The love of dominating others,
From mere delight in ruling,
And for the sake of eminence,
And not from a delight in useful services,
Or for the sake of the public good.
Loving the world in this context means especially…
A love of possessing goods in the world,
From mere delight in ownership/possession,
And for the sake of riches,
Not from a delight in useful services that can be performed by means of these things,
Or for the sake of what is good.
Notes:
Those who love themselves above everything else sink their desires and thoughts in the body, and thus in their own selves.
The delight of these forms of love continually flatters and pleases them.
Such people are then immersed in bodily ideas and in pleasures that relate only to the body. Thus they are in thick darkness as to higher things. They…
See nothing of God.
Deny God.
Acknowledge as god either nature, or some person, or some idol.
They see no otherwise than that nature is God, and that the inmost element of nature is what is called the Divine.
They call anyone a god who is especially powerful.
Those who have not been purified from evils, and therefore are not in the light of heaven, do not in their spirit see the Lord to be the God of heaven and earth, but in place of the Lord some other being is acknowledged; by some of these someone whom they believe to be God the Father; by others someone whom they call God because he is especially powerful; by others some devil whom they fear because he or she can bring evil upon them; by others nature; and by others no God at all.
Qualifier: There is a general influx from which people, both living and dead, who are called saints, are adored as gods by the common people in Christian Gentilism, and their sculptured images are loved. The same is true of many nations elsewhere, for example, the ancient peoples in Greece, in Rome, and in Asia, who had many gods, all of whom were regarded by them as people. This is said so that it may be known that there is an intuition, within the human spirit, to see God as human. (That is called an intuition which is from general influx.)
Aspire to be worshipped as gods.
They strive for power that they may be called gods.
The love of ruling from the mere delight in ruling, and not from a delight in useful services, is completely devilish.
To the extent that people are in that love, to the same extent…
They do not in their hearts believe in the existence of God.
They deride in their hearts all things of the church.
They even hate and pursue with hatred all who acknowledge God, especially those who acknowledge the Lord.
The very delight of their lives is to do evil and to commit wicked and infamous deeds of every kind.
Loving evil.
Those who love themselves [in a self-centered way] also love evil in its entirety; and they who love evil hate what is good, thus they hate God.
So far as the love of self and love of the world regard self in the first place and useful services in the second, these forms of love are evil.
People then do all things for the sake of themselves and consequently from themselves.
Thus in every least thing that they do there is self and what is their own.
Regarded in itself this is nothing but evil.
Contempt for and rejection of all things related to heaven and the church.
Note: A [self-centered] love of self and love of the world conceal in themselves all evils, and also this contempt and this rejection.
Thinking from self rather than from the Lord through heaven.
Being in intelligence from what is your own.
Resource 3: Principles of Life
This resource discusses only the commandments on murder, adultery, stealing, and bearing false witness against your neighbor.
Resource 4: True Christianity
Earthly (literal) meaning:
Idols must not be worshipped as gods.
No person dead or living should be worshipped as a god.
No one except God, and nothing but what comes from God, is to be loved above all else.
Any person or thing that is loved above all else is God and is divine to the one who so loves.
For example, with people who love themselves or the world above all else, they themselves or the world are their god.
Such people do not in heart acknowledge any God.
Spiritual meaning:
No other God than the Lord Jesus Christ is to be worshiped.
He is Jehovah, who came into the world and wrought redemption.
Without this, neither any person nor any angel could have been saved.
The Lord our Savior is Jehovah Himself, who is at once Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator.
Therefore, He is the Savior.
There is no other God except Him.
(Note: The Scriptures are quoted on this point.)
Heavenly meaning:
Jehovah the Lord is infinite, measureless, and eternal.
He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
He is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, who was, is, and is to be.
He is love itself and wisdom itself, or goodness itself and truth itself, consequently life itself.
Thus the Lord is the one only Being from whom all things are.
Final notes:
All who acknowledge and worship any other God than the Lord the Savior, Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah God Himself in human form, sin against this first commandment.
Those also sin against it who persuade themselves of the actual existence of three divine persons from eternity.
As they confirm themselves in this error, they become more and more earthly and bodily, and at length are unable to comprehend interiorly any divine truth. If they listen to the first commandment and accept it, they still defile it and cover it up with fallacies. They may therefore be compared to those who dwell in the lowest story or the cellar of a house, and as a result hear nothing of the conversation of those who are in the second and third stories.
The human mind is like a house of three stories, in the lowest of which are those who have confirmed themselves in favor of three Gods from eternity; while in the second and third stories are those who acknowledge and believe in one God under a visible human form, and that the Lord God the Savior is that God.
Since sensual and corporeal people are merely earthly, and viewed in themselves are completely animal, and since they differ from brute animals only in being able to talk and reason, so they are like people living in a menagerie, where there are all kinds of wild beasts; and there they now act like a lion, now a bear, now a tiger, a leopard, or a wolf; and they may even act like a lamb, but in their hearts they laugh.
People who are merely earthly think about divine truths only from the things of the world, and thus from the fallacies of the senses, for they are unable to raise their minds above these things.
[Note: A fallacy is a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.]
Therefore, this doctrine that merely earthly people believe may be compared to a pottage made of chaff, which they eat as a dainty. Or it is like the bread and cakes that Ezekiel the prophet was commanded to make by mixing wheat, barley, beans, lentils, and fiches with cow’s or human excrement (Ezek. 4:9, seq.).
So it is with the doctrine of a church that is founded and reared on a belief in three divine persons from eternity, each one of whom individually is God.
There is but one divine Person.
This is God—at once Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator, and therefore the Savior.