Myron Robertson

Syncretism is the mixing of doctrines from various religions. God has a lot to say about this in scripture, most of it in symbol, making it difficult to find and near impossible for those who do not really care to look.

Most of the references to idolatry in the bible are references to syncretism. For the most part the people of Israel did not go into open worship of other gods before the divided kingdom, and Judah never openly worshipped those other gods so could not understand why God was so upset with them when he brought the Babylonians against them.

The entire book of Jeremiah is about Judah's syncretism, bringing the worship of the other gods into the temple and treating it AS the worship of the Yahveh. While Molech is mentioned as one of these God's, the focus is much more on the Queen of Heaven. In most of the Old Testament this concept is illustrated by the Asherah pole which was placed beside the altar of burnt offering in the outer court during much of the Kingdom period. I watch with amusement when Christians get upset about archaeologists telling us the people of Israel always worshiped God's wife. You only need to read Jeremiah, 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles to know the archaeologists are right. A reformer king would remove the Asherah pole and his son or grandson would replace it and it would remain for generations. The people never stopped this worship.

In the New Testament the concept is seen in Rev 2:20 as the doctrines of Jezebel. In the days when God was calling this matter to my attention I did much study of scripture to try to determine what this doctrine is. The best I could come up with was that it was the doctrines of the Queen of Heaven represented by the goddesses Asherah, Ashtoreth (her daughter), Diana, and the queen Jezebel. I could not find any details and never bothered studying into the teachings of Asherah or Diana.

Other Christian teachers who have studied this have no problem linking this doctrine to Catholic doctrine, especially Marianism. That is rather a given; they call her the Queen of Heaven; but Ezekiel 14:1-11 is absolutely clear that idols are actually thoughts and beliefs, not the images. Just because I don't have statues of Mary or the saints in my church or home does not mean I don't worship idols. Just because I don't attribute those doctrines to something Mary does on my behalf in heaven does not mean I don't worship idols.

Judah brought those teachings into the temple of Yahveh and attributed them to him as true worship of him. For this reason God refused to honor ANY of their worship in the temple at Jerusalem (Jer 7, 8- Esp Jer 7:5-11).

The idols we worship and call true doctrines of God are right now being brought into the open as happened in Ezekiel 8 where God showed Ezekiel all the detestable things worshiped in the temple before sending the judge of Israel against them beginning and ending at the temple, killing all who were not obedient to God.

We are seeing these things brought into the open in all their detestableness in the church, in the White House, in congress, in the media (mainstream and independent) and in the mobs seeking what they consider justice in the face of all this obvious sin from these institutions. None of them are actually following God's law. All are violating it in some way and none are willing to look at their own sins and repent of them, only accuse others and blame them for the judgment all face.

It is time to compare our own beliefs against scripture and stop cherry-picking the texts that seem to support us because any with eyes to see can already see the man in linen (Ezekiel 9) doing his work based on the revelations of Ezekiel 8.

October 09 2018 • Report