Pilgrim Covenant Church Bulletin, 25 August 2002

The WESTMINSTER LARGER Catechism
Q 8. Are there more Gods than one?

A. There is but one only, the living and true God.¹

Proofs
^{1 Deut 6:4; 1 Cor 8:4,6; Jer 10:10
Comments
It is a well-known fact that a large proportion of people in the world believe that there are more than one gods. This has been so for a long period in the history of mankind. In fact, many unbelieving palaeontological anthropologists believe that the first religions were polytheistic. They claim that the monotheism of Judaism (and later Christianity) was really a late development in the evolution of religion. But this speculation is flatly contradicted by the Scriptures which teaches us that man, created in the image of God, was originally monotheistic.
The idea that there could be more gods than one, really came about through sin darkened minds. The apostle Paul expresses this fact:

^{20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: ²¹ Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²² Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, ²³: And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things (Rom 1:20-23)}

Men, whose "foolish heart was darkened" refused to worship the invisible God, perhaps because His holiness and glory is vastly too great for their comfort. As such man began to invent their own gods. At first,—even up till the time of the New Testament,—man would associate the gods of their imagination with objects in nature (rocks, trees, sun, moon, etc), or make images to represent them.
This is why whenever the Scripture speaks about false gods, they are spoken of as idols of wood and stone. Consider, for example:

"The LORD is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens" (Ps 96:4-5)

"We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one" (1 Cor 8:4)

"how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;" (1 Thes 1:9b)

We must be careful, however, not to think that only worship that involve some kind of images are condemned in these verses, for all gods of man’s imagination are idols, whether or not man have sought to represented them. The idols of wood and stone simply serve to underline how impotent false gods are, for they are made by man, and they are dead. And indeed, as they represent but the figment of men’s imagination, they are actually nothing (cf. 1 Cor 8:4), though they that worship them would inadvertently be worshipping the devil, the father of all lies (1 Cor 10:20; Jn 8:44).
What about the religions of the world that claim to worship only one God, who is both living and true? Well, in so far as they deny God’s self-revelation that He is one in essence, but three in persons as we shall see in our next study, we have to declare that they are really worshipping not the living and true God, but a god of their imagination, however powerful they may make him to be. So then, neither Islam nor present day Judaism worships the God who is revealed in the Scriptures.}