J.C. Ryle

Flee from idolatry. —1 Corinthians 10:14

Let me show…the forms which idolatry has assumed and does assume in the visible church [today].

Where is it?…That idolatry would arise seems to have been the expectation of the apostles, even before the canon of the New Testament was closed. It is remarkable to observe how St. Paul dwells on this subject in his epistle to the Corinthians. If any Corinthian called a brother was an idolater, with such an one the members of the church were “not to eat” (1Co 5:11). “Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them” (1Co 10:7). He says again in the text which heads this paper, “My dearly beloved, flee from idolatry” (1Co 10:14). When he writes to the Colossians, he warns them against “worshipping of angels” (Col 2:18). And St. John closes his first epistle with the solemn injunction, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1Jo 5:21). It is impossible not to feel that all these passages imply an expectation that idolatry would arise—and that soon—among professing Christians.

The famous prophecy in the fourth chapter of the first epistle to Timothy contains a passage which is even more directly to the point: “The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1Ti 4:1)…

The last passage I will call attention to is the conclusion of the ninth chapter of Revelation. We there read, at the twentieth verse: “The rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk” (Rev 9:20)…I…venture to assert that it is the highest probability these plagues are to fall upon the visible church of Christ, and the highest improbability that St. John was here prophesying about the heathen, who never heard the gospel…

And now, if we turn from the Bible to [historical] facts, what do we see? I reply unhesitatingly that there is unmistakable proof that Scripture warnings and predictions were not spoken without cause, and that idolatry has actually arisen in the visible church of Christ and does still exist.

The rise and progress of the evil in former days, we shall find well summed up in the homily of the Church of England on “Peril of Idolatry.”…There we read how, even in the fourth century, Jerome complains “that the errors of images have come in, and passed to the Christians from the Gentiles”; and Eusebius says, “We do see that images of Peter and Paul, and of our Savior Himself, be made, and tables be painted, which I think to have been derived and kept indifferently by an heathenish custom.” There we may read how “Pontius Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in the fifth century, caused the walls of the temples to be painted with stories taken out of the Old Testament; that the people beholding and considering these pictures, might the better abstain from too much surfeiting and riot. But from learning by painted stories, it came by little and little to idolatry.” There we may read how Gregory the First, Bishop of Rome, in the beginning of the seventh century, did allow the free having of images in churches. There we may read how Irene, mother of Constantine the Sixth, in the eighth century, assembled a council at Nicaea and procured a decree that “images should be put up in all the churches of Greece, and that honor and worship should be given to the said images.” And there we may read the conclusion with which the homily winds up its historical summary that laity and clergy learned and unlearned, all ages, sorts, and degrees of men, women, and children of whole Christendom, have been at once drowned in abominable idolatry, of all other vices most detested of God, and most damnable to man, and that by the space of 800 years and more.

This is a mournful account, but it is only too true. There can be little doubt the evil began even before the time just mentioned by the homily writers. No man, I think, need wonder at the rise of idolatry in the primitive church, who considers calmly the excessive reverence which it paid, from the very first, to the visible parts of religion. I believe that no impartial man can read the language used by nearly all the Fathers about the church, the bishops, the ministry, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the martyrs, the dead saints generally—no man can read it without being struck with the wide difference between their language and the language of Scripture on such subjects. You seem at once to be in a new atmosphere. You feel that you are no longer treading on holy ground. You find that things which in the Bible are evidently of second-rate importance are here made of first-rate importance. You find the things of sense and sight exalted to a position in which Paul and Peter and James and John, speaking by the Holy Ghost, never for a moment placed them.

It is not merely the weakness of uninspired writings that you have to complain of; it is something worse: it is a new system. And what is the explanation of all this? It is, in one word, that you have got into a region where the malaria of idolatry has begun to arise. You perceive the first workings of the mystery of iniquity. You detect the buds of that huge system of idolatry which, as the homily describes, was afterwards formally acknowledged and ultimately blossomed so luxuriantly in every part of Christendom.

But let us now turn from the past to the present. Let us examine the question which most concerns ourselves. Let us consider in what form idolatry presents itself to us as a sin of the visible church of Christ in our own time.

I find no difficulty in answering this question. I feel no hesitation in affirming that idolatry never yet assumed a more glaring form than it does in the Church of Rome at this present day.

And here I come to a subject on which it is hard to speak, because of the times we live in. But the whole truth ought to be spoken by ministers of Christ, without respect of times and prejudices. I say this in all sadness. I say it, acknowledging fully that we have our faults in the Protestant church, and practically, perhaps, in some quarters, not a little idolatry…While, as for the Church of Rome, if there is not in her worship an enormous quantity of systematic, organized idolatry, I frankly confess I do not know what idolatry is.

To my mind, it is idolatry to have images and pictures of saints in churches, and to give them a reverence for which there is no warrant or precedent in Scripture. And if this be so, I say there is idolatry in the Church of Rome.

To my mind, it is idolatry to invoke the Virgin Mary and the saints in glory, and to address them in language never addressed in Scripture except to the Holy Trinity. And if this be so, I say there is idolatry in the Church of Rome.

To my mind, it is idolatry to bow down to mere material things and attribute to them a power and sanctity far exceeding that attached to the ark or altar of the Old Testament dispensation—and a power and sanctity, too, for which there is not a tittle of foundation in the Word of God. And if this be so…, I say there is idolatry in the Church of Rome.

To my mind, it is idolatry to worship that which man’s hands have made—to call it God and adore it when lifted up before our eyes. And if this be so with the notorious doctrine of transubstantiation and the elevation of the Host in my recollection, I say there is idolatry in the Church of Rome.

To my mind, it is idolatry to make ordained men mediators between ourselves and God, robbing, as it were, our Lord Christ of His office and giving them an honor which even apostles and angels in Scripture flatly repudiate. And if this be so with the honor paid to popes and priests before my eyes, I say there is idolatry in the Church of Rome… I know how painful these things sound to many ears. To me it is no pleasure to dwell on the shortcomings of any who profess and call themselves Christians. I can say truly that I have said what I have said with pain and sorrow…

I believe and hope that many a Roman Catholic is in heart inconsistent with his profession and is better than the church to which he belongs…I believe that many a poor [Roman Catholic] at this day is worshipping with an idolatrous worship, simply because he knows no better. He has no Bible to instruct him. He has no faithful minister to teach him…But all this must not prevent my saying that the Church of Rome is an idolatrous church.

I should not be faithful if I said less…And in a day like this—when some are disposed to secede to the Church of Rome, and many are shutting their eyes to her real character and wanting us to be reunited to her—in a day like this, my own conscience would rebuke me if I did not warn men plainly that the Church of Rome is an idolatrous church, and that if they will join her they are joining themselves to idols…

J. C. Ryle (1816-1900): English Anglican bishop and author; born in Macclesfield, Cheshire County, UK.

Courtesy of Chapel Library