Romans 1:23

And changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-looted beasts, and creeping things.

As Barmby observed:

Scripture ever presents the human race as having fallen and become degraded, and not as having risen gradually to any intelligent conceptions of God at all.[47]

The obfuscation of man's intellect was inflicted upon men punitively by God as a divine judgment against their failure to glorify and give thanks to God, and the execution of that penalty propelled them ever farther into Satan's service. The idol worship that quickly followed was doubtless instigated by Satan, his diabolical design being, apparently, as follows: (1) Satan had won a smashing victory over man in Eden, and by falsely representing God in the image of a man, Satan could fraudulently advertise the debacle in Eden as a victory over God also. (2) After Satan's victory over Adam and Eve, God promised that the seed of woman would bruise Satan's head (Genesis 3:15), and that the serpent should go on his belly henceforth forever. How striking, therefore, is the direction taken by human idolatry. As Quimby expressed it,

They got God down on two legs, then down on all-fours, and then down on his belly![48]

The frustration, anger, and retaliation of the evil one are certainly evident in the idolatry described by Paul. If God would send the serpent to travel on his belly, then Satan, who had assumed the form of a serpent, would put God on his!

As to which Gentiles were guilty of particular idolatries mentioned here, it is quite evident that the images made like men describe the anthropomorphic gods of the Greek and Roman mythologies, whereas the images of the lower creations of birds, beasts and creeping things were characteristic of the false deities of the Egyptians. A full list of all creatures which have received idolatrous worship cannot be given here; but even a brief summary is instructive. Cattle were worshipped nearly everywhere, as, for example, sacred cows in India until this day. Others were lions, dogs, cats, weasels, and otters. Birds that were worshipped are sparrow-hawks, hoopoes, storks, and sheldrakes. Sheep, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the eel were also worshipped in certain places, but not in others.

The sacred serpent Thermapis which served as head-gear for Isis had holes in all the temples where it was fed veal fat. Among the sacred beasts, the first place was given to the divine bulls, of which the Egyptians worshipped four.[49]

Regarding the mystery of just how intelligent beings could worship such creatures and their images as gods, Sanday observed that:

The images in Greece and the beasts in Egypt were by some of the people regarded only as SYMBOLS of deity.[50]

This, of course, is precisely the same device by which the advocates of the use of images in Christian worship today attempt to justify their consecration of sacred images. How well such a device worked, or rather, how disastrously it did not work, is revealed in the ensuing verses, where the precipitous descent of that entire ancient world into the most shameful wickedness is graphically described. It should also be remembered that the degradation of the Medieval church followed the introduction of idols into Christian worship. Charles Hodge commented upon the specious distinction between worshipping a beast or an image, as such, contrasted with worshipping such things as symbols of higher reality, thus:

In such idolatry, the idol, or animal, was, with regard to the majority, the ultimate object of worship. Some professed to regard the visible images a mere symbol of the real object of their adoration; while others believed that the gods in some way filled those idols, and operated through them; and others, again, that the universal principle of being was reverenced under these manifestations. The scriptures take no account of these distinctions.[51]

Positive proof that the scriptures indeed do not take account of such distinctions is found by a comparison of Revelation 19:10 with 22:8-10. In those separate incidents, an angel of God first forbade John to worship the angel, and in the second instance forbade him to worship "before the angel" in such an attitude as even to suggest that worship was being given to an angel. From this comes the valid deduction that worshipping "before an image" is one and the same thing as worshipping an image.

How vain is the thought that any of God's creatures, and least of all any such thing as an image of any of them, could enter into or contribute anything toward God's worship. God cannot be represented by art or man's device. An idol is blind, dumb, inert, immobile, helpless, unfeeling, without sense or sensitivity, and subject to decay - how can such a THING be conceived of as a permissible symbol, either of the glorious God or the exalted Saviour? Awesome indeed are the consequences of idolatry; and Paul next proceeded to write what those consequences are.

[47] J. Barmby, op. cit., p. 12.

[48] Chester Warren Quimby, The Great Redemption (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1950), pp. 45-46.

[49] W. Sanday, op. cit., p. 207.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Charles Hodge, op. cit., p. 39.