The Mixture of Syncretism
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. - Exodus 20:4-6
The Second Commandment does not simply topple Asherah poles or grind Dagon statues to dust; it reaches further, exposing and condemning every attempt to worship the living God by means He has not appointed. This commandment is nothing less than the jealous King’s claim over His own house, for only He has the right to determine how His throne room is adorned with the praises of His people. And in His kindness He has not left us to guess. He has ordained the public reading of His Word (1 Timothy 4:13), the faithful preaching of Jesus Christ, the singing of psalms and hymns (Ephesians 5:19), the right administration of His sacraments, and the delight of His holy day (Isaiah 58:13–14). To step beyond these ordinances is not to enrich His worship but to corrupt it. The Westminster Larger Catechism captures this truth with clarity: our duty is to “receive, observe, and keep pure and entire” all that God has instituted (WLC 108), while our sin is “any religious worship not instituted by God Himself” (WLC 109). In the end, the Lord is not pleased by our innovations; He is glorified by our obedience.
THE ESSENCE OF MIXTURE
The great threat to true religion has never been atheism in the streets but syncretism in the sanctuary. It is not usually open denial of God that corrupts His people, but the slow blending of His worship with alien practices. This is what Syncretism is, which at its heart, is mixture—the unholy fusion of the sacred and the profane, the grafting of human invention onto divine ordinance. It parades the name of Yahweh upon the lips even as it drags the furniture of paganism into His courts. Scripture captures its essence in one devastating sentence: “They feared the LORD and served their own gods” (2 Kings 17:33). Jesus unmasked it when He called such compromise “vain worship” (Matthew 15:9), and Paul went deeper still, exposing its demonic root: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21). For this reason, mixture can never be treated as harmless, for it always twists covenant faithfulness into covenant betrayal. It is, at bottom, spiritual adultery—and the jealous Husband will not, and cannot, share His bride with other loves.
And the Bible not only gives us definitions of this sin, but living breathing portraits. To see the face of syncretism, we need only look at the kings of Israel, where the mixture of true religion with human invention became a national disease.
Take for example Jeroboam, who illustrates the nature of syncretism with haunting clarity. He was not an outspoken atheist, nor did he renounce Israel’s history. He did not deny Yahweh, nor did he erase the account of the Exodus. Instead, he did what his ancestors did at the foot of mount Sinai, he placed golden calves at Bethel and Dan, calling Israel to worship Yahweh in new and shiny icons to suit his political fears. He consecrated new priests who had never been called, built shrines God had never commanded, and invented feast days of his own design. His man-made religion even bore the familiar vocabulary of the original covenant, yet it stunk of rebellion. It was close enough to the masses deceive, convenient enough to attract the seekers, and novel enough to feel exciting to the spectators. But Scripture delivers its judgment on this kind of syncretism with chilling brevity: “This thing became a sin” (1 Kings 12:30).
That is the pattern of syncretism in every age. It rarely begins with open denial of God. It begins with anxious accommodation, with the desire to keep people happy, with the fear of losing influence, with the itch to be relevant. It begins with what seems pastoral, practical, or even prudent. But it always ends the same way: the death of reverence, the cheapening of what God ordains in worship, and the ruin of generations who inherit a diluted faith. What Jeroboam set in motion was not a harmless adjustment or a more exciting worship service; it was a spiritual cancer that metastasized across centuries until the northern kingdom fell under God’s judgment.
AGAINST RELIGIOUS INVENTION
If Jeroboam shows us how syncretism begins, then Nadab and Abihu show us how God responds when it enters His sanctuary. Their story is not a curious footnote in Israel’s history but a thunderous reminder that the Lord takes His worship seriously, and that He will not allow His holiness to be compromised—even by those who serve closest to His altar.
The tragedy of Nadab and Abihu is one of Scripture’s clearest warnings about how fiercely God guards His worship. These were not outsiders offering incense to a false god in some pagan shrine. They were sons of Aaron, chosen priests of the Most High, clothed in holy garments, and standing before the very tabernacle where God’s glory had descended. Outwardly, nearly everything looked right. Their lineage was right, their garments were right, their location was right, their task was almost right. But “almost right” in the presence of a holy God is fatally wrong. They brought before the Lord a fire He had not commanded, and that one act of presumption outweighed every other detail of their service. Their zeal was real, and their intentions may have been sincere, but sincerity is never a substitute for obedience. The same fire that had once consumed the sacrifices now leapt from the altar to consume the priests themselves. The verdict was unmistakable: “By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored” (Leviticus 10:3).
Here the Second Commandment comes into sharp focus. True worship is not made holy by the fervor of the worshiper but only by the command of the Lord. Nadab and Abihu remind us that “strange fire” is not confined to censers and altars in Israel’s wilderness—it is a living metaphor for every act of worship that departs from God’s Word. Whatever the form, when we add to His commands or take away from them, we are offering strange fire. If we substitute human invention for divine ordinance, however passionate or sincere we may be, it is still strange. God does not weigh our zeal, creativity, or sincerity as if they could sanctify what He has not appointed. To bring images of Christ into worship, to invent new rituals, to adjust His sacraments, to recast His holy day according to our convenience—these are all strange fires carried into His presence. To add to His ordinances is to imply His wisdom is lacking; to subtract from His prescriptions is to treat His authority as negotiable. In either case, we are despising His holiness. The principle is plain: strange fire is anything in worship that God has not commanded, and strange fire always provokes His judgment. In worship, obedience is life, and presumption is death.
And this principle is not confined to Israel’s wilderness. It confronts us in every age, because every age invents its own forms of strange fire. Today, it is not bulls offered on foreign altars but “aids to devotion” that God has not appointed—images of Christ that train the eye to seize what God has said must be received by faith (Deuteronomy 4:15–16; John 20:29). It is not Baal worship in Canaan but therapeutic liturgies that trade reverence for sentiment, soothing emotions while starving obedience. It is not Asherah poles but baptized pagan practices—yoga, smudging, enneagrams, and other spiritual imports stitched into Christian devotion despite God’s warning: “You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way” (Deuteronomy 12:31).
And if we need a picture of modern strange fire, we need only step into the fog. It lives in worship services that look more like rock concerts than the mountain of God. It lives where the pulpit has been replaced with a stage, the preached Word drowned out by decibel levels designed to stir the body rather than pierce the soul. It lives where the sanctuary is filled with flashing lights, smoke machines, and big-band crescendos, where people are invited to “experience” God through atmosphere rather than to bow before Him in truth. It lives where reverence has been traded for ratings, where Sinai is reenacted with lasers instead of thunder, and where the measure of glory is not God’s command but the roar of applause. These are not contextualizations. They are contaminations. They are modern strains of strange fire—offered with zeal but without command, and therefore unholy before the Lord.
But the danger is not only “out there” in other churches; it is in us as well. Every time we sin, we are tempted to refashion God into an image of our own making. When we wallow in guilt, refusing to believe that Christ fully forgives, we are bowing before a golden calf that holds grudges instead of cleansing us in Christ. When we brush sin aside as a small thing, we are shaping a god who shrugs at our rebellion instead of the holy God who hates it. When we excuse our disobedience, redefine our lusts, or justify our pride, we are rebranding God into a deity who blesses what He has cursed. In truth, every sin is a liturgy of idolatry, a silent act of refashioning the living God into something safer, smaller, and more manageable.
This is why the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu is not only their tragedy; it is our warning. Strange fire is not just in censers, not just in concert halls, but in our own hearts. And unless we learn to worship God as He commands, in the way He commands, we too will be consumed—not by the smoke of machines, but by the fire of His holiness. Nadab and Abihu remind us that God’s holiness cannot be accessorized. Jeroboam reminds us that His ordinances cannot be rebranded. And together they teach the church that innovation in worship is never neutral. Before the Lord, creativity without command is not worship but presumption, and presumption always invites His judgment.
PURE RELIGION AND THE JEALOUS LOVE OF GOD
Why does God so fiercely oppose mixture? Because He is jealous. His jealousy is not weakness but covenant love. He will not share His glory, nor will He allow His bride to be courted by blended altars. He warns that such sins echo through family lines: “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 20:5). If we give our sons and daughters novelty, they will hunger for spectacle. If we give them God’s ordinances, they will hunger for holiness.
The call is repentance. Tear down the high places. Retire the strange fire. Return to the ordinances Christ Himself has given. Scripture read aloud, Christ preached with clarity, psalms and hymns sung with zeal, sacraments guarded, the Lord’s Day kept holy. His jealousy is not bondage but blessing. His commands are not burdens but gifts.
And here is the gospel: the same Christ who overturned the tables of mixture in the temple now cleanses His church with water and Word (Ephesians 5:26–27). The jealous Husband who refuses to share His bride is also the gracious Bridegroom who sanctifies her. He will not leave us impure. He will make us radiant. [And this hope does not end in the present moment alone, but in the final vision: the day when every rival altar is torn down, every idol shattered, every blended practice consumed, and the church stands pure before her Lord, clothed in white, radiant with His glory, and filled with His presence forever.] Religion will either be corrupted by syncretism or consecrated by obedience. Let us choose the latter and worship not as we please, but as He commands.
