Imagination Is Idolatry

Imagination is not a gift of God.  It is the perversion of God’s gift.  It is the result of refusing to let God Himself direct the faculties, which He has given us, and trying to direct them ourselves.  One has no right to imagine anything.  Imagination is but an ignis fatuus** that leads men into a fog.  The first chapter of Romans tells what it does for men.  They had the knowledge of God, —that is, of the truth, for God had showed it unto them.  But they did not like to retain God in their knowledge; they did not like to admit that they were not wise in themselves.  So they proceeded to find out the truth by their own “reason.”  But God is the only source of reason, and “reasoning” without Him is only vain imagination.  They saw wisdom and power displayed in the things that are made, and which are growing.  But they would not acknowledge that it was God’s power and wisdom that were manifested there, for in that case they would have been obliged to acknowledge that it was only by His power and wisdom that they themselves lived and acted and thought.  This they would not do, for they professed themselves to be wise; they put themselves in the place of God.  Then there was nothing left for them but to say that the things that were made were God, thus changing the truth of God into a lie.  Instead of seeing God in everything, they imagined that everything was God, because they rejected the truth to begin with.  The truth is that God’s power and divinity are to be seen working in everything that is made; the lie is to say that the power and wisdom originate in the things that are made whether it be men or the grass of the field.  When men substituted their own imaginations for pure reason, it naturally followed that they gave those imaginations visible form, and so image worship was the result.  Imagination is simply the forming of an image in one’s own mind.  The image that is formed is only the imagination of the heart made visible.  To make images is idolatry, whether they be formed by the hands, or only retained in the heart.

The work of the Gospel is to cast down imaginations.  “Every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,” must be overthrown, and every thought must be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.  Imagination has no place in God’s work.  He deals in facts, not in fancies.  The gospel is a fact.  There is no speculation about it.  We have only to believe what is real, that which has been done and finished.