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August 15, 2022 |
| Blasphemy!!! | ||
The word "blasphemy" is a fairly common word in the Bible. It is used in many books, Old Testament and New Testament. It's even used outside of the Bible, in more secular contexts, but even there, it is often employed in the context of a religion or something that resembles one.
With all that use, you would think that people, or at least Christians, would understand the word, but most people don't understand it, or think they do, when they don't. For most people, the word means something like "offensive to God," which is incomplete, at best.
As I prepared this study, I found that it was true of me too. I didn't understand everything we'll see here.
I looked at the dictionary definitions, but those were mostly secular definitions of the word. I won't bother showing you that.
We'll look at examples from the Bible and cover them in book order. The first use of the word "blasphemy" doesn't come until Leviticus. That makes some sense because God wasn't known well enough prior to the Israelites to be able to blaspheme him.
If the Bible were written like a textbook, it would have the definition before the word is ever used, so you would know what the word means when you get to it. But in Leviticus, you see the word used, and there's no explanation for what it means. So, it's left to us to figure out.
Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the sons of Israel; and the Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel struggled with each other in the camp. 11 The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name and cursed. […]
13 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 14 "Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all the congregation stone him. 15 You shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'If anyone curses his God, then he will bear his sin. 16 Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him. The alien as well as the native […] shall be put to death. (Leviticus 24:10-11,13-16)
The person did two things wrong. He blasphemed the name of God, and he cursed God. We are not told what he said, though.
All we can learn from this example is that it was a capital offense that could cost you your life.
It seems that the son didn't feel like he was part of the Israelite community because of his Egyptian father and the heritage that came from that. This led him to fight with an Israelite, and in his anger, he said something intended to offend the Israelite that he was fighting with.
He didn't realize that God wouldn't be so impressed with that and would order him to be stoned to death. No Egyptian god had ever done that, but I imagine Egyptian priests had ways of dealing with blasphemy against their gods.
It's important to understand that Israel was a physical country ruled by God during that covenant. Our covenant is different. Christians are a spiritual body ruled by God, not a physical country like they were with the Israelites. In the New Testament, only God ever struck someone down for a sin. He never commanded that an execution be done.
If someone in a church was doing things that were wrong, they were ostracized, kicked out of the church. That is talked about in a couple of places.
The next time that we see the word "blasphemy" in the Bible is where we finally see a definition for the word, a definition that is really important to understanding blasphemy.
You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the sons of Israel and for the alien who sojourns among them. 30 But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from among his people. 31 Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt will be on him. (Numbers 15:29-31)
This verse is part of the How Many Strikes Until You Are Out study of unintentional and intentional (defiant) sins. Our focus here is different.
The Hebrew word that is translated here as "defiantly" is actually "hand". It refers to the idea of high-handedness, arrogance, willfulness, brazenness, or presumptuousness; all those words are appropriate in this context. I've chosen to use "intentional" when I've talked about this idea before, because it's the opposite of unintentional in English.
These verses present the idea that any sin, if it is done intentionally, is blasphemy. That's an extreme expansion of how I had previously understood "blasphemy," which is interesting. Blasphemy is an ordinary sin done defiantly or intentionally. That means the commandments can all be done in two ways, unintentionally or intentionally, which is blasphemy.
You might ask how a person can unintentionally steal something. My wife and I did that once. We were on a cruise, and we stopped at a place in Mexico. On a cruise, the meals are included, so when you are done eating, you get up and go. We had been on the cruise for a few days and had gotten used to that. We took a bus to a beach area. While there, we stopped at a beach cantina and had a little meal there. It wasn't until hours later, when we were back on the ship, that we realized that we had gotten up and walked out. So, unintentionally, we had committed theft.
When we got home, we sent them some money. We weren't entirely sure we should ever go back to Mexico; they might put us in a nasty old prison. We sent them a money order in Mexican pesos that couldn't be traced back to us. We also include an explanation of what had happened, and a Google-translated Spanish version of that.
The verses say that if a sin is done defiantly, these things are true:
Now I want to show you something from Hebrews 10, which obviously is a New Testament book.
For if a man shall sin by his will after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there is no sacrifice to be offered afterward for sins, 27 But that terrible judgment is ready and the zeal of fire which consumes the enemies. 28 For if any violated the law of Moses, he would die without mercy by the mouth of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more do you think he will receive capital punishment,
- he who has trampled upon the son of God and
- [he who has] esteemed the blood of his covenant to be like that of every person, who also was made holy by it, and
- he has despised the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:26,29)
This verse has the same idea we saw in the blasphemy verse. It says "by his will", which is "willfully," and is the same thing as defiantly or intentionally. We also see the word "despised" there as well, and it talks about dying for it and capital punishment.
So there are two ways of sinning in the New Testament, just as we saw there were in the Old Testament. The way that is called intentional, defiant, or willful sin is also blasphemy.
Another example comes from King David's life and his intentional sin with Bathsheba.
David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die." (2 Samuel 12:13-14 ESV)Instead of "by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD," some translations say "by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme," but that makes no theological sense because that would mean the child must die because of the blasphemy by uninvolved people. How would that be just?
I've chosen the ESV translation for these verses because it does the best translation of the Hebrew when it uses the words "utterly scorned," which is the same as "despised" that we saw above. So we know this is an intentional sin.
Nathan had just told David that the Lord knows what David did with Bathsheba. So David admitted that he sinned against the Lord. Nathan said to David that he would not die; instead, the child, the product of the sin, would die. When God says this, he is more focused on the spiritual death of David than on physical death. Remember that King Saul, David's predecessor, did not die immediately as a result of his many intentional sins.
Was the child punished for the sin of the father, which the Bible says would be unjust? Was David punished for his sin? The answer to both of those is no, although a person could easily think of it that way. The death of that child was really an atoning sacrifice, something valuable to David, in place of David's life, for the intentional sin (blasphemy) that was committed by David. To us that may seem like a distinction without a difference, but it matters to God.A lot of people wonder about the death of Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba. Wasn't that also a sin? No, it was the right of the king to do what he did to Uriah. When kings were crowned (anointed) in Israel, they were given a document that spelled out their rights as king. As far as I know, that document never survived through to our time. We see by example that the king has the right to say, "You've offended me; you die." David exercised that authority, as did Solomon and others.
So far, we've seen that any sin that is done intentionally or willfully is blasphemy. That's because the intent despises God. It's the arrogant attitude of, I know it's wrong, but I'm going to do it anyway.
The other half of blasphemy is the part we were talking about earlier - sins directed against the Godhood, the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. That's what we saw with the son of that Israelite and Egyptian. He had blasphemed the name of God, and did that intentionally, willfully.
The examples that we will look at next are violations of that basic law: love the Lord your God with all your heart. They're not direct violations of the Ten Commandments, though you could say they violate the First Commandment.
Isaiah said to them, "Thus says the Lord, 'Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.'" (2 Kings 19:6)
Through Isaiah, God tells Hezekiah that he was blasphemed by the King of Assyria, through Rabshakeh. So, now we'll look back at what was said.
Then Rabshakeh said to them, "Say now to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, "What is this confidence that you have? […] 22 If you say to me, 'We trust in the Lord our God,' is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away […] 25 Have I now come up without the Lord's approval against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, 'Go up against this land and destroy it.'" […] 35 Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?'" (2 Kings 18:19,22,25,35)
It's difficult to pick out the blasphemy, but there are a few of them.
He says:
Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel and say to them, "Thus says the Lord God, 'Yet in this your fathers have blasphemed Me by acting treacherously against Me. 28 When I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, then they saw every high hill and every leafy tree, and they offered there their sacrifices and there they presented the provocation of their offering. There also they made their soothing aroma and there they poured out their drink offerings'". (Ezekiel 20:27-28)
It's pretty obvious that the problem here is treachery, a "deliberate, often calculated, disregard for trust or faith." That definition refers to having a state of trust or faith with someone and then disregarding that by doing something that destroys the trust or faith.
God had made an agreement with them that they would do what he wanted them to do, and in exchange, he would bless them, including leading them into the promised land. But as soon as they got into the promised land, they turned away from God.
The blasphemy here is breaking a covenant with God.
Therefore I say to you, all sins and blasphemies will be forgiven to the children of men, but the blasphemy that is against the Spirit will not be forgiven to the children of men. 32 Everyone who will say a word against the son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever will speak against the Spirit of Holiness, it will not be forgiven to him, not in this world, neither in the world that is being prepared. (Matthew 12:31-32)
These verses are talking about forgiveness for blasphemy. It doesn't provide any examples of blasphemy other than "saying a word against [God]". If we look at the verses leading up to this, we see that Jesus is speaking about blasphemy because of what his critics have just said about the Holy Spirit.
But the Pharisees, when they heard, they were saying, "This one does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub the prince of demons." […] 28 And if I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, the Kingdom of God has come near to you. (Matthew 12:24,28)Jesus says something that is interesting here, but off topic. He means that, if you understand that I am doing these things by the Holy Spirit, then your spiritual eyes are also open to the Kingdom of God.
Jesus had just cast a demon out of a man. The Pharisees heard about it and implied that Jesus was only able to do that because he was in league with the prince (leader) of demons. Jesus explains how silly it would be for Satan to stop his minions from doing the work that he (Satan) had sent them to do. Then Jesus says, "if [instead] I'm doing it by the power of the Spirit", implying that he is doing it by the power of the Spirit and saying that they have come close to committing a blasphemy that cannot be forgiven.
This blasphemy is attributing the actions of God to someone else, in this case Satan. That would have been "speaking against the Spirit." It would have been easier for us to understand accusing the Spirit of doing something evil as being blasphemy, but here we see it is also saying that something the Spirit did was not done by him. This is giving credit to someone else.
But the Pharisees and the Scribes sitting there thought in their hearts, 7 "Who is this speaking blasphemy? Who is able to forgive sins except God alone?" (Mark 2:6-7)
They are saying it is blasphemy to forgive sins because that would be making a claim to being God. It's pretty obvious what Jesus did to cause them to say this.
When Yeshua saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "My son, your sins are forgiven you." (Mark 2:5)
We can forgive sins against us, but the forgiveness that really matters is God's forgiveness. The Pharisees and Scribes recognize that God's forgiveness is the kind that Jesus is claiming to give. They only had two choices. Despite everything Jesus had done by that time, they had decided that he was not God. The other choice would be that he was God, but then they would worship him.
The blasphemy here is claiming the authority of God. The Pharisees and Scribes are right that only God can forgive in that way, but Jesus is God, so it isn't blasphemy.
Then the High Priest ripped his garment, and said, "Behold, he has blasphemed. Why now do we need witnesses? Behold now, you have heard his blasphemy. 66 "What do you think?" They answered, and they said, "He deserves death." (Matthew 26:65-66)
While Jesus was being interrogated, he said something that they considered to be blasphemy. Everyone agreed that the penalty for blasphemy is death. This takes us back to the start of this study and the son of the Egyptian. The priests are right, but there is a small difference; God told Moses how to handle the blasphemy then. In Jesus' time, Israel had gone for 400 years without a prophet, and the priests did not consult the Urim and Thummim. Jesus is the "prophet like him" that Moses prophesied, but the priests would not listen to him.
Now we'll go back to the verses before this to see what Jesus said that was blasphemy.
The High Priest answered and said to him, "I adjure you by the living God that you tell us if you are the Messiah, the son of God." 64 Yeshua said to him, "You have said; but I say to you that from this hour, you will see the son of Man who sits at the right hand of power and comes on the clouds of Heaven." (Matthew 26:63-64)
When they say "son of God," they don't mean the same thing that we mean when we call Jesus the son of God. They used the word "son" in ways that we don't. They would say that all people are sons of God. They also referred to the Messiah as being the son of God, because he would be a man who was given a special mission by God.
Where is the blasphemy in those words? The answer is that Jesus has been referring to himself as the son of man, and now he says, the son of man will sit at the right hand of power, which would be God, and will come (back) on the clouds of heaven.
The High Priest had told Jesus to "tell us if you are the Messiah." The Jews of Jesus' time understood many things about the Messiah. The two that matter here are:
To separate itself from Christianity, Judaism was forced to change in many ways. They now say that the Messiah will not sit at the right hand of God.Therefore Jesus is claiming two things:
Because they don't accept him as being anything more than a man, they see these claims as blasphemy.
Jesus had wanted them to come to an understanding of who he was for themselves, instead of telling them outright, which might have devolved into "No, you aren't," "Yes, I am." Towards the end of his ministry, he became a little bit more open about it, but still not so much as to overwhelm their ability to choose. That's why the High Priest is now demanding that he make a clear statement on it.
So they see two blasphemies in Jesus' words:
And the Judeans picked up stones again to stone him. 32 And Yeshua said to them, "Many excellent works from the presence of my Father I have shown you. For which of those works are you stoning me?" 33 The Judeans were saying to him, "It is not for excellent works that we are stoning you, but because you blaspheme, and as you are a man, you make yourself God." (John 10:31-33)
The Jews say he has blasphemed because he has represented himself as God. Next we'll look at what Jesus said that caused them to think that.
"I and my Father, we are one." (John 10:30)
Jesus is being cagey with the words he uses. He hasn't actually said, "I am God." He has only said that he has some kind of unity with God. I mentioned above that they considered all people to be "sons of God." In the same way, a person calling God his father would not have been unheard of. Despite the caginess, the Jews listening to him understand that he is really saying he is God.
So the blasphemous act, as they saw it, was representing himself as God.
I think Christians of our time are no different. If Jesus appeared, wearing jeans and short hair, they would reject him.They say, "As you are a man," which means "we can see with our own eyes that you are a man." This was their great failing. They understood the idea that angels could appear as men, and they knew from the Bible that God had appeared before as a man, but they couldn't accept that this guy standing in front of them was God.
Jesus responded that he had done a whole bunch of healings and raised people from the dead and other stuff like that. If he had done these things by God, can he be a blasphemer? He's asking what they think about that, but they are too inflamed by their perceived blasphemy to do any thinking.
Part of their problem was that the Jews at the time believed that God was a single being, because of the verse in the Bible that says "God is one". Earlier in time, they had understood that God was more than one, but that made them look like the polytheists. So to their ears, Jesus was saying that there are two beings who are God, and he was one of them. They weren't prepared to accept that either.
Here are some examples of ways that Christians of our time blaspheme God.
As you can see, it is easy to thoughtlessly blaspheme God.
We aren't given a list of words or phrases that are blasphemous because blasphemy happens in the heart, and there are many different words or even gestures that can be used to express it. So how do we avoid blasphemy?
Walk humbly with your God.
Walk humbly in life, and you will walk humbly with your God.