Seemingly endless pages have been
written, and much debate has taken place that has wearied religious scholars on
the subject of blasphemy. The result has been less than conclusive. Our task
today is to stay away from the borderline of definition, review the nature of
God and reevaluate our own personal relationship with Him. In following this
format, we will lessen our curiosity for an exacting definition and find peace
and joy in knowing that this is not an issue for us personally.
The Hebrew word [naqab] meant originally
“to pierce,” as in the goring of an animal or “to curse,” as in the ultimate
verbal abuse. The most important part of this root fact is that we have no
reason to believe that this activity is relegated only to speech. Men can and
do blaspheme God in conduct. The opposite of blasphemy, therefore, would be
worship. Like blasphemy, true worship is much deeper and richer than mere
sounds that come from the lips of finite creatures.
Jesus taught us that God is a Spirit;
therefore, if we are to worship Him in truth, we must begin with a deep core
attitude. The apostle reminds us that we need to “present our bodies as a
living sacrifice” [Rom. 12:1,2] to Him in the way we live, as an expression of
worship.
As we saw last week, the rabbis loved to
externalize the law. They incessantly attempted to reduce the law from its high
and perfect standard to a level that was attainable by sinful men. Jesus, on
the other hand, knew that the true purpose of the law was to bring conviction
and drive us toward His grace and mercy. For this reason, He interpreted the
law with the intensity of impossibility.
Salvation does not come from the law, but rather from the grace to which
the law drives us.
Connected to this concept is the
ever-so-frightful statement by Jesus in Mark 3:28,29: "Truly I say to you,
all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they
utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness,
but is guilty of an eternal sin." We need to lay down our curiosity and
allow it to be replaced by significance. In this sin, we have irreversibility.
For this reason, it is critically
important that we not study this or any other subject within the pages of the
Scriptures without measuring our understanding against the nature of God. The
God of the Bible is immutable; He never changes. Unlike pagan gods of the
ancient world, God is not moody and unpredictable. His complexity keeps His
ways a mystery and demands that we walk by faith; He is every day the same.
This is important for us to know, since some have thought that
an impulsive outburst of profanity could be determined as blasphemy and
therefore damn a man eternally. Such cannot be the case, since that would not
reflect the nature of God as it has been revealed to us in the pages of His
Word. How much “piercing” of the heart of God does it take to be blasphemy may
be debatable, but certainly an impulsive momentary verbal failure could never
cancel that for which Jesus gave His life.
Matthew 26:65,66
The Nature of Blasphemy
A. 1st degree
B. 2nd degree
C. 3rd degree
The Nature of God
A. His Immutability
B. His Omnipotence
C. His Grace
III. The Nature of our
Relationship
A. Its beginning
B. Its maturing
C. Its eschatos