Tag Archives: blasphemy

By Their Works

Bible Study, , ,

BY THEIR WORKS 

“‘If He called them “gods”, to whom the Word of God came — and Scripture cannot be set aside — what about the one whom the Father set apart as His very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son?’ Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father.’

“‘But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.’ Again they tried to seize Him, but He escaped their grasp.” John 10:35-39 NIV.

There is only one way to recognise the nature of a tree — by its fruit. There is no doubt that an apple tree is an apple tree when it bears apples or an orange tree is an orange tree when it bears oranges, though it may look like a lemon tree or some other citrus tree.

The Pharisees refused to accept Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God because they insisted that the works He did, although He did the things that reflected the nature of His Father, were evil because He did them on the Sabbath, as though it were the day, not the nature of the deed that made His miracles evil!

Unfortunately for them, their very accusation revealed the nature of their “tree”. Their fruit was so rotten that they called evil good and good evil. Jesus warned, “‘Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognise them.'” Matthew 7:15, 16a NIV.

If the fruit of Jesus’ life matched the nature of His Father, then He must surely be His Son, since a son contains the genes and perpetuates his father’s nature into the next generation. In Psalm 82:6, God called the Israelites ‘gods’ because they were to reveal the nature of their God to the world as His sons, His gracious, compassionate, slow-to-anger and abounding-in-love-and-faithfulness nature, yet the Pharisees were anything but like the God they claimed as their Father.

Jesus set great store on works because works reveal the nature of the person just as fruit reveals the nature of a tree. In his letter, James picks up on this theme, showing his readers that a true believer is identified by his works as Abraham was by his. To the Hebrew mind there was no such thing as believing without acting on that belief. Believing in Jesus was meaningless unless it issued in obedience to Him.

The Apostle Paul, in his letters to the Romans and Galatians, contended for faith apart from works as a way of salvation. The Judaisers — a Jewish sect of believers in Jesus — insisted that Gentiles be circumcised first before they could become believers. To Paul that meant that the death of Jesus was insufficient to reconcile a wayward son to the Father and that was unthinkable. Yes, the death of Jesus is sufficient to deal with our sin and to restore us to fellowship with the Father. There is nothing we can do to add to the sufficiency of His work on the cross.

James, on the other hand, recognised that good works — tsidaqah, which isfulfilling our duty to God by sharing our resources with people less fortunate than us, caring for the alien, the widow and the orphan and helping the weak and oppressed — are a fruit of our confession of faith in Jesus. We reveal our oneness with Him when we do what He did just as He revealed His oneness with the Father by doing what the Father wanted Him to do.

For all their big talk, the Pharisees and religious leaders made it glaringly obvious that they were of their father, the devil, because they were doing his works, not the works of the Father. “‘You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.'”  John 8:44 NIV.

That is quite an indictment!

 

How important it is to show our connection with Jesus by doing what He did and living like He lived, just as He lived out His connection with the Father by the way He treated people. It is not what we say that reveals our connection but the way we live. Let’s make sure that our fruit is the fruit of the Spirit and not the deeds of the flesh.

 

We are known by our works, not our words!

Tell It With Your Life

Bible Study, , , ,

TELL IT WITH YOUR LIFE 

“Again His Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’ ‘We are not stoning you for any good work,’ they replied, ‘but for blasphemy because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'” John 10:31-33 NIV.

How nonchalant could Jesus be? Almost with tongue in cheek He challenged them. ‘For which of the good works I did are you wanting to stone me?’

Slowly but steadily the case for blasphemy was building against Him — unless, of course, He was telling the truth. If the Jews had had their way, they would have stoned Him there and then, but for one thing — it was not His time.

As far as they were concerned, He was guilty and didn’t even need a trial. Unlike Nicodemus and the blind man He had recently healed, they refused to recognise the Father as the source of the miracles Jesus performed. He was evil because He “broke” their Sabbath rules by healing on the Sabbath and then compounded His guilt by claiming to do His good works through God. What more evidence did they need?

Unfortunately for them, their action only compounded their guilt and not the other way around. Jesus had already indicted them for being blind. It was their wilful blindness that exposed their guilt because they refused to recognise Him for who He was. They had the Scriptures; they knew the Scriptures but they chose not to believe Him although it was clear that He was the one the Scriptures pointed to from Genesis 1.

In order for Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world, He had to be innocent of all sin, and especially the sins of law-breaker and blasphemer of which He sworn enemies accused Him so that His death would be a perfect substitute for sinners.

“Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, ‘I have said you are “gods”?'” John 10:34 NIV.

What is the point of this quote from Psalm 82:6? In Hebrew rabbinic teaching, this is called a remez — a hint. It is a portion of a portion of Scripture that makes no sense outside the context of the whole portion. Psalm 82 is an indictment of God’s people for their idolatry. They followed the gods of the surrounding nations and became like them — cruel, unjust, and oppressors.

God’s law taught them to treat all people with dignity because they were all created in the His image. They were to reflect the nature of their God by the way they treated their fellow men.

“God presides in the great assembly; He renders judgment among the “gods”: ‘How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. The “gods” know nothing. They walk about in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High,’ but you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.'” Psalm 82:1-7 NIV.

If the religious leaders knew their Scriptures, they would have understood that Jesus was turning their accusation back on them. They were accusing Him of blasphemy because He claimed to be the Son of God which He evidenced by doing what God required of a son.

They were supposed to be sons of the Most High by being generous and merciful, yet their very behaviour negated their claim. Like their ancestors, their lives displayed who their “god” was — their selfish and greedy selves. They were “gods” in the sense that they were being what their “god” was and doing what their “god” did. For all the vehemence of their accusations, their words did not stick because their behaviour spoke louder than their voices.

Instead of the case building against Jesus, it was building against His accusers. The day would come when they would put the final nail in their own coffins and the judgment of God would fall on them and their children. “His blood be on us and on our children.” Matthew 27:25 NIV.

Who is your God? Tell it with your life, not your lips!

Don’t Bad-mouth God

Christian Life, , ,

DON’T BAD-MOUTH GOD

“‘If you bad-mouth the Son of Man out of misunderstanding or ignorance, that can be overlooked. But if you’re knowingly attacking God Himself, taking aim at the Holy Spirit, that won’t be overlooked.'” Luke 12:9-10 (The Message).

So-called ‘blasphemy’ against the Holy Spirit is called the unpardonable sin. There are believers who are concerned about whether or not they have unwittingly committed ‘the unpardonable sin’, but this is not possible. When they can’t ‘feel’ God’s presence, they assume that God has left them but, again, this is not possible. God does not come and go according to the way we feel.

What did Jesus mean by blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? In the context of His conflict with the Pharisees, because He offended their religious scruples and refused to comply with their religious demands, they accused Him of casting out demons by the power of the devil. Jesus pointed out the fallacy of their thinking. How can Satan throw out Satan and his kingdom still remain intact? The idea is ridiculous.

But their accusations had a far more sinister implication. Character assassination does not make the truth go away. Jesus wasn’t bothered about their attack on Him but He was concerned about its implications for them.

The Holy Spirit’s ministry is crucial to human beings. Jesus came to reveal the Father. His death on the cross was the final and fullest revelation of God’s attitude to us. His love took Him to the ultimate self-sacrifice on the cross to rescue us from our chosen foolish destiny on the trash heap of wasted potential.

However, what Jesus did for us is of no value to us without the Holy Spirit’s ministry in us. It is not that the Holy Spirit is more important than Jesus. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. It is the Spirit’s work to apply what Jesus did for us, to our hearts. Without Him we remain spiritually ignorant and dead. He is the one who lives in us to make the presence and work of Jesus real to us.

The Holy Spirit’s work in the unbeliever is to convict of sin. He moves the sinner towards Jesus. He awakens the conscience and enlivens our dead spirits through the faith that He provides. He opens our understanding and reveals Jesus to us through the Word of God. He is the Spirit of sonship. Without His work in us we can never understand or experience who we are and the place we have in God’s family as His sons and daughters.

If we deny or reject the work of the Holy Spirit, what have we that will lead us to salvation through Jesus? We are completely cut off from God because God the Father has given Him to us as the link between us and Himself.

Is it any wonder, then, that Jesus issued such a serious warning? If we repudiate the Holy Spirit and attribute to the devil what He is doing, we place ourselves outside any possibility of receiving God’s grace and being prepared for a life in the presence of God in the eternal realm.