In this case, Christ’s miracle of healing the dumb and blind man with a devil, causes the scribes and the Pharisees to accuse Jesus Christ of blasphemy. Little did they know that the blind and dumb man before them represented themselves …
blind
because
they see and see not (Matthew 13:13-14) … and dumb because
they speak
not the truth (Isaiah 59:4).
DEFINITIONS
To
blaspheme in the
Bible is to insult, show contempt or lack of reverence in any way shape
or
form, toward Almighty God.
To
curse in the Bible
is to insult, place great harm, evil, or misfortune so as to bring evil
or
severe affliction or torment.
Man
may blaspheme God but not
the other way around. God does not blaspheme men but
simply curses
them (Deuteronomy 30:19) … or blesses them.
In
this case, the Pharisees
and scribes accuse Christ of blasphemy … of having a devil, that is,
they are
calling the Holy Ghost by the name of Beelzebub the prince of the
devils. To
which Christ aptly replies with profound reasoning about a kingdom
divided
cannot stand and so on (Matthew 12:25-28,29).
BLASPHEMING
THE HOLY GHOST NO LONGER APPLIES
Now
Dear
Reader, at the outset, we clear up the dreadful error going around in
churches
today … that is … we can blaspheme the Holy Ghost, and this can
never be
forgiven. And this is true, but only applied to when Christ was on
earth,
but not now … as Christ is in heaven … and no-one can accuse
Christ in
heaven as having a devil in him.
To
blaspheme
the Holy Ghost was to say that Christ on earth had a devil working with
him and
not the Holy Ghost. It was to call the Holy Ghost a devil.
In
the dispensation of
Christ on earth, before the cross, with his preaching the kingdom of
heaven,
this was the case, however, in the kingdom of God dispensation we are
currently
in, this is a previous dispensational sin that has been paid for and
forgiven
with the redemption found in Christ’s blood (Colossian 1:14).
ISRAEL
HAS A
HISTORY ABOUT BLASPHEMING
In
the Old Testament,
Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, is attacking Judah, and through his
spokesman, Rabshakeh, is taunting King Hezekiah of Judah, that Judah’s
God
could not deliver Judah from Assyria. This was a blasphemy
against God
Almighty … and told as follows …
“So
the servants
of king Hezekiah (Judah)
came
to Isaiah (God’s prophet). And Isaiah said unto them,
Thus shall
ye say to your master (Hezekieh), Thus saith the LORD,
Be not
afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants (Rabshakeh
in particular) of the king of Assyria (Sennacherib) have
blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast
upon
him, and he
(Sennacherib)
shall hear a rumour, and shall
return to his own land (Assyria); and I will cause him to fall
by the
sword in his own land.” (2 Kings 19:5-7)
In
addition, Sennacherib, in
speaking through Rabshakeh, said that God did not have enough
strength to
deliver the children of Judah from Assyria’s destruction … something
akin to a baby
being aborted at birth, due to lack of strength by the mother to push
it out,
and therefore dying in the womb … as follows …
“And
they (Hezekiah’s
servants) said unto him (Isaiah),
Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy
(spoken by Sennacherib against God): for the children are
come to
the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.” (2 Kings 19:3)
Sennacherib,
in essence, was
blaspheming God, by stating that Judah would be like a child that dies
in the
womb, because God did not have enough strength to deliver them (from
Assyria).
WE
SHOULD NOT BE
SURPRISED
As
the serpent was the first
thing to be cursed in the Bible (Genesis 3:14) for blaspheming against
God by
calling into question what God had said (Genesis 3:1), we should not be
surprised that his servants (Romans 6:20), the Pharisees and scribes,
can do
nothing but curse and blaspheme against the Lord as well, in calling
the Holy
Ghost Beelzebub.
WHAT
GOES AROUND
COMES AROUND
Blasphemers
end up
destroying their own households as Sennacherib’s 185,000 army was
destroyed,
and furthermore, his own sons killed him as he was worshipping in the
house of
Nisroch his god (Isaiah
37:36-38).
The
end result of those that
falsely accuse of blasphemy is the destruction of themselves.
And
as prophesied the
scriptures state …
Behold,
I will
send a blast upon him (Sennacherib),
and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I
will cause
him to fall by the sword (by his own sons) in his own land.”
(2 Kings
19:7)
As
stated, little did the
scribes and the Pharisees know that the blind and dumb man before them
represented themselves … blind because they see and see not (Matthew
13:13-14)
… and dumb because they speak not the truth (Isaiah 59:4).
However
should they have
humbled themselves and repented, Christ could have spiritually healed
them.
Christ, in healing the blind, dumb and bedevilled man, was practically
demonstrating that they could be freed of their devils and be healed of
their
blindness and dumbness.
Harley
Hitchcock
April
2023
www.
AustralianBibleMinistries
.com
“JESUS
CHRIST - A MAN APPROVED OF GOD (Acts 2:22)”
Miracle #13-
Matt
8:23-26,27; Mark 4:35-39,39-41;
Luke 8:22-25
Dear
Reader, have you heard the phrase about the
Bible? It goes like this …
“The new is in the old concealed, old is in the new revealed.” That is, things in the Old Testament are types, prophecies and foreshadows of the real things in the New Testament … but even today, we who are Christians, also see through a glass darkly but then face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).
