In his letter to the Galatian Christians, Paul writes, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked” (Galatians 6:7). Is Paul suggesting that the people in Galatia were verbally taunting the Lord? Does this even make sense? After all, Paul is writing to committed Christian people.
We tend to see mockery as entirely verbal. Mockery pertains to the rude and obnoxious taunts of playgrounds bullies and boardroom braggarts. To mock someone is to engage in verbal abuse.
When we ridicule another, we stand in judgment over a person crafted in the divine image. We declare that God’s creation is not good enough — that God erred in some way in the creation and redemption of that person.
The Galatian Church worshiped the Lord, prayed in the Spirit, and served one another in Christlike love. Would these same people then turn around and speak mockingly towards God?
So, what does it mean to mock God? Furthermore, if this was a problem for the Galatians, is it a problem for us today? To understand what Paul is getting at we must trace the flow of his thought. In doing so, we learn that mocking God has more to do with the life that we lead than rather than the words we say. Let's take a look at three ways we become deceived and mock God.
1. Mockery Is Living in Contempt
Paul’s main concern, in writing his letter to the Galatians, is to describe the nature of the Christian life. Faith in Jesus is not just about the doctrines we hold to be true; faith informs about how we live our lives. In chapter 5, Paul describes how Christian people are to live; they are to walk in the Spirit.
This means that Christians allow the Holy Spirit to guide and empower their lives. The Holy Spirit produces a change in us, a change that is visible to others. Famously, Paul describes the evidence of the Spirit’s work as the “fruit of the Spirit.”
The Spirit-filled life is one of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). These are the attributes the Holy Spirit produces in the lives of all Christians.
Paul contrasts the fruit of the Spirit with “the acts of flesh,” listing several actions that are inappropriate for Christian people (Galatians 5:19). Those who “live like this,” Paul says, will not inherit the Kingdom (Galatians 5:21). This is because the way of the flesh and the way of the Spirit are “in conflict with each other” (Galatians 5:17).
Importantly, everything that Paul mentions is an embodied action. Walking in the way of the flesh is to choose behaviors and actions that are contrary to God’s desire for us. For Paul, one cannot be committed to the Spirit yet live in a way contrary to the Spirit’s influence.
Living according to the flesh disregards God’s wishes for our lives. In Galatians 6:7, Paul uses a variation of the word mukterizo, meaning “to turn up the nose.” In the ancient world, turning one’s nose up towards another was considered a sign of contempt and disdain.
The action was a physical gesture declaring one’s utter distaste. Mocking God is to live contemptuously before God — to turn our noses up before the one who created us and redeemed us.
2. Mockery Is a Selfish Life
Such contemptuous living, says Paul, creates an inwardly focused spiritual life. Mocking God involves placing the self above all others, even the Lord. This goes against the way of the Christian life. Christians do not live their faith lives in isolation but in community.
As followers of Jesus, we are called into fellowship with one another. This makes sense given the relational nature of the Spirit’s fruit. The fruit of the Spirit are not objects that we possess in ourselves, they are how we treat one another.
As Christian people, we are to be concerned with each other’s spiritual livelihood and health. Paul calls the Galatian Christians to restore a wayward brother or sister, and “carry each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:1-2).
Furthermore, Paul instructs the Galatians to “do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers (Galatians 6:10). Paul’s point is that the Spirit-filled life is directed toward the blessing and uplifting of one another. The Christian life is how we live for each other, and with each other.
Mocking God disregards this communal focus. It is to live only for oneself. Instead of bearing one another in love, the individual selfishly protects his or her own interests. Instead of carrying another person’s load, the individual seeks only to lighten their own burden. This way of life is in direct contrast to the one “who gave himself for our sins to rescue us” (Galatians 1:3).
3. Mockery Deceiving Ourselves
Ultimately, mocking God is duplicitous and deceitful. It is asserting one thing while embodying another. Thus, mocking God is closer to hypocrisy than blasphemy. When we say that we love others, promote peace, or forgive others, but fail to embody such behavior, we are living a lie.
It is as if we assume that God is fooled by our deceit, that somehow God will not notice that we say one thing but do another. Or perhaps we believe that God is unconcerned with how we live our lives. Mocking God is a deliberate and sustained life rooted in duplicity.
God, of course, is not deceived. God dwells with us each moment of our lives and is fully aware of what we say and what we do. In fact, Paul suggests that when we mock God, we are the ones who are deceived!
Paul writes, “If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves” (Galatians 6:3). While we believe we pull the wool over God’s eyes, in truth, we are the ones who are fooled. We live an illusion.
Often, this is rooted in an assumption that we need to present ourselves perfect and faultless before God, and others. We become more concerned with appearing righteous rather than being righteous. This can occur in a myriad of different ways.
Whenever we say to another, “I’ll pray for you” but have no intention of doing so, we engage in deceit. When Christians bite at one another, or gossip about each other, we deny the very fellowship we proclaim.
Maybe we only live the Christian life on Sunday mornings with the rest of the week given to chasing after earthly desires. Mocking God is an act of deception. It is the claiming of a spiritual status or behavior we do not embody.
Why 'God Will Not Be Mocked' Matters Today
Mocking God is a serious problem to our spiritual livelihood. So, how do we ensure that we do not fall into this trap? The key to this is honesty. We need to be honest about our Christian lives, not just to others, but also to ourselves.
We must continually examine our spiritual lives. This is what Paul is hoping to elicit in the Galatian community. In contrasting the way of the flesh with the fruit of Spirit, Paul invites that Galatians to assess their walk with the Lord. Do they embody the Spirit’s fruit?
The ancient writers referred to this as the prayer of examen. We must continually examine the spiritual life we cultivate, and the places where we put our spiritual energy. Do we spend time cultivating an interactive life with God, or do we chase after the things of the world?
Have we allowed the Holy Spirit to change our behavior? Simply put, we ask ourselves whether we are living the best Christian life we can. We then answer that question in complete honesty.
The good news is that God receives us in grace and love. God is interested in who we are, not who we pretend to be. God wants our honest selves, our true selves. We are never rejected. We avoid mocking God whenever we present ourselves to the Lord in complete and unhindered honesty.
Instead of hypocrisy, we embody trust. Instead of duplicity, we open our lives to God’s unyielding love. The sure-fire way to avoid mocking God is to continually allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives; to change us and mold us. The result of this is a deeper relationship with the Lord and a life that bears the fruit of the Spirit.
For further reading:
What Does it Mean to Have Reverence for God?
How Is the Fear of the Lord the Beginning of Wisdom?
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