“In all the long wars with the Dark Tower, treason has ever been our greatest foe.”

In the modern world, we have plenty of dark forces to point to. Child murderers to the left of me; warmongers to the right; atheists to the front; sexual predators to my rear. A hundred more, but they are still not the greatest foe which good men face in this world. No, the foe we must most be wary of is the traitor, the turncoat, the foe who does not name himself openly. As Gandalf warned the Council at Rivendell, “In all the long wars with the Dark Tower treason has ever been our greatest foe” (Bk. II, Ch. 2).

God’s Word provides the foundation for this assertion. By His command, a variety of crimes were made capital, their perpetrators subject to execution. Some are clear to us: murder, kidnap, rape, bestiality. Adultery is another which, while modern Christians may flinch from the verdict, is understandable- and adultery is a form of treachery (Lev. 20:10). Two of these crimes, however, stand out as strange to us.

Deuteronomy 13 gives us the law for both crimes. Verses 1-5 establish that the prophet who uses his certified prophecy as a foundation for leading others astray is to be executed; verses 6-11 requires the same end for the one who entices an Israelite into apostasy “secretly” (v6). For both of these, God commands that death shall be the end. They have both partaken of treachery, assuming the Lord’s name in order to tempt and destroy His people. The law nowhere requires that the pagan proselytizer be executed, note; open missionary work against God is not criminal, however immoral. The command God gives in Deuteronomy is against the idolater who comes bearing God’s colors and seeks to draw away His people; it is against treachery.

Such men have a new name in the New Testament. These are the ‘antichrists’ of 1 John 2:18-27. John writes of men who purported to be of the church (v19) but taught that Jesus was not the Messiah (v22). He writes, in other words, of men who walk amidst the church as members of the church while seeking to bring others to apostasy, of traitors. John warns the church to be wary of such and given them no credence.

All of this shows that treachery is indeed vile and an aggravation which can make immorality into criminality, but it is in considering the ‘unforgiveable sin’ that we see why I have termed treachery our “greatest foe” (and why Dante was right to place the traitors in the very pit of Hell).¹ Mark 3:28-29 tells us of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,” terming it an unforgiveable sin. What sin is unforgivable?

Leviticus 24:16 establishes that the blasphemer shall be put to death. Yet what distinguishes the blasphemer from the simple atheist or pagan? If we attend to the passage, we find that the blasphemer in question is a member of the Israelite assembly. Reasonably, we can hold that blasphemy, as here denominated, is specifically the sin of elevating the creation over the Creator while acknowledging the Creator’s existence and authority. Hebrews 6:4 provides support for this view; there the author warns that he who turns his back on Christ to return to the sacrifices similarly commits an unforgivable sin- He rejects God, while claiming God still (in going to the Old Testament rituals). If blasphemy is to assail God after acknowledging His authority, then the act of abandoning Christ for the Old Covenant’s now-empty rituals as assuredly blasphemy, and the sin Christ was addressing in Mark 3:28-29, as related in the preceding verses (v22-27), was the Pharisees, avowedly followers of God, terming God (Christ) as the devil.

So I propose that the unforgivable sin and the nature of blasphemy is this: to reject God while still acknowledging Him, having once submitted to His call (Heb. 6:1-4). In other words, the unforgivable sin is a species of treachery. All sins are treachery, admittedly, as per James 2:10-11, but this treachery is particularly refined and vile, particularly condemned of God.

Treachery, then, is the greatest foe men face. We can apply this across contexts. The greatest foe we have in politics is not really our open adversaries. As many will tell you, the greatest enemy of true reform in politics are the ‘conservatives’ and the other men who claim to be for good while preferring the status quo (RINOs, etc.). More generally, the surest destruction to a government is treachery against its purpose: the unjust judge, the tyrannical legislator, the lax prosecutor, the vindictive ruler. Treachery can come in many forms, in releasing the guilty or condemning the innocent (Is. 5:23), in regulations which sounds good but has no respect for God or administrative structures unknown to the Constitution, but it is death to a nation all the same.

Similarly, there is no greater pain in a family than a family member, the more intimate the more painful, who chooses to seek the harm of his kin. All the outside enemies in the world can do no greater harm to a family than a similarly malicious traitor can from within.

Beware treachery. Abhor it in yourself. Do not give it mercy; in love even to the one tempted show the vileness of the betrayal he contemplates. Love the traitor, as God commands (Matt. 5:44), but have no mercy for his treachery.

God bless.

1. (Unustified) kinslaying, incidentally, is a form of treachery. Abortion is unjustified kinslaying. ↩︎