What law is this? The law that threatens punishment against blasphemers. In the book called Leviticus it is written that certain men belonging to the Jews quarreled in the camp, as Scripture says (Lev 24:10). One of them, it says, mentioned the name of God, cursed, and blasphemed.
Then death and severe punishment are appointed for the ungodly tongue, since God clearly says: “The man who curses God shall bear his sin. He who names the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation of Israel shall stone him. The stranger as well as the native shall die for naming the name of the Lord” (Lev 24:15-16).
But perhaps someone will doubt and object: what does the law say, and what does it wish to indicate by this? Death is appointed for the man guilty of blasphemy against God, not contrary to justice, but with complete justice. Yet why is one who blasphemes even one of the falsely named gods not free from sin?
It says: “If anyone curses God, he shall bear his sin” (Lev 24:15). The lawgiver is provident. Reviling even gods that are not true, or are not gods by nature, becomes a kind of practice and a road leading us to blasphemy against the true God by nature.
Therefore he forbids this also by other words, saying: “You shall not revile the gods” (Ex 22:28). He judged that the name of deity, even if falsely attached to someone, ought to be honored and glorified in a fitting way. The law certainly did not command us to give any worship to false gods. Rather, it teaches us to regard the name of deity as worthy of honor, even if someone has stolen it.
Since the law orders that one accused of blasphemy be put to death, they say that the Lord is subject to punishment, for “He made Himself the Son of God.” Here again we must recall where and how this was said of Christ.
Once, at the pool called the Sheep Pool, He healed on the Sabbath a man paralyzed by a long and grievous illness. Instead of marveling as they should have at such a Wonderworker, they again took offense, accusing Him of transgressing the law because of the Sabbath alone.
But even then Christ defended Himself in this way: “My Father works until now, and I work.” Then the Evangelist adds: “Therefore the Jews persecuted Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (Jn 5:17-18).
Thus the Jews were offended because Christ called the Lord of all His Father. He answered this with the gentlest discourse, saying: “It is written in your law: ‘I said, you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.’ If He called those gods to whom the word of God came. And Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (Jn 10:34-36).
Remembering none of this, the Jewish people turns the truth against the Truth as a charge. Because Christ said that He is such by nature, they claim that for this very reason He must die. I will use the prophet’s voice against this: “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’?” (Jer 8:8).
Should they not first have learned, through careful investigation, who Christ is and whence He comes? If He had been found to speak falsely, then with full justice they could have subjected Him to punishment. Or else they should have worshiped Him who spoke the truth.
Why, then, abandoning inquiry and assurance from the Holy Scriptures, do you turn to accusation alone? Why have you made the truth a pretext for accusation?
Those who told Pilate that “He made Himself the Son of God” ought to have pointed out to him the works of the Godhead and presented the majesty of His miracles. They should then have cried out that a man four days dead was brought to life by one word of the Savior, returning again to life (Jn 11:39).
They should have presented the only son of the widow and the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. They should have recalled that divine voice: at the raising of the widow’s son, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” (Lk 7:14), and at the raising of the maiden, “Maiden, arise!” (Lk 8:54).
They should also have made known that He gave sight to the blind and cleansing to lepers. In addition, He stopped the disturbance of the raging sea and the fury of strong winds by a single rebuke. They should have mentioned other things Christ had done.
But they bury these things in ungrateful silence. Treacherously passing over what allowed Him to be seen as God, they turn only to false proofs. To a foreign man, entirely ignorant of divine Scripture, who saw in Jesus a mere man, these wretched men cry: “He made Himself the Son of God.”
Yet the God-inspired Scripture proclaimed that the Word of God was once to come into the world in human form: “Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel,” which means, “God with us” (Is 7:14; cf. Mt 1:23).
What else could the one born of the Virgin be, in the form and nature of the body, if not a man like us? For He was at once man and truly God.
THEOSIS