On Mocking God, Part 1

On Mocking God, Part 1
Tuesday, May 6, 2025 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Apologetics / Contemporary issues / Scripture discussion / Thought for Today

Mocking God. We’ve seen a lot of it in the past year, from the blasphemous portrayal of the Last Supper at the Paris Olympics to the sarcastic remarks by the emcee at the Golden Globe awards a few days before the fires in Los Angeles broke out.

More recently, a Kansas satanist group held a black mass at the state capital on March 28, 2025. Their leader, Michael Stewart, called it an act of defiance and rebellion. The event details read: “We will be performing rites to the Black Mass and indulging in sacrilegious blaspheme. God will fall and Kansas will be embraced by the black flame of Lucifer” (https://www.kake.com/home/state-leaders-respond-to-satanic-black-mass-happening-at-kansas-statehouse/article_73805afa-ff75-11ef-ab71-b325008da981.html). The event took place outside the capital building.

It is very in-our-face. Some have posted to social media saying that even if Jesus came down from heaven and met with them personally, they would still reject Him and refuse to worship Him.

It is nothing new. Even as Christ was hanging on the Cross, dying for our sins, He was being mocked. Matthew 27:41–42 (ESV): “So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.’”

Had Jesus come down from the cross, would they have believed Him? No. As Jesus said in regarding the Rich Man and Lazarus, even if someone came back from the dead—which He would do—if they wouldn’t believe Moses and the Prophets, they wouldn’t believe someone who came back from the dead.

Have you heard of the Alexamenos Graffito? It is believed to be the very first picture of Christ’s crucifixion. Most scholars date it around 200 A.D., although some place it as early as the late first century. We’re not talking something on the level of famous paintings by Tintoretto, Titian, drawings by Michelangelo, or Rafael, to mention just a few. Rather we’re talking about a crude graffiti etched into plaster, that has somehow survived. It is now housed in the Palatine Museum in Rome.

What does it depict? A description of the scene, written in Latin, states, “Alexamenos worships his God.” The scene depicts Alexamenos in reverent worship. What is he giving homage to? There’s a crude drawing of a crucifixion scene. A body is nailed to the cross, but the body is missing its human head. Rather that body has the head of a donkey. So Christ is a … well, you can connect the proverbial dots.

Jesus was ridiculed and mocked. In ancient Rome, Christians were persecuted, jailed, fed to wild beasts; Nero used them as human torches to light his garden parties. The hatred of Christ is nothing new. The world, ruled for now by Satan, is doing what it has always done.

The key is to not mock, to not follow after the world. How does one reach that point? What are the marks of a scoffer or mocker? What does Scripture say?

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