ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – BLASPHEMY – GODPHA   גודפא   

Matthew 12:31:  “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy [against] the [Holy] Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.”

Throughout church history, there has not been anything more chilling than the unpardonable sin, a sin which God will not forgive. People have lived in fear of committing this sin and many have given up hope believing they have committed the sin. There have been numerous teachings on the unpardonable sins.   The Roman Catholics follow the teachings of Thomas Aquinas who listed six sins against the Holy Spirit: Despair – believing your sin is too great to be forgiven, Presumption – trying to obtain pardon without repentance, Resistance – to known truth, Envy – of a brother’s spiritual good, Impenitence – the specific purpose of not repenting and Obstinacy – clinging to your sin so long you become immune to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. 

Calvin summed it up by giving the generally accepted view that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is resisting the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.  Billy Graham gave the best answer as to whether or not you committed the unpardonable sin. “If you are worried that you committed the unpardonable sin you haven’t done it yet.”  In other words, the mere fact you are worried about it shows the Holy Spirit is still convicting you. 

But what does blasphemy really mean?  Webster defines it as the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for a deity.  That is scary as most people have done this to some degree.  The word in the Greek is blasphemia.  Bet you can guess where we get our English word blasphemy from. The word means abusive or scurrilous language.  It also means to call something good as bad and bad as good. By that definition, again, most people have committed blasphemy.  

I checked out the word in the Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke and found that it is the word godpha. In Aramaic Midrashic Literature the word literally means to cut, scrape or hollow out. It is used for scraping out a dish to lessen its thickness. In other words just cutting God out of your life, scraping every remembrance or thoughts of God out of your life. It was used as a metaphor to express the idea of “Worshipping idols to impair the supremacy of the Divine Name” (Dictionary of the Targumim).  You have emptied the whole dish and left nothing of God in it.  Ultimately, what godpha  is, is to say to the Holy Spirit who is convicting you of your sin: “I don’t want anything to do with  you nor the Salvation that your Son died to give to me.” 

Godpha sums up everyone’s definition which is the continual rejection of the conviction of the Holy Spirit where the Holy Spirit is so grieved over the rejection of His tender prodding that He will not strive with that person anymore, He will just give that person over to their sin Romans 1:28.  If you don’t want God then like the perfect Gentleman He is, although His heart is broken over the rejection, He will give you your wish and desire and leave you alone.  You do not have to spend eternity with Him if that is your desire, you can go someplace after you die where He cannot be reached.