Slanderer

“You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor, I am the LORD.”  Leviticus 19:16

Slanderer – The trial of Jesus was a trial of slander.  The conspirators attempted to do Jesus more than physical harm.  They attempted to permanently damage his character.  In order to understand the depths of their hatred for Jesus, we need to look all the way back to Leviticus.  In the Law, slander is very serious.  It is far more than insults.  It is a form of murder.

Hebrew uses the rather obscure word rakiyl to describe one who spreads false statements and rumors intended to harm another.  We all know the prohibition against gossip.  But now look at the context of this word.  The second part of the verse adopts the usual Hebrew mechanism of amplifying and refining the meaning of the first part of the verse.  Do you see those words, “act against the life”?  When you slander someone, you might as well put a gun to his head or a knife to his throat.  In God’s book, you are guilty of murder by words.  The Sanhedrin committed the first murder when they slandered the Son of God.  They simply fulfilled the impact of the words by demanding a physical expression of the same act.

Why is slander murder?  Reflect theologically (that’s what “today’s word” is all about).  If God created you as you are and another person attempts to destroy the image of God that He created you to be, hasn’t that person attacked God’s work in you?  Slander display disdain for the Creator.  You are not responsible for the creation of your life or for the gifts God gives you in life.  God is responsible.  You are required to be a steward of what He had made.  So if someone belittles and destroys what God has put on this earth in the form of you, the crime is the murder of the life God created.  Slander is serious sin.

Consider once again the trial of Jesus.  Before the first nail, before the first lash, before the first thorn, Jesus died for you.  He died when human beings attempted to destroy what God created.  He was stripped of his reputation, of his honor, of his identity.  For what?  For you and me, and for the very ones who killed him with their words.