The worst sin a Christian can commit
In Christianity, all sins are grievous and are an affront to G-d. Still, one might ask: are there not some sins that are worse than others and certain transgressions more damnable? Should not things like blaspheming G-d or murdering a person be at the top of the list? The answer is no, and a committed Christian is unlikely to commit either of the sins anyway. The most ultimate of sins, in the Christian worldview, is for a person to willfully reject Jesus, thereby “refusing the gift God freely offers us of salvation in Jesus Christ”. Such a sin is an unforgivable offense.
It might come as a surprise, therefore, that there’s one terrible sin that a person, and specifically a Christian may commit, a sin that’s probably more grievous in G-d’s eyes than any other and one that carries most terrible eternal repercussions, both for the transgressor and for his victims. What is this horrible offence? This sin is an act of tempting and leading a Jewish person into idolatry, the worship of a human being, a dead man Jesus, as god – the so called “Jewish evangelism” that turns a Jew into a a Christian or a “Messianic Jew”. Let me explain.
Sacrificing a Jew on the altar of the Jesus god
No doubt, many Christians view Jewish evangelism as an expression of love for the condemned sinner or, at the very least, as obedience to Jesus’ command to “preach the gospel”, as enjoined to them in the New Testament. Their goal – saving a Jew from eternal damnation that they believe comes with rejecting Jesus, “first for the Jew”, to quote Paul. The terrible irony, however, is that once they finally achieve their goal, the actual result is the complete opposite of their good intentions – they have spiritually murdered a Jewish person. They pushed a Jew, usually a Jewishly ignorant one, to betray the G-d of Israel by bowing down to a man. They sacrificed that Jew to their god, no doubt with complete sincerity and belief that their actions are justified for the “greater good”, even as they wreak havoc in a Jewish person’s own life and in the life of the Jewish people as a whole. And actually, things are far worse than even that.
The Torah warns about the act of even tempting a Jew into worshiping anything other the the G-d of Israel with deadly seriousness:
Should even your brother the son of your mother, your son, your daughter, or your beloved wife, or your dearest friend, try to seduce you secretly, trying to convince you to go and worship the gods of others, that your ancestors did not know, gods of the nations around you, whether near or far, from one end of the earth to the other;
Do not like this person, and do not listen to him, do not have mercy upon him to save him, do not give him the benefit of the doubt, and do not cover up for him.
You must utterly kill him, your hand should be the first to kill him, and the hand of all the nation should follow you. You must pelt him with stones until he dies, because he tried to push you away from Hashem your G-d, Who took you out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.
And all of Israel will hear and fear, and they will not continue to do this terrible thing amongst you.
— Deuteronomy 13:7-12
When a Christian succeeded in evangelizing a Jew, convincing him or her to stray into accepting and worshiping Jesus as god, that missionary, be he a paid professional, a lay stranger, coworker or a dear friend, has facilitated an act of forever, barring G-d’s intervention, cutting off a Jew from both his people and his G-d. Any person throughout history who has ever tempted and brought a Jew into idolatry, either of ancient gods or of the Jesus deity, has caused incalculable spiritual and physical destruction. Why also physical? Because by cutting off a Jew from his people, the proselytizer has also caused a Jew to forever cease from having Jewish progeny, either his own or that of his children and grandchildren, who will intermarry with their new non-Jewish coreligionists and cease to identify as Jews in any sense in a generation or two.
Our rabbis teach that when Cain murdered Abel, Abel’s “bloods” (damim, plural in Hebrew) were crying out to G-d. Why “bloods”? Because by murdering Abel, Cain not only destroyed one life, but also obliterated all of the potential future generations of the righteous Abel. As a result, evil multiplied greatly as godliness was driven away from this world for many generations. Likewise, an evangelist to the Jews has, in effect, by converting even one single Jewish person to Christianity and toward the worship of a dead man, participated in the destruction of potentially thousands of future Jewish souls. The missionary to the Jews has diverted G-d’s will for the Jewish people and for the world by separating untold numbers of Jews from their birthright and their purpose. Instead hastening the redemption of the world, his actions have hampered and delayed it by actively dimming G-d’s chosen source of light – the people of Israel.
Daily Minyan 
Thanks Gene.
Really good to see you posting again – your site really helps me.
I do agree the NT presents rejecting Jesus as the worst sin. To digress a bit Catholicism down the ages has had a very strong stance against “the sins of the flesh”. For example a message from the apparition of Fatima 1917 is that more souls go to Hell for sins of the flesh than any other. Yet it struck me as odd as I thought rejecting Jesus was the biggest one of the NT. Also I had read very little of the Jewish bible but from what i did it didn’t exactly seem heavily focused on sexual sins – the main one that stood out was idolatry. This violent clash of ideas and holding them all as equally valid and true contributed to what you and others here call cognitive dissonance.
Hi Jamie… thank you.
Speaking of Catholicism and sexual sins – Roman Catholicism teaches that sex before marriage is a “mortal sin”. The Bible, on the other hand, while clearly casting a shade of disapproval on the act, doesn’t prescribe any sort of punishment either now or in the hereafter, other than requiring (rabbis add, with girl’s and her father’s consent) the discovered male lover to marry the girl he deflowered and never ever be allowed to divorce her.
Good news for all Catholic sinners though – Pope Francis has recently cancelled hell.
Actually Gene, concerning “The worst sin a Christian can commit”, there are 6 sins for which a Catholic can never be pardoned, not in this world, and neither in the world to come : “despair of salvation, presumption of God’s mercy, to impugn the known truth, envy at another’s spiritual good, obstinacy in sin, and final impenitence”. I think that most Jews can more or less agree with these points of view, or at least see the virtues of them.
You however claim that “This sin is an act of tempting and leading a Jewish person into idolatry, the worship of a human being, a dead man Jesus, as god.”. If you really believe that Yeshua was a DEAD MAN, you reject the physical preservation of the Messiah after his death (his death being described in Isaiah 53 : 7-9), and how does that agree with the Tanach ? Psalm 16:10 : “For Thou wilt not abandon my soul to the nether-world; neither wilt Thou suffer THY GODLY ONE TO SEE DECAY – , כִּי, לֹא-תַעֲזֹב נַפְשִׁי לִשְׁאוֹל; לֹא-תִתֵּן חֲסִידְךָ, לִרְאוֹת שָׁחַת.” . Moreover, there is also the fact of the resurrection of the Messiah, which was witnessed by many people. His body bore the signs of the wounds, but no signs of decay.
Nevertheless, I understand that the “God-in -the-flesh”-issue is a very complex issue, very difficult to resolve, especially for Orthodox Jews. The Lord shows Himself in so many different forms and on so many occasions in the Tanach, that it is incredibly difficult to resolve His true Nature ( in the supposition that this nature can be resolved.). Pre-Rabbinic Judaism initially accepted the “God-in-the-flesh”-concept, but this point of view was abandoned later on. My personal guess is because the first apparition of the Lord in the Tanach is in Genesis 1:2 ” …and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.- וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם. ” . The first apparition of the Lord is His Spirit of Life ! It is only later on that the “Son of Man” enters the scene. Jews and Catholics alike believe in ONE GOD, but for Catholics it means that there is ONE DIVINE SUBSTANCE, consisting of three entities, each of which is BEARER OF THE SAME DIVINE SUBSTANCE. This interpretation is really as complex as the multiple presentations of the Lord in the Tanach.
My true fear is that neither Jew nor Catholic will be able to resolve this complex issue.
P.S. : Sheol and Gehinnom (“the valley of fruitlessness”) and even Satan are mentioned so often in the Tanach, that Pope Francis must have been hit by a bolt of lightning to tell such nonsense as the “non-existence of hell”. I’m afraid every true Catholic will have to dump the “Infallability of the Pope” into his dirt-bin (in the supposition that the Pope took this decision after intense consultations with his cardinals.).
“If you really believe that Yeshua was a DEAD MAN, you reject the physical preservation of the Messiah after his death (his death being described in Isaiah 53 : 7-9), and how does that agree with the Tanach ? Psalm 16:10 : “For Thou wilt not abandon my soul to the nether-world; neither wilt Thou suffer THY GODLY ONE TO SEE DECAY”
Francois, I simply reject that this applies to anyone other than the author of the psalm, which certainly wasn’t Jesus (it was composed by David, as it says plainly in the beginning of the psalm). David simply looked forward to his own resurrection. And the proper translation is not “godly” (although that in itself never indicates “deity”, but rather righteousness), but faithful and holy (set apart). Those who see decay, their “worm never dies” (Isaiah 66:24), which applies only to sinners. As far as the process of decay or decomposition, we know today that it begins immediately after a person dies, not merely two or three days later, when the characteristic foul smell starts.
“Pre-Rabbinic Judaism initially accepted the “God-in-the-flesh”-concept, but this point of view was abandoned later on.”
I don’t think this idea was ever part of Judaism. Heretical ideas, even if they arise, are not mainstream.
“Jews and Catholics alike believe in ONE GOD”
The problem is that Catholics believe that Jesus, a man, is god.
“My true fear is that neither Jew nor Catholic will be able to resolve this complex issue.”
As a Jew, I believe that this issue will one day be resolved when the Catholics acknowledge the correctness of the Jewish view that G-d is not a man nor ever was one. Of course, they may not continue as Catholics after that, although as with the Pope’s “no hell” proclamation, that new understanding may not preclude them from still being Catholic:)
” Pre-Rabbinic Judaism initially accepted the “God-in-the-flesh”-concept, but this point of view was abandoned later on.”
Hi Francois, what evidence is there for this?
” Actually Gene, concerning “The worst sin a Christian can commit”, there are 6 sins for which a Catholic can never be pardoned”
On a theoretical level these are probably true for a certain brand of Catholicism but on a practical level large parts of the church have had a strong focus on sexual sins as being the main one to send people to Hell. I regularly encountered this in traditional Catholicism and the parishes I attended.
Evangelical Christians would believe denial of Jesus is the worst sin. These Christians are surely the ones most active in attempting to convert Jews.
“Evangelical Christians would believe denial of Jesus is the worst sin. ”
Jamie, among Evangelicals, the sin of “blaspheming the Holy Spirit”, considered one sole unforgivable sin per Mark 3:28-30, is equated with denying of Jesus. The two are conflated because the denial of the “Holy Spirit’s testimonial” about Jesus (when one denies Jesus, per these Evangelicals) supposedly makes the “Holy Spirit” into a liar.
Gene
Feel free to move this to another thread – i asked this question on another forum but was hoping to hear your view. What Jewish group of persons or authority could have assessed and as a result approve/condemn Jesus’ claims. For example in Catholicism the pope can make a decision “from the level of magisterium” and that is considered infallible.
A Jew I know seemed to think that the panel of judges and the court (sorry if my terminology is wrong) had been disbanded hence there was no authority at the time that could have made a definitive decision. I also understand that most Jews would have had very small/nil exposure to Jesus at the time.
“A Jew I know seemed to think that the panel of judges and the court (sorry if my terminology is wrong) had been disbanded hence there was no authority at the time that could have made a definitive decision.”
Jamie, I think that the whole story of Jewish leaders condemning Jesus to die is an invention of the New Testament writers, none of whom were eyewitnesses to Jesus’s life. Claiming to be a messiah is not a capital offence in the Jewish faith, and I doubt that Jesus the Jew would have claimed to be G-d in the flesh (and he probably would have been branded insane)! The NT narrative was written to absolve the Romans, whom the Christians were trying to attract to their new religion or at least get on their good graces. The Romans, as we know, in fact killed many thousands of Jews, including on crosses.
Jam077, in reply to “” Pre-Rabbinic Judaism initially accepted the “God-in-the-flesh”-concept, but this point of view was abandoned later on.” Hi Francois, what evidence is there for this?”, i suggest that you read the following article : http://www.biblestudying.net/history-of-judaism11.html , it is about “Complex Monotheism First Rejected by Late, Second-Century Rabbis and Medieval Jewish Philosophers”.
Furthermore, I would suggest a reading of the following passage of Enoch : ”
2. And at that hour that Son of Man was named In the presence of the Lord of Spirits,
And his name before the Head of Days.
3. Yea, before the sun and the signs were created,
Before the stars of the heaven were made,
His name was named before the Lord of Spirits.
4. He shall be a staff to the righteous whereon to stay themselves and not fall,
And he shall be the light of the Gentiles,
And the hope of those who are troubled of heart .
5. All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship before him,
And will praise and bless and celebrate with song the Lord of Spirits.
6. And for this reason hath he been chosen and hidden before Him,
Before the creation of the world and for evermore .”
In passage 3, one important characteristic of the Son of Man is mentioned : He is pre-existant, His existence predates Creation. The conclusion is that the “Son of Man” never identified as JUST an ordinary man, because he bears the Divine characteristic of eternal existence. On the other hand, the title ” בּר אנושׁ – Son of Man” also suggests that the “Son of Man” also bears human characteristics. The conclusion is all yours.
(P.S. The latest research finds that the books of Enoch were written much earlier than the second century A.D., they might even predate the era of Yeshua. If that is indeed the fact, the books of Enoch reflect the ideas of Complex Monotheism.).
Many greetings, Francois.
“Complex Monotheism”
Francois, I think you misspelled “idolatry”:)