A scoffer is someone who behaves with arrogance, haughtiness, and pride. (Prov. 21:24). They are simple and hate knowledge (Prov. 1:22). They injure, abuse, and hate those who correct them (Prov. 9:7-8). They do not listen to rebuke (Prov. 13:1) or seek the company of wise people (Prov. 15:12). They stir up strife, cause quarrels, and multiply abuse (Prov. 22:10). They set cities aflame, propagate wrath (Prov. 29:8), and devise folly (Prov. 24:9). They seek wisdom about as deftly as a car speeds with a loose wheel (Prov. 14:6). Just like wine mocks the mental faculties, a scoffer mocks righteous activities (Prov. 20:1). Scoffers are an abomination to mankind (Prov. 24:9). They actively earn the Lord’s just condemnation (Prov. 19:29; Is. 29:20). Whereas the wise learn by teaching, the scoffer learns—if he ever learns—by the terrors of punishment (Prov. 21:11). Scoffers must be punished, not because they always repent, but for the benefit of the wise.

The Hebrew word for scoffer is lēṣ. It refers to the one who mocks, scorns, and ridicules righteousness with insufferably incessant babbling. The Greek word for scoffing is empaigmonē. It is to mock and ridicule. Scoffing is to give way to lust and degrade any incentive to noble living. The scoffers of Peter’s day denied the return of Christ. Their fits of skepticism, at root, removed accountability to the God of all justice. The English word scoff and its derivative scoffer trace back to the Middle English period. It has Scandinavian origins, potentially from Old Norse skaup, which refers to a type of mockery or ridicule that, like a storm, can tear down as much as it amuses. It may be related to the Old High German scoph, meaning derision. It entered English in the late 14th century, referring to the jeers and jibes of mocking speech.

In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim's Progress, scoffers scoff at religion, “For Religion hath no place in their hearts, house, or conversation; all that they have lieth in their tongues, and their Religion is to make a noise therewith.”¹ They scoff at faithful men, “But I trod those steps with much trembling of heart, and shall I now be laughed at by men, who are but of yesterday?”² The scoffer plays the part of philosopher by the fire, but never the pilgrim on the narrow path. Scoffers mock from the obscurity of the shadows, targeting the “Man in the Arena,” as Teddy Roosevelt described the man of action. The saints of God are the ones who receive the ire of scoffers (Heb. 11:36) as Christ received the scoffing of the soldiers (Lk. 23:36).

The scoffer is always on the most intimate terms with folly. The target audience of scoffers is other fools. The goal is to make the laughter of fools ring loud. Yet by laughing at the scoffer, fools carve out a place in the world as empty as the echo they create. The chides of the scoffer, urged with prideful cynicism, operate on those weak minds influenced by apprehension more than judgments. The mockery of scoffery rigorously pigeonholes reality, ignoring the story God is writing, overlooking the chronicle of the gradual renewal of man, disregarding the tidings of gradual regeneration, utterly blind to the passing from one world into another.

Scoffing is an entire outlook on life that studies the damning nexus of arrogance and cynicism. It has a liturgy, an attitude, and a prayer, “O God, would You just leave me alone? You've robbed me of enough. I’m too tired to love. I’m too bleary for joy. I don’t want to learn. I’ve received the terrible gift of my seditious heart. I see no reason to understand. If I keep telling lies about You, will You tell lies about me? Leave me alone forever.” This is a prayer that God always answers. When you scoff at God, God scoffs back (Prov. 3:34). The master of scoffing always becomes its victim, reducing ridicule to specks of voiceless dust.

The sin of the scoffer is that he scorns the wrong thing. In humility, God’s people resist sin, death, and the Devil (1 Pt. 5:6-9). Rather than scoff at the life of the righteous, God’s saints are supposed to scoff at sin’s false promises. The promise of lust must be trampled underfoot or else it will trample you and your sons. When profanation threatens to gust through the balcony doors, the faithful must blow it out like a circling typhoon, like Elijah’s holy scoffing of the 450 priests of Baal melted away any pretense to preeminence claimed by Baal’s most devoted (1 Kings 18:20-40).

The wishes, hopes, and confidences of the congregation are fully answered in the death and resurrection of Christ. When Christ was put in the grave, Satan’s cynical lies were put there too. When Christ came out of the tomb, the eyes and faces of the faithful watched Eternal Life walk on two legs. They watched Joy overcome gloom. They watched Purpose subdue despair. They watched Life surmount death. And they saw the sad strokes of the scoffer scurry back home to the defunct pit of miserable darkness.

Footnotes

¹ John Bunyan. The Pilgrim’s Progress. London: Nathaniel Ponder, 1678. Part 1, Section 4.

² John Bunyan. The Pilgrim’s Progress. London: Nathaniel Ponder, 1678. Part 1, Section 5.