The Intellectuals' Idolatry and the Shamelessness of Sin
Introduction: The High Cost of a Lying Education
We are living in an age of experts. We are drowning in information, managed by a credentialed class of scribes who tell us what to think, how to feel, and what we are allowed to say. Our universities, our seminaries, our media outlets, and our government agencies are all staffed with the modern equivalent of the scribes of Judah. And their central message, delivered with smug self-assurance, is that they are wise, and the law of the Lord, properly nuanced and updated for our sophisticated times, is with them. They have the degrees. They have the peer-reviewed papers. They have the microphones.
But as Jeremiah makes painfully clear, it is entirely possible to possess the law, to study the law, to write commentaries on the law, and to do so with a lying pen. It is possible to build an entire educational and religious establishment on a foundation of falsehood. The issue is not literacy, but loyalty. The scribes in Jeremiah’s day were not uneducated; they were unfaithful. They used their intellectual gifts not to clarify God's Word but to domesticate it, to make it serve their own appetites and the corrupt appetites of the people. They were hired to tell the king he looked good in his new clothes, even though he was stark naked.
This passage is a divine indictment against every form of intellectual pride that sets itself up against the plain Word of God. It is a warning against the kind of wisdom that leads to destruction, the kind of therapy that never heals, and the kind of religion that has forgotten how to blush. And as we will see, the judgment for this intellectual malpractice is not a bad grade or a denied tenure. The judgment is covenantal collapse. When the wise men reject the Word of the Lord, God gives their wives to others and their fields to new possessors. Ideas have consequences, and bad theology has catastrophic consequences.
The Text
“How can you say, ‘We are wise, And the law of Yahweh is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes Has made it into a lie. The wise men are put to shame; They are dismayed and captured; Behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh, And what kind of wisdom do they have? Therefore I will give their wives to others, Their fields to new possessors, Because from the least even to the greatest Everyone is greedy for gain; From the prophet even to the priest Everyone practices lying. They heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace. Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done? They certainly were not ashamed, And they did not know how to feel dishonor; Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time of their punishment they shall be brought down,” Says Yahweh.
(Jeremiah 8:8-12 LSB)
The Scribe's Deceit (v. 8)
We begin with God's direct challenge to the intellectual elites of Judah.
"How can you say, ‘We are wise, And the law of Yahweh is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes Has made it into a lie." (Jeremiah 8:8)
This is a frontal assault on the proud self-perception of the ruling class. Their claim was not just that they were intelligent, but that their intelligence was orthodox. "We have the law of Yahweh." They were the custodians of the covenant documents. They could parse the Hebrew verbs. They could lecture on the intricacies of the sacrificial system. But possession of the text is not the same as submission to the text. They had the law, but the law did not have them.
God's charge is that the "lying pen of the scribes" has turned the law into a lie. This can happen in a few ways. It could mean they were altering the text itself, though that is less likely to be the primary meaning. More likely, and more insidiously, it means they were masters of interpretation. They were experts at explaining away the hard parts. They used their exegetical skill to defang the lion of God's Word. They wrote commentaries that made the people comfortable in their sins. They were the original red-letter Christians, except they did it with the whole Torah, effectively erasing the parts that demanded repentance and obedience.
This is the perpetual temptation of the academic. Intellectual pride can take the clear truth of God and wrap it in so many layers of nuance, qualification, and scholarly jargon that its plain meaning is lost. The task of a faithful scribe is to make the Word of God clear. The work of a lying scribe is to make it manageable, palatable, and ultimately, powerless. They turn the sharp, two-edged sword of the Spirit into a butter knife.
The Wisdom of Fools (v. 9)
Verse 9 reveals the logical outcome of rejecting God's revelation.
"The wise men are put to shame; They are dismayed and captured; Behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh, And what kind of wisdom do they have?" (Jeremiah 8:9)
Here is the great irony. The men who prided themselves on their wisdom are exposed as fools. They will be "put to shame." The coming judgment from Babylon will be an empirical refutation of their entire worldview. Their sophisticated political analyses will be proven wrong. Their assurances of safety will be shown to be empty. They will be "dismayed and captured." Their wisdom could not stop a single Babylonian spear.
The reason for their failure is stated plainly: "they have rejected the word of Yahweh." This is the foundational principle of all epistemology. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Therefore, the rejection of the Lord's Word is the beginning of foolishness, no matter how many degrees you have after your name. God's question is rhetorical and dripping with scorn: "what kind of wisdom do they have?" The answer is, none. If you reject the axiom, all your subsequent theorems are worthless. If you get the first button of your shirt wrong, all the other buttons will be wrong too. By rejecting God's Word, they cut themselves off from the only source of true wisdom. What they were left with was nothing more than sophisticated, credentialed folly.
Covenantal Consequences (v. 10)
The consequences of this apostasy are not merely intellectual; they are brutally physical and social.
"Therefore I will give their wives to others, Their fields to new possessors, Because from the least even to the greatest Everyone is greedy for gain; From the prophet even to the priest Everyone practices lying." (Jeremiah 8:10)
This is the language of the covenant curses found in Deuteronomy 28. When Israel is faithful, they are blessed in their families, their land, and their work. When they are unfaithful, those very blessings are stripped away and given to their enemies. God says He will give their wives and fields to others. This is the ultimate humiliation. It is the complete unraveling of their society. Why? Because the corruption was total. It wasn't just the elites. It was "from the least even to the greatest." The whole nation was rotten with greed.
And the spiritual leaders were leading the charge downhill. "From the prophet even to the priest Everyone practices lying." The prophets, who were supposed to speak God's truth, spoke flattering lies for profit. The priests, who were supposed to teach God's law, taught a distorted version that permitted the people's greed. When the pulpit is corrupt, the pews will be corrupt. When the shepherds lead the sheep toward a cliff, it is no surprise when they go over it.
Spiritual Malpractice and Shameless Sin (v. 11-12)
Verses 11 and 12 describe the therapeutic and moral bankruptcy of these leaders.
"They heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace." (Jeremiah 8:11)
This is one of the most damning indictments in all of Scripture. The nation was spiritually broken, sick unto death with the cancer of sin. And the priests and prophets, the spiritual physicians, applied a band-aid. They treated a mortal wound as if it were a scratch. Their prescription was a constant, soothing mantra of "Peace, peace." They were peddlers of cheap grace. They told the people what they wanted to hear: that everything was fine, that God was not really angry, that judgment was not really coming.
This is the essence of all false religion and all worldly therapy. It seeks to manage the symptoms without dealing with the disease. It aims to make people feel better without them having to get better. But God says there is no peace. You cannot have peace with God while you are at war with His law. You cannot have peace in your soul while you are cherishing your sin. True peace comes only through repentance and faith, through the bloody cross of Christ. Any other peace is a damnable illusion.
And the result of this superficial healing is a complete loss of moral sensitivity.
"Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done? They certainly were not ashamed, And they did not know how to feel dishonor; Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time of their punishment they shall be brought down,” Says Yahweh." (Jeremiah 8:12)
God asks a question: "Were they ashamed?" The answer is a resounding no. They had sinned so much, and had their sin excused so often by their lying prophets, that they had lost the capacity for shame. They didn't even know how to blush. Their consciences were seared. They called evil good and good evil. They celebrated what they should have been mourning.
This is the final stage of cultural decay. It is not just that people sin, but that they approve of those who practice it. Shame is a gift from God. It is the emotional response to sin that tells us something is wrong. It is the smoke alarm. When a culture loses its ability to feel shame, the house is already burning down. And because they would not feel the shame of repentance, God promises they will feel the shame of judgment. "Therefore they shall fall among those who fall." Their fall will be public, catastrophic, and unavoidable. The punishment will fit the crime. The shameless will be utterly shamed.
The Only True Wisdom
This passage from Jeremiah is not just a historical record of Judah's fall. It is a perpetual warning to the Church. The temptation to trade the hard truths of Scripture for a more popular, culturally acceptable message is ever-present. The allure of being considered "wise" by the world is a powerful narcotic.
We see the "lying pen of the scribes" today in seminaries that deny the authority of Scripture, in pulpits that preach a therapeutic gospel devoid of repentance, and in Christian commentators who are more concerned with being quoted in the New York Times than with being faithful to the Word of God.
We hear the cry of "Peace, peace" in the constant calls for unity at the expense of truth, in the downplaying of sin, judgment, and Hell, and in the promises of health and wealth to those who simply "name it and claim it." This is all superficial healing. It is spiritual malpractice.
And we see the result in a church that has, in many quarters, forgotten how to blush. We tolerate sins that would have scandalized previous generations. We have become comfortable, respectable, and powerless. We have rejected the Word of the Lord, so what wisdom do we have?
The only antidote is a radical return to the source of all wisdom. True wisdom is not found in academic prestige or popular opinion. It is found in a person. Paul tells us that Christ Jesus "became for us wisdom from God" (1 Corinthians 1:30). In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). To reject the Word of God written is to reject the Word of God made flesh. To accept Him is to find the only wisdom that matters, the only peace that is real, and the only healing that goes down to the bone.