January 21, 2006

Cawson St. Church of Christ

Hopewell, Virginia

Mural Worthey

 

Blaspheming the Holy Spirit

 

Texts: Matt. 12:22-37; Mark 3:22-30; Luke 12:8-12

 

a.      The Holy Spirit is a neglected member of the Godhead

b.     Blaspheming the Holy Spirit is always a topic of interest

c.      The term “unpardonable sin” draws even more attention

d.      What is this sin that one cannot receive forgiveness?

e.      Have I committed it?

 

Meaning of Terms

 

a.      To blaspheme is simple enough; it means to speak against.

b.     Mark adds in verse 30 that Jesus said this because they said, He had an unclean spirit.

c.      Scribes and Pharisees charged that Jesus cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons.  They blasphemed the Holy Spirit.

d.      “In this age nor in the age to come” can be understood in two ways: this life and the life to come, or the Jewish age and in the Christian age.  The outcome is the same with either view.

e.      The Holy Spirit is the divine Spirit of God; commonly called the third member of the Godhead.  This is not to say that the Holy Spirit is less important, but rather that He assumes a lesser role than the Father and the Son.

 

Various Views Expressed

 

1. Hilary (bishop of Poitiers around 350 AD): “For what is so beyond the pale of forgiveness as to deny Christ since he is God?  To forsake Christ is to forsake the nature of the Spirit of the Father residing in him.  For Jesus fulfills every work in the Spirit of God.”  (Ancient Christian Commentary, 249.)

 

2. Chrysostom (bishop of Constantinople, 4^th-5^th century AD): “You may be offended at me because of the humanity I have assumed, but you cannot say the same of the Holy Spirit.  You cannot claim that you do not know the Holy Spirit (even the OT told of the Spirit); therefore your blasphemy has no excuse, and you will suffer the consequences both here and hereafter.”  (ACC, 250.)

 

3. Augustine (bishop of Hippo, 354-430 AD): “So it is unrepentance that is blasphemy against the Spirit. . . you harden your impenitent heart.  This is the impenitence that is called both by the name of blasphemy and speaking against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven.” (ACC, 250.)

 

4. Harvey Floyd (Is the Holy Spirit for Me?, 25):  “Jesus said what he did about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit because men were saying, “He hath an unclean spirit.”  (Mark 3:30.)  If one makes such a statement—Jesus is not the Christ; he is a fraud—in a rash, unbelieving moment and later repents, he has not committed the unpardonable sin.  But if this statement is one’s final, decisive answer to Christ, there is no forgiveness. Why?  Because the only ground of forgiveness has been rejected.”

 

5. Gus Nichols: “They called the Holy Spirit an unclean spirit.  This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  This is so plain that I do not see how anyone can misunderstand it without expert help to do so. . . There is no record of anyone else’s ever committing this sin. Furthermore, I doubt that any other human beings have ever been guilty of this sin. . . I have never found a man who was guilty of saying the Holy Spirit was a wicked spirit.”  (Lectures on the Holy Spirit, 231-239.)

 

6. Guy N. Woods: Question: What is the unpardonable sin?  Answer: “There is really no such thing.  Neither the phrase nor the idea which it connotes appears in the sacred writings.  The implication in it is that it is possible for one to so sin as to find it impossible to obtain forgiveness.  There is no such situation.  The sin against the Holy Spirit is, in principle, the rejection of the revelation which the Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, made.  Salvation is denied those of this category, not because it is not offered to them, but because they have permanently rejected it.”  (Open Forum: Questions and Answers, Vol. 2, 219-220.)

 

7. David Roper: “Understand that Jesus did not condemn his enemies for an inadvertent slip of the tongue. Rather, He denounced them for their obstinate hardness of heart. . . Sometimes people wonder if they have committed the sin against the Holy Spirit.  A wise old preacher said, If you’re worried that you’ve committed it, you haven’t.  He meant that such concern is evidence that one’s heart is not irreversibly hardened.  Actually, since Jesus is not still walking the earth, performing miracles by the power of the Spirit, people today cannot be guilty of the exact sin the Pharisees committed.  Still, a similar sin is possible: People can allow their hearts to become so hardened that it is impossible to renew them again to repentance.”  (Truth For Today Commentary, Vol. 1, 315-316.)

 

8. Rubel Shelly: “I am convinced that it was not the statement of the Pharisees in itself which was the unpardonable sin, but rather that Jesus, able to see men’s hearts, was able to see that their statement came from a heart which was so hardened as to be forever sealed against the truth which the Holy Spirit was attesting through his miraculous manifestations. In other words, the sin against the Holy Spirit is not a specific act but a gradually developed condition of heart which makes one insensitive to the truth which has been revealed by the Spirit of God and confirmed by his supernatural signs.  And when one hardens himself against the offer of salvation which is made by the Spirit through the inspired gospel, he forever forfeits his opportunity to have eternal life.”  (Sermon preached on WHBQ, Memphis, August, 1970, “The Sin Against the Holy Spirit.”)  Rubel Shelly continued by giving an illustration.  Suppose a man is about to go over a high water fall. Two hundred yards above the falls, someone sees him and offers a lifeline, but he refuses to take hold of it.  Then, one hundred yards to go, another man throws out a lifeline.  Again, he refuses.  Now, just before he reaches the falls, another man offers help, but again he refuses.  The first man attempting the rescue is God the Father; the second is Jesus Christ; and the third is the Holy Spirit.  If the Holy Spirit is rejected, there is no hope remaining.
9. Albert Barnes: “Holy Spirit refers here to the divine nature of Christ—the power by which he wrought his miracles. There is no evidence that it refers to the third person of the Trinity; and the meaning of the whole passage may be: He that speaks against me as a man of Nazareth—that speaks contemptuously of my humble birth, may be pardoned; but he that reproaches my divine nature can never obtain forgiveness.”  (Matthew: Barnes on the New Testament, 132.)

 

10. John McGarvey: “We see by Mark’s statement that blasphemy against the Spirit consisted in saying that Jesus had an unclean spirit, that his works were due to Satanic influence, and hence wrought to accomplish Satanic ends.  We cannot call God Satan, nor the Holy Spirit a demon, until our state of sin has passed beyond all hope of return.”  (The Fourfold Gospel, 303-304.)

 

The Point of Concern

The major point of concern in this text is—terms of pardon means that God gives sinful man a way to obtain forgiveness.  Any one sin need not be a death sentence. If I repent of my sins, may I be forgiven?  This sin seems to imply that such is true of all sins, except blaspheming the Holy Spirit.  The apostle John wrote, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  (1 John 1:9.)

 

What if the person who has committed this sin changes his mind penitently and seeks forgiveness?  Does this mean that even if he does repent, God will not forgive?  This is the major concern in this study.

 

 

Clarifying the Different Views

 

1.       There is a difference between man not being able to repent due to a hardened heart and a refusal on the part of God to forgive.  This passage seems to place the emphasis on a refusal of God to forgive rather than the inability of man to repent.  The words of the scribes and Pharisees put Jesus on the defensive.  You are casting out demons by the power of an evil spirit.  After answering that objection, Jesus then went on the offensive by making this powerful statement.

 

2.     There are two comments about speaking against the Holy Spirit.  Mark said that they said that Jesus had an unclean spirit.  Matthew ended by saying, “For by thy words thou shalt be justified; by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”  (12:37.)  This puts the emphasis upon what they said; this is the meaning of blaspheming.  It is speaking against the Holy Spirit.  This is the sin under consideration.  It is not adultery, murder or any other sin.  It is saying injurious things against the Spirit.

 

3.     Another thing to note from the various views above is whether man today can commit this sin.  Several expressed the view that they doubted if man today could commit this sin.  People do, of course, speak powerfully against God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit today.  The question, though, is whether unbelievers who so speak can repent and receive forgiveness.  Was Jesus trying to nip in the bud something very harmful in the first century that applied to those in that day?

 

4.     The Bible does not use the words, unpardonable sin.  But it does say that those blaspheming the Spirit cannot be forgiven in the Jewish Age or in the Christian Age.  This seems to be unpardonable and an act of God, not just a condition of man’s heart.

 

5.     There is another serious issue about sins and the lack of forgiveness.  John wrote about “a sin which is unto death” and sins which are not unto death.  (1 John 5:16-20.)  He does not name a specific sin, but rather speaks about one seeing another commit this sin unto death.  John said that if does commit such a sin that we should not pray for his forgiveness.  This is a describing a sin through the eyes of a third party and what he should or should not do in response to it.  This context is very different from blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

 

Conclusions

 

a.      We should remember the general teaching of the Bible concerning sin and forgiveness.  God is not willing that any should perish.  He desires that all men everywhere repent.  (Acts 17:30, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Tim. 2:4.)

b.     Matthew 12:31-32 and 1 John 5:16-20 are dealing with specific matters and exceptions to the general rule.

c.      It seems that blaspheming the Holy Spirit is not just a rejection of the Gospel or the hardening of the human heart.  Those two things are certainly involved, but this is God’s response to the scribes and Pharisees.  They were wicked and hardened to do what they did, but this is God’s warning to them about saying careless things against the Spirit of God.

d.      In the end, there is no difference between pardonable and unpardonable sins.  Both will condemn, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is a specific and dangerous sin.