Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, an Eternal Sin
Quoted Bible passages are from The New American Standard
Bible, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1977.
What is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? In the following passage Jesus
responds to the Bible's only example of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, or
something dangerously close to this sin:
Mark 3:20-30 (similar passages are Matthew 12:22-32, and Luke 11:15-26)
20 And He came home, and the multitude gathered again, to such an extent
that they could not even eat a meal. 21 And when His own people heard of
this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has
lost His senses.” 22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were
saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by
the ruler of the demons.” 23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking
to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 “And if a kingdom
is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 “And if a house
is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 “And
if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand,
but he is finished! 27 “But no one can enter the strong man’s house and
plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he
will plunder his house. 28 “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven
the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes
against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal
sin“— 30 because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
The scribes in the above passage either committed or came dangerously close
to committing blasphemy of the Holy Spirit when they claimed that Jesus
cast out demons by the ruler of demons. These men were experts in
the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) and the prophets,
thus, they probably knew that one can only cast out unclean spirits by
the power of the Holy Spirit, and that it is logically impossible for one
to cast out demons by the power of the ruler of demons. The scribes
offended the Holy Spirit when they claimed that Jesus' power came from
the ruler of demons. The scribes probably spoke out of jealousy of
Jesus' popularity, evident in verse 20 above.
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