The Unpardonable Sin

"What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?"

This is certainly a question that comes up on a regular basis. There are many people who seem to be almost tormented by the idea that maybe they have committed this sin against the Holy Spirit: the unpardonable sin.

Several years ago there was a man who called me on the phone

            he was extremely upset

            thought he had committed the unpardonable sin.

                        I basically told him that if he was truly worried about having committed this sin that he had not committed this sin.

            He took that advice, and unfortunately he never started worshipping,

            came out of the deep despair that he was in over his belief that he had committed a sin for which there is no forgiveness.

Some here who think that they have committed a sin that was so bad and so heinous that they cannot receive forgiveness of their sin.  

Look at this particular question. 

Lord spoke directly about this irst and really major account of the discussion of the unpardonable sin. This is Matthew 12,

and I'd like to go over this passage, and then let us look at some other scriptures later in the New Testament that refer indirectly back to the unpardonable sin- the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Would you look with me please at Matthew 12:22-29, which is the background leading up to what Jesus said about the sin for which there is no forgiveness. And unless we understand the background, these comments on the unpardonable sin do not make a lot of sense. So please look with me at Matthew 12:22-29:

"Then there was brought to him a demon possessed man who was blind and dumb. And he healed him, so that the dumb man spoke and saw. And all of the multitudes were amazed and began to say, 'This man cannot be the son of David, can he?' But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, 'This man cast out demons only by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons!' And knowing their thoughts, he said to them, 'Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste. And any city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then shall his kingdom stand? And if I, by Beelzebub, cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently, they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. For how can anyone enter the strong man's house, and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.'"

Notice in these verses, just 22-29, that Jesus was dealing with people who were hardened against Him as the Messiah

            They were hardened against the Gospel.

            They would not even consider the possibility that Jesus might be the Son of God.

            Let us notice the evidence that the Lord presented to them that he was the Messiah.

Notice back in verses 22 and 23 the Lord Jesus performed a great miracle here.

            He took a man who was born blind and speechless, and he was this way because he was possessed by a demon.

            The Lord Jesus therefore cast this demon out of the man so that he could see and speak.

            But notice the reaction of the Pharisees.

The Pharisees did not question the fact that a miracle had taken place.

            That is the interesting thing about this passage.

            They did not dispute, the way many people today would, that a miracle had occurred.

            But did that mean they would accept Jesus as the Messiah?

                        Not at all!

                        The fact that a miracle took place, they took another approach, and in verse 24, they just dismissed Jesus Christ.

                        The Pharisees said, "You did that by the power of Satan!" That was their answer to the miracle that had taken place.

Beginning at verse 25, the Lord used outstanding logic here, irrefutable logic against them. Jesus said beginning at verse 25,

Why would Satan cast out one of his own demons? That doesn't make sense!' Satan in no way would destroy one of his own demons so that this man might be healed.

            Did that convince the Pharisees?

            The answer is no. They still said, 'No, you did it by the power of Satan.'

How frustrating that must have been to the Lord Jesus.

            Clear evidence, yet their minds were closed.

            So hardened against Jesus Christ that they did not agree with his Messiahship even in the face of this clear evidence. 

That is the background to what the Lord said here about the unpardonable sin.  

Notice then verses 30-32: "'He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or the age to come.'"

What therefore, was the unpardonable sin, which these Pharisees had committed? 

Some suggestions people have made over the years concerning what the unpardonable sin was.           

Some people say that the unpardonable sin is taking the Lord's name in vain.

                        Certainly is a serious sin.

              It violated one of the Ten Commandments under the old law, it certainly violates the new

                                    Yet, we can get forgiveness if we take the Lord's name in vain.

                                                 In fact, Peter did it

Gathered around the fire, they accused him being a friend of Jesus, he took God's name in vain.

            He cursed, he swore, he used profanity, and yet Peter was forgiven.

            He repented of that sin, and he went on to preach the sermon of the day of Pentecost.

So, just taking the Lord's name in vain in and of itself is not the sin against the Holy Spirit. We can get forgiveness of that. 

Without forgiveness, is the sin of adultery.

            Adultery is a horrible sin.

            Such a severe sin that God allows that sin to dissolve a marriage.

                        Can get forgiveness for adultery.

                                    The woman that the Pharisees brought to Christ?

                                                Going to stone her to death, and yet, remember there at the end that

       Jesus told her that he would not condemn her if she went on her way and sinned no more.

                                                            Adultery therefore is a sin that is forgivable. 

Unpardonable sin has to be murder. You can't bring the person back from the dead, it has to be the unpardonable sin.

            Pharisees had not committed murder, and yet they had committed the unpardonable sin.

                        So it's not murder.

            They had also not taken the Lord's name in vain;

            They had probably not committed adultery,

                        so none of these things work.

But it is definitely not murder because they had not committed murder.

            If they had committed murder, that is still forgivable. Acts 2

                        The apostle Peter charged the people on the day of Pentecost with killing the Son of God. They had committed murder.

       They understood what they had done, they asked Peter what they had to do, and Peter said,

                                    "Repent, and let each of you be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins in the name of Jesus Christ and you will be saved."  

                                   We can even be forgiven for the sin of murder.

There are many people today who believe that the unpardonable sin is suicide. That is not the unpardonable sin.

            Pharisees had not committed suicide.

            They had not killed themselves yet; therefore, this is not the unpardonable sin.

            Is it possible to get forgiveness even for the sin of suicide? Certainly suicide is a horrible sin.

1 Corinthians 6:19, we are told that we are not to damage this body, because this body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Certainly if we kill the body, that's about the worst thing you can do to the temple of the Holy Spirit.

In no way want to lower the seriousness of the sin of suicide. It is an awful sin.

            There will be many, many people in eternal destruction because they killed themselves.

And yet these Pharisees had not committed suicide.

            Is it possible there might be some people forgiven for the sin of suicide?

            I think that it is. I think there may be some people who are in some kind of mental illness, a severe mental illness.

                        I know of a lady who took her own life.

                                    Involved in a car accident, had a brain injury, and she ended up taking her life.

                                    That fine Christian woman was saved.

                        There are cases like that where a person is in a severe state of mental illness and takes his or her life, and that may be one exception to the general rule of the condemnation of people based on suicide.

                        Somebody takes a bottle of sleeping pills or whatever, and regrets it, but it's too late to stop the onslaught of death.

                                    Person could truly repent between the time that the suicide begins and the time that the death actually takes place.

However we want to explain it, we would all have to say that these Pharisees had not killed themselves, but these Pharisees had committed the unpardonable sin.

What is the sin, therefore, for which there is no forgiveness?

            Jesus said that is was 'blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.' What is blasphemy?

To blaspheme means to speak against God.

            These Pharisees had done that.

Just seen one of the outstanding miracles that Jesus performed, and he performed it through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Looked at that miracle performed by the Holy Spirit and they said, "You did that by the power of Satan."

                        Why did they attribute that miracle to Satan?

Because their hearts had been hardened against God and against the Holy Spirit.

So hardened against the Holy Spirit that they no longer had the ability to repent of their sins.

            Jesus therefore said that they could not be forgiven.

            Why could they not be forgiven?

                        Because they didn't want to be forgiven.

                        They were not about to repent.

They no longer felt any guilt over rejecting Jesus Christ as Lord, and over rejecting the power of the Holy Spirit.

                        They could not turn from the path of rejecting the power of the Holy Spirit.

We do not have miracles today from the Holy Spirit, some say

            We do not have outward miracles, let's say, overt miracles.

                        I don't go to the hospital and heal everybody on the first floor

                        The existence of this book is a miracle

                                    Here is a book composed of 66 parts without contradictions.

                The writers all work together to produce one common theme. How did they do it?

                                                Through the power of the Holy Spirit.

            The Bible is just as great a miracle as was the healing of this blind and speechless man.

      If we reject the Bible we are rejecting the Holy Spirit -- the written by inspiration by the Holy Spirit.

                        If we reject this book long enough, we would not have the ability anymore to change.

                                    Not that God won't forgive us

                                                It is that we will not want to be forgiven,

                                                We will have no intention of repenting.

                                                Our hearts will be permanently hardened against the gospel.

I had on my desk a piece of petrified wood. I used to use it as a paperweight

            Petrified wood, at one time it was useful.

Cut that tree into two-by-fours or whatever and build a house, carve on it -- you could do all kinds of great things with that wood.

Over time that wood was turned into stone. It wasn't good for anything, except hold down papers on a windy day or something.

Over time, it had become hardened, and there was no way to change petrified wood back into wood that is useful.

Cancer. In very early stages that can be cured.

            Just about all forms, either through surgery or radiation, chemotherapy

            There is that point of no return.

Cancer takes over the body and the body has no other hope of surviving, cancer is going to kill the body.

In the same way, these Pharisees, by rejection of Jesus Christ, hardened their hearts where they questioned even the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pharisees did not reach that point overnight.

            No person's heart is hardened over a short period of time.

Over a long period of time, as a person rejects the gospel, rejects the Bible as the word of the Holy Spirit,

                        gradually that person's heart is hardened.

                        Becomes easier and easier and easier to say no to the invitation of Jesus Christ,

                        eventually, that person no longer wants to obey the gospel.

Doesn't matter what evidence you present doesn't matter how you may try to persuade that person to become a Christian, isn't going to happen, person has become hardened.

            Hardened against the power of the Holy Spirit,

                        what hope is there of salvation

If we have rejected the message of the Spirit, that is the Bible, there is no other way of which we can be saved.

The unpardonable sin, therefore, is not unpardonable from God's point of view.

            He will forgive us of any sin that we repent of.

            It is unpardonable from man's point of view, because the person no longer has any guilt

                        no longer has any desire to be forgiven,

                        no longer cares anymore about God's plan of salvation.

Example: Two thieves that were crucified on either side of Jesus Christ.

            One thief on the right changed his mind while hanging on the cross

                        He praised Jesus as the Son of God, and our Lord Jesus said, "Today you will be with me in paradise." That thief was saved.

            The other thief,

                        Here was a man who was dying, moment by moment,

                                    he continued to rail against God, against Jesus Christ, right up until he died.

                                    Why? Because he had hardened his heart against Jesus Christ and would not accept him under any circumstances.

Hydrochloric acid.    Take acid and we could pour it into a big bucket of several gallons of water.

Take an eye dropper, and I could take a drop of that water out of there each day and put one drop in each eye.

First, there would not be a change in my eyesight. But over a period of time, if I kept doing that,  I would go blind

Parallel to what Jesus is saying here. People allow themselves, over time, to get hardened against the gospel and the words of the Holy Spirit.

1st Timothy 4, there are several places that indirectly refer back to the sin against the Holy Spirit.

            These don't make much sense unless we understand what Jesus was saying in Matthew 12

1st Timothy 4:1-2. "But the Spirit explicitly says in the latter times; some would fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. By means of the hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron."

Burn ourselves badly. Skin that has no feeling to it anymore. Jesus said people let their consciences get that way.

            They could be "seared as with a branding iron."

            They won't have any feelings anymore -- there is no conscience left

That is what our Lord was talking about back in Matthew 12. They are searing their conscience

                        no longer able to accept the message of the Holy Spirit.

                        no longer care about the Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 3:13, which is another indirect reference to the sin against the Holy Ghost.

 "But encourage one another, day after day, as long as it is still called today, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."

Notice the use of the word hardened there. Over a period of time, peopled get hardened by sin.

Hebrews 6:4-6. "For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them against to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame."

People who were converted to Christ, and then they fell away,

            to such an extent you cannot remember them anymore

            They don't want to come back

They're not concerned about the Church anymore, and they commit the sin against the Holy Spirit.

2nd Peter 2, "For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, 'A dog returns to its own vomit,' and, 'A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.'"

Again, a reference to Christians at one time who were faithful Christians, but they fell away,

            Peter says there it's worse than it was before they ever obeyed the gospel

                        Some say worse because of knowing in hell that they had their chance

                        Actually means, it is harder to convert them back than a new convert would be

1st John 5:16   This one has caused a lot of confusion for some people.

 "If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this."

John was saying that if a person is caught up in a certain sin, if he is trying to get out of it, than we are to pray for that person.

We're to do all that we can to try to bring that person back to the Church and get him out of whatever sin he's caught up in.

Notice that John said that if he is in a sin leading to death… what is a sin leading to death?

             A sin leading to death describes a person who just doesn’t care anymore.

He says to us, or he says to himself, it doesn't matter what you say, I'm going to keep doing this even if it kills me.

            I've heard people say that. Even if it kills me, I'm going to keep doing this!

If a person therefore is caught up in a sin to that extent, he's going to do it regardless of what we say.

John said you can't even pray for that person. We are not to pray for God to help that person -- forgive that person -- if he has that attitude

That person has committed the sin against the Holy Spirit, a sin leading to death.

He will be condemned for that.

Those are some scriptures then that refer back to what Jesus discussed in Matthew 12.

Are there any applications of this subject today? There are many applications.

Think about people who visit our worship services, and continue to reject the gospel time after time after time.

Dangerous to reject the invitation over a long period of time, because eventually, that person will no longer be concerned with the invitation.

I can think about a man that I personally saw, trembling, several years ago, during the invitation song.

Trembling because of the effect of the gospel upon his heart, the fact he had not yet become a Christian, he knew to become a Christian.

            He was shaking as he stood there while the rest of us were singing that invitation song.

                        Unfortunately, that man got to the point where he didn't tremble anymore.

Eventually he stopped attending on a regular basis. His heart was hardened against the gospel.

That is what can happen to people today also if they reject the gospel over a long period of time.

Will get to the point where it doesn't bother them to hear the invitation song or to hear the preaching of the gospel.

There may be Christians here who are caught up in a certain sin.

            Ask this question: if there is some sin that is deeply engraved in your life, do you still feel guilty about it?

                        If we feel guilty about it, good!

                        There is still hope for a person if we feel guilt over it!

                                    But if a person no longer feels any guilt, that is when there is a real danger of committing the unpardonable sin.

I talk to people that miss the services of the church here.

            That's a question I ask them, half humorously, but half seriously.

            Do you feel bad about missing last Sunday, whenever it was?

                        And if they say yes, I say that's great! I hope that you always feel guilty about it!

                                    The danger is, when we do not feel guilty about something such as that anymore.

                                    It is important, therefore, that we do not allow our hearts to be hardened against the gospel.

Several years ago, brother Guy N. Woods compiled some statistics that he's published in one of his books of sermons

            I want to read his statistics along the lines of the sin against the Holy Spirit

He said that 90% of the Lord's church today obeyed the gospel before they were 20 years old.

            Brother Woods took the general population of the U.S. and the estimated number of people in the Lord's church.

Brother Woods said that by the age of 25, the odds of finding the Lord's church and being baptized are 5,000 to 1.

He said at the age of 35, the chances of finding the Lord's church and obeying the gospel are 25,000 to 1.

At the age of 45, they go to 80,000 to 1.

At the age of 50, they go to 150,000 to 1.

And at the age of 75, brother Woods said that the odds are really too high to figure in any degree of accuracy.

To the best of my memory, the oldest person I ever baptized was 56 years old.

Why is it that we do not baptize older people? Because they get set in their ways.

Over a period of years they have rejected the gospel for such a long period of time, that after a certain point, they no longer care, are no longer interested, they just want us to go away and leave them alone.

And they have committed the sin against the Holy Spirit.