Forgivable & Unforgivable Sin? Series

The Paradoxical Sayings of Jesus:

Forgivable & Unforgivable Sin?

Matthew 12:30-32

This morning we consider another of Jesus' paradoxical statements: "Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come."

Some of you might ask why this is a paradoxical statement.

Well, it qualifies on a number of bases:

First, it introduces the disturbing idea that some sins, even any sins at all, are unforgivable by God.

Second. This is further complicated by the distressing fear that any of us might have that we might have or could commit an unforgivable sin, and experiences the consequences of such, whatever that may bel.

Third, there is the challenge within the passage itself of determining precisely what blasphemy against the Holy Spirit actually is.

And finally, there is the seeming oddity that any and every sin against the second person of the Trinity, Jesus the Son of God, who if not greater in essence than the Holy Spirit, is greater in authority, is forgivable, when some sin or blasphemy against the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, who is of lesser authority, would not be forgivable.

Now Jesus makes this kind of statement in the Gospels on three different occasion, in Luke 12:10; Mark 3:28-30 and in Matthew 12:30-32. The latter two statements are from parallel accounts of the same occasion, and we're going to look primarly at the statement as it appears in the Gospel of Matthew this morning to draw our conclusions.

And some of the questions I hope to answer are first, what is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, 2.

Who can commit blasphemy against the Spirit, only non-Christians, or can Christians actually do so? And finally, we're going to discuss how to avoid committing the unforgivable, unpardonable sin.

And the main lesson I hope is imparted this morning is one that may surprise some of you: Be careful not to resist the Spirit, especially so you don't reject Jesus altogether. Be careful not to resist the Spirit, especially so you don't reject Jesus altogether.

So before we dive into our text this morning, let me define for you how blasphemy, generally speaking, is defined. It is to curse, vilify, revile, speak evil of, slander, dishonor or profane God's name. I think a favorite definition I came across is that of a defiant or high-handed irreverence toward God.

In the Gospels, the word blasphemy is used both by the scribes and the Pharisees in describing Jesus' Words and Works and by Jesus in describing the works and words of the scribes and Pharisees. In other words, each party claimed the other was responsible for dishonoring or being irreverent toward God.

It happened as Jesus popularity was reaching its zenith with the common people. He was in the midst of His Galilean healing ministry, and crowds upon crowds of people were coming to see Him in Galilee because news of His healing ministry had spread far and wide. According to Mark 3 people were coming from as far away as Tyre and Sidon and Jerusalem and Judea, so that people were stepping on each other, and the disciples did not even have time to eat. At the same time Jesus' popularity with the religious leaders from Jerusalem, the scribes and the Pharisees was plummeting. In Mark 2:7 they had accused Jesus of blasphemy when He offered to forgive a paralytic's sins, in 3:6 they began plotting to destroy Him after He healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath in a Synagogue. And then finally, just prior to his pronouncements about Blasphemy against the Spirit, when Jesus delivered a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute so that he could both see and speak in Mark 3, they began attributing his works to Beelzebul, the prince of demons, in other words Satan himself.

And as Jesus observes the disparate ways that the various peoples are responding to Him, and the clear rejection of the Pharisees, He makes a very important statement in Matthew 12:30: "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters." This was with clear reference to that rejection of the scribes and the Pharisees. And its context regarding the blasphemy against the Spirit that the Pharisees and scribes were committing, it seems to me what Jesus is saying here is that we show how we have responded to the Spirit by whether we actually follow Jesus or not. And of course the positive lesson from this would be this: Show you hear the Spirit by following Jesus. And if you don't follow Jesus, if you scatter from Him and His people, you clearly are rejecting the prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit in your life.