WHAT IS THE "UNFORGIVEABLE SIN" EXACTLY? It seems to be seeing consistently clear evidence of the Spirit’s movement and attributing it to Satan.
- Luke 12:10.
- The passage in Luke presents the shortest version of this saying in the gospels. The versions in Matthew 12:22-32 and Mark 3:20-34.
- One key truth present in both of those passages is the “house divided” discussion. Let’s look at Matthew’s version (12:22-29).
- There is an obviously good thing: a miracle of healing (v. 22). Yet the Pharisees ascribe the miracle to Satan (v. 24).
- Jesus tells that a demon exorcised by the power of Satan makes no sense. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. (vv. 26-27).
- Jesus’ comment in v. 27 of “by whom do your people drive them out” seems to be saying , “If you say I’m doing this big miracle that’s causing everyone to praise God greatly by Satan’s power, then by what power are your people doing the little miracles that cause people to praise God somewhat?”
- They are seeing a definitive move of the Spirit and inexplicably ascribing it to Satan.
- So one main point that needs to be made is that they were ascribing Godly miracles to Satan.
- A second key truth is in Mark’s version.
- This has to do with why the Luke version says that a word spoken against the Son of Man will be forgiven but blaspheming the Spirit will not be (Luke 12:10).
- The first thing that you need to understand about this passage is that it’s one of what are called “Markan sandwiches.” That is, there are several places in Mark’s gospel where the text makes a “sandwich.” A story starts, is interrupted by another story, then the original story is concluded. In each of these cases the stories are closely tied and need to be interpreted in conjunction with each other.
- In this case the “bread” part of the sandwich is found in vv. 20-21 and vv. 31-35. Both of these are about Jesus’ earthly family coming to get Him because “He is out of His mind.” In response to the call of His earthly family, Jesus declares that “whoever does God’s will” is His real family.
- In between those two parts of the sandwich is the story of the kingdom divided against itself and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
- The story opens with what I’ll call “sympathetic disbelief” – Jesus’ family loves Him but thinks that He’s lost it and so gets ready to come bring Him home. The middle part is “antagonistic disbelief” – the teachers of the law accuse Jesus of doing miracles via Satan’s power. Then the “sympathetic disbelief” story concludes with Jesus’ family actually showing up to get Him, only to have Jesus respond that His real family are those who “do. . . God’s will.”
- Another link between the two parts is the statement at the end of the first section “He is out of His mind” and the statement at the end of the second section “He has an evil spirit.” In each, there is disbelief in Jesus being who He says He is.
- So, the “sandwich” theme is disbelief in Jesus being who He says He is. This is important in understanding the “unforgiveable sin” statement. This is also key in understanding why Jesus says in Luke that speaking against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but not blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.
- There are two truths that are important to unpack that statement in Luke 12:10.
1. Jesus had no power in Himself – He was dependent on His Father.
- Look up: John 5:19, 30; John 8:28; John 10:25, 38; John 14:10.
2. Jesus’ Father administered the power through the Spirit.
- Look up: Matthew 12:28; Luke 1:35; Luke 4:1, 14; John 1:32; Acts 1:8; Acts 10:38; Romans 1:4; Romans 15:19; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5.
- This set of passages indicates that both with Jesus and in other situations, when the Father wanted power to be displayed, He did it through the Spirit.
- This is essential to understanding the distinction Jesus makes in the Luke 12:10 “unpardonable sin” statement. Remember that Jesus was veiled in His humanity (Philippians 2:5-11). Because Jesus had voluntarily taken on those limitations, He was dependent on the Father and, through Him, the Spirit for power.
- Here’s the point: there is some sympathy for someone who looked at Jesus and didn’t understand that He was God Incarnate. He was veiled in humanity, after all. In Mark, we see that not only do His enemies not understand Him, but even His own family does not as well. That error and failure to understand could be forgiven – there was no overt, overwhelming, undeniable reason to believe Jesus was who He said He was in what He was doing by Himself. (There were many good reasons to believe, but none that were undeniable.)
- But when you look at the miracles that Jesus was doing, that’s another matter. They were overt. They were amazing. They were overwhelming. They were breathtaking. They were stunning. They were, to the honest heart, undeniable. Remember, though, that ultimately those were the Spirit’s miracles, done through Jesus. The power there was not Jesus’, by His own repeated acknowledgement. It was miracles requested by Jesus from the Father who fulfilled them through the Spirit. They were, in that way, the Spirit’s miracles.
- This is a key distinction. The work of the Spirit, through Jesus’ requests, was the overt, overwhelming, undeniable miracles. The work of Jesus was humble and veiled.
- This is what Jesus is getting at in Luke 12:10. If I may paraphrase for the sake of clarity what I believe Jesus is trying to get across here: “I understand why you may not totally get what I’m teaching as being the truth. The parables can be tough. I understand why you may not get the way I’m doing ministry – you were looking for a political king to run off the Romans. I understand why you struggle to make sense of why I’m doing what I’m doing. Because of that, I am sympathetic to your struggles and am more than willing to forgive those things you say against me. But these miracles of the Spirit – they are overt, overwhelming, undeniable. Your own eyes have seen such mind-blowing things. And yet your hearts are so stubborn that you look on these miracles and still find a way to deny them. When that happens – when you see the greatest proof possible that I am who I say I am – a tangible proof, a visual proof – and your heart still won’t budge, then you will not be forgiven. How can I convince you when the greatest and clearest evidence fails to move your heart?”
- Because of that, I’m not sure if it being the “unpardonable sin” is a threat or a statement of condition.
- Threat: I don’t know if Jesus is saying that doing something that bad angers God to the place where He pulls away your chance to be saved. (This presumes a “point of no return.”)
- Condition: It may be that Jesus is simply making a statement of fact – “if you can deny something that amazing, then nothing will ever convince you.”
HOW DO YOU GET THERE? It’s not one big decision, but a thousand small moments of refusing to yield.
- 1 Corinthians 5:19.
- I don’t think anyone gets up one morning and says, “You know what I’m going to do today? I’m going to commit the unforgiveable sin.” No one is that stupid.
- Rather, it’s a thousand small moments of refusing to yield.
- What do I mean by “refusing to yield”?
- I mean those moments when the Spirit is trying to push us in a direction and we dig in our heels.
- Examples:
a. It’s the close of worship and we feel the Spirit pushing us to go to the altar, but we don’t want to step out in front of everyone. We refuse to yield to His leading.
b. A verse jumps out to us in our daily Bible reading and we think of someone we should call and make things right with, but we don’t want to be embarrassed. We refuse to yield to His leading.
c. We read an announcement about the need for helpers in various ministries and we know that we’re not doing anything right now, but we decide everyone needs a break now and again. We refuse to yield to His leading.
d. I’m watching a show on TV with some questionable material and feel convicted over it. I reach for the remote, but then just lay it on my lap. We refuse to yield to His leading.
e. I hear a co-worker talking about something that her preacher taught her from the Bible and it makes some sense, but it’s outside of the way that my denomination believes, so I don’t give it additional thought or study. We refuse to yield to His leading.
- We are to constantly yield our will to the Spirit’s leading.
- Why don’t we do this?
a. He may lead us in directions we don’t want to go.
b. He may teach us things that mess up my neat, tidy life.
c. He may push us into situations that I’m uncomfortable with.
d. He may require things I don’t want to give.
- It’s not easy following the Spirit.
- If we don’t follow the Spirit, though, but instead choose to follow our own instincts and desires, we will inevitably end up far, far away from where God wants us to be.
- In the case of the teachers of the law who are accusing Jesus of working with Satan, they had become so focused on their interpretation of the Scripture and their way of relating to God, that they had lost the ability to see where God was actually moving. If it didn’t fit within their narrowly-defined paths, then it could not have been from God.
- And that led them to miss out on God’s clear movement.
- It wasn’t one big decision. It was a thousand moments of not yielding to the Spirit.
- This is why it’s so essential for us to yield to the guidance of the Spirit.
- No one in this situation thinks to themselves, “I’m committing the unpardonable sin here, but that’s ok.” They’ve come to a place where they are so blinded and so twisted that they cannot see how far from God they are.
- This needs to be a warning to us. The people with the greatest danger of committing the unpardonable sin are religious people, not “heathens” or “hellions.” The sin is ascribing to Satan the works of God. That’s most likely to happen when we’re thinking fairly often about God, but not yielding to the Spirit and thus we’re allowing our understanding of God to get twisted.
OUR PATH AND OUR PRAYER: “I want Your power and Your truth, wherever it leads.”
- What should our prayer be then? Let me offer this as a path and a prayer: “I want Your power and Your truth, wherever it leads.”
- Let’s unpack the four parts:
a. “I want. . .”
- This is a desire within my heart and I’m going to act on it.
b. “. . . Your power. . .”
- I believe that You still display Your power and that a true walk of faith should still be an empowered one (1 Corinthians 2:1-5; 1 Corinthians 4:20; Ephesians 1:16-19; Ephesians 3:19-21; Colossians 1:28-29; 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12; 2 Timothy 3:5). It’s not just empty words and tradition. So I need to be looking for evidence of the powerful move of the Spirit to change hearts.
c. “. . . Your truth. . .”
- It’s easy to just stay within our denominational understanding of the Scripture. Unfortunately for those doing that, no denomination has everything right. We need to study the Bible and pray as we do, “Father, I want all of Your truth – the parts that will bless me and the parts that will challenge me. Give me eyes to see it.”
d. “. . . wherever it leads.”
- Some of this may lead us toward greater blessing and deeper joy. Some of this may cause us (at least temporarily) heartache and struggle. We need to tell God that we want all that He has for us and we want to follow Him wherever the Spirit leads, no matter what.
A HELPFUL TRUTH: A good tree always produces good fruit.
- Matthew 12:33; Mark 3:34-35.
- In the first two occurrences of this statement, we have statements that help us in discerning about yielding to the Spirit and discerning when it’s from Him.
- In Matthew 12:33, right after the “unforgiveable sin” statement, Jesus then says that a good tree will bear good fruit and a bad tree will bear bad fruit.
- That’s very helpful to know that the truth of God is sufficient that it’s not merely an internal thing with uncertain external results, but it’s something that will bear external fruit that fits with the source.
- In Mark 3:34-35, in the second “bread” piece of the “sandwich,” Jesus says that the true believer is the one who “does God’s will.”
- That’s also very helpful because that not a hidden and mysterious thing, but it’s again something observable: the person who is really of the Spirit is going to be doing God’s will, not merely talking about God things.
- In both cases, this is helpful for that very reason. If we understand the Scripture and what Jesus is calling us toward, we should look for where those things are happening.
- If they are not happening in my church, I shouldn’t excuse that. I should be scared about it and start working on that.
- If they are happening in the life of someone I would normally dismiss as “not one of my kind of people,” I need to pay attention to that.
- In the end, it’s not a mysterious, hidden thing – it’s observable. True God people do God things.
IS THERE A POINT OF NO RETURN? Even if there is, we would never know in this life if someone had crossed it, so we should never give up on anyone.
- One of the debates that arise from this passage is the idea of a “point of no return.”
- That is, if there is a sin from which you cannot be forgiven, then once a person had committed that sin it would impossible for them to be saved.
- Can that happen in this life? The Scriptural evidence is unclear. There is simply not a single passage that settles the issue beyond dispute. Some argue that God contends with everyone throughout this life and doesn’t give up until they leave this world and therefore leave behind their opportunity to be saved. Others argue that some reach a point that’s so hard-hearted that they cannot be convicted and transformed.
- That’s a theological debate that others can have. For our purposes, it has no real world consequence.
- Why? Because I cannot see into someone’s heart and see where they’re at spiritually. Someone may appear to be light years away from God but actually be right on the cusp of a salvation decision. Another person might seem to be the very epitome of a church pillar, but not only not be saved but further be callous to the move of the Spirit. I just cannot know.
- (A side note: this does not contradict with the previous point I just made about a good tree bearing good fruit. Too often we confuse church faithfulness and generally being nice with the actual life-changing fruit of the Spirit.)
- Even if there is a hypothetic “point of no return,” that would never be an excuse for me to quit witnessing or quit praying for a specific person. I can’t discern what’s going on in their heart. It’s too big of an issue to casually wave it off. So I need to always presume that there is a chance the door is open and continue to work.
