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.
And what Jesus is saying is that there is no in-between. There is no neutral or middle ground. If you are for Jesus, it will show by the fact that you gather with Him and His people and you follow Him. And if you are not for Jesus, you will not gather withHim and His people. You will not be following Him.
Of course this observation has some substantial implications for who we regard as true believers and who are not. There, of course, are many in our society who profess to be Christians, but never attend Church, are not in fellowship with other believers, and don't follow what Jesus said in the Bible. And what Jesus' observation here would indicate is that generally speaking, those who fail to do these things are true believers. And of course this is in keeping with the concept clearly stated elsewhere in the New Testament: "If any man is in Christ, He is a New creation, old things have passed away and all things have become new" (II Corinthians 5:17), that if you have true saving faith, there will also be good works (James 2:14-26) and that it is repentant, or obedient or an active faith that saves, not just mere intellectual agreement with a set of facts, or a prayer repeated as means of escaping the possibility of hell.
And again, you are ultimately demonstrating your response to the Holy Spirit's work in your life by your response to Jesus. You follow Him, you're following the Holy Spirit's promptings and direction. You don't follow Jesus, then you are somehow resisting or quenching the Holy Spirit's leading, if not rejecting His leading altogether.
And all of this is in accord with the truths that Jesus later spoke about the Holy Spirit during His Upper Room Discourse at the Last Supper. Those truths are very important for us to consider as we seek a definition for the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So turn with me to John 16:7-11 this morning. What Jesus is telling His disciples here is that it is necessary for Him to leave for the Holy Spirit to come. And the Holy Spirit will be their helper, their comforter, and their convictor in this matter of fulfilling the mission Jesus is about to give them. So He says to them,
"But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; 11 and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged."
In other words, as the Disciples were to go out and make disciples around the world, Jesus is telling them that the Holy Spirit will be working in the lives of those they preach the Gospel to. He's telling them that the Holy Spirit will be convincing the world of their sin, and what is righteousness, and that their will be a coming judgment, so that they will come to faith in Christ.
In other words, though God allows us to work with Him and says that it is absolutely necessary for a human to proclaim or preaching the Gospel, He tells us we're not alone in this enterprise of attempting to bring people to saving faith in the Gospel. He tells them that God, in the person of the Holy Spirit will be right there supernaturally working with them and through them, and through the Word of God in the heart of the people hearing so that they are convicted, or convinced of their need for Jesus as their Savior to escape the coming Judgment of God. In fact, what He's saying is that the Holy Spirit will be working through and with them just as the Holy Spirit worked through and with Him in His ministry of reaching people with the Good News. In other words, to sum up, whenever any of us comes to saving faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit is deeply involved—He's the one who ultimately convinces people to come to faith in Christ. He was doing so in Christ's ministry, and He does so in ours.
So before we go one, it's important to ask you this question: Do you show that you are responding positively to the Spirit—are you hearing and saying yes to the Spirit by following Jesus? If not, today's the day to begin responding to those nudges of the Spirit in your heart and conscience to begin following Jesus with a whole heart.
Now this incredible miracle that Jesus has most just done—the deliverance and healing of the blind and mute demon-possessed boy simply amazed the crowds of people who were following Jesus. The Greek word for amazed indicates that the crowds were simply absolutely blown-away by what they had seen. It was one of those pinching yourself to make sure this is real sort of moments for those who had seen what Jesus was able to do! It was the type of miracle that had never been done before Jesus' time. And more than that it was the kind of miracle that was predicted to be part of the Messianic Age in Isaiah 35:4-6 where we read, "Say to those with anxious heart, 'Take courage, fear not, Behold your God will come with vengeance; The recompense of God will come, but he will save you.' Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. The the lame will leap like a dear and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy." In other words, this one miracle alone, much less the thousands Jesus was performing, was a sign that the Messiah, God in the flesh was in their midst—which was the very proposition that the scribes and the Pharisees refused to acknowledge and would ultimately do everything to prevent the people from believing—including murdering the Messiah.
Now this miracle again was one of many repeatedly done in the sight of the scribes and the Pharisees, and in the sight of thousands and thousands of people. By the testimony of the Law itself, which required only two or three witnesses, the fact that Jesus was performing these incredible miracles was absolutely undeniable. Further testifying to the fact that this was the very power of God Himself in this last miracle was that a demon had been cast out, one of those many demons who had been crying out in fear when they encountered Jesus that this was indeed of all people the Almighty Son of God. So that in itself demonstrated that this could only be the supernatural power of God, because as Jesus notes, Satan would not cast out Satan, Beelzebul would not cast out demonic spirits. Secondly, by the Word of God it proved Jesus was the predicted Messiah. And of course, obviously, this supernatural work was proof that God was affirming that Jesus was from Him, that Jesus was His Son and the promised Messiah.
At this point, these wicked and hypocritical religious leaders found themselves in a logical and spiritual corner. They had already decided what they wanted to believe—they did not want to believe Jesus was the Messiah because he was upsetting their religious system and exposing them as frauds. They were jealous of Him because all the people were beginning to follow Him and we're beginning to wonder if He was the Messiah. So having decided already what they wanted to believe, they had to find a reason not to believe. And what did they decide to do? They could not deny that supernatural miracles were repeatedly taking place. So they chose the only other alternative for justifying or excusing their unbelief—that the source of the supernatural power was Beelzebul, the prince of demons, literally the Lord of the flies of rotten carrion, which was a synonym for Satan Himself.
In other words, the scribes and the Pharisees were saying: Don't confuse me with the fact, we already know what we want to believe. And we're not changing.
This is the context for what Jesus says in Matthew 12:30-32. As Jesus makes his comments about blasphemy against the Spirit, He is saying that the Holy Spirit performed these miracles on Jesus' behalf, and these religious leaders were absolutely finally, fully, and irretrievably rejecting the Holy Spirit's work once and for all as the Holy Spirit sought to persuade them of who Jesus is, their only Messiah and Savior.
So, Jesus says in Matthew 12:31-32: “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."
Now, at first, it seems to me that the Pharisees were only speaking against Jesus. The matter of the Holy Spirit hasn't even come into their discussion. So why does Jesus say, "But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come"?
The answer I believe is that in truth and ultimately what the scribes and Pharisees had actually done was speak against and ultimately and finally reject the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts that should have convicted them that Jesus was truly their Messiah, their only source of forgiveness.
In other words, they had so hardened their hearts against Jesus, that faith and repentance for them had now become impossible. They had so turned against Jesus, and against the Holy Spirit's work in their hearts, that there was no turning back. They would from this point on be unrelenting enemies of Jesus Christ, committed to His murder, because of their pride and selfish ambition.
And because they had ultimately and finally rejected the Holy Spirit's work in their lives, they had rejected the only source of forgiveness, Jesus Christ. So the result is that essentially that had rejected God's forgiveness by rejecting Jesus Christ. Thus, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in my view is the ultimate and final rejection of the clear work of the Holy Spirit in a person's life intended to convict and convince them of their need for repentant faith in Christ for forgiveness.
The lesson from this for any who may not have come to faith this morning is this: Don't ever blaspheme the Spirit by repudiating the Spirit's witness about Jesus—that Jesus is your Savior, the Son of God. Because if you ultimately and finally repudiate the Spirit's work, you've rejected Jesus, and you've rejected the only way to receive forgiveness through His death as payment for you sins.
Now what the scribes and Pharisees are doing here is what I call smokescreen intellectualism. It's not that they can't believe, it's that they won't believe, because they prefer darkness, they prefer their sinful ways. So they look for reasons to justify their unbelief, and that's how they came up with the excuse that Jesus was doing what He did by the devil. It was the only way they could give the appearance that what they were doing was legitimate—by supposing there was a different source, the only other possible Biblical source, for the miracles Jesus was obviously doing.
That's what unbelievers still do today, by claiming they can't believe because of evolution, or dinosaurs, or some philosophy or other belief they've accepted, or because of the hypocrisy of Christians. Ultimately, they're look for reasons to justify their unbelief, and they will find them if they prefer to continue in their sin. See John 3:19-21.
Now for the $64,000 question. Can a true believer ever commit the unpardonable or unforgivable sin? The answer, of course is no, because a believer, by definition has accepted Christ as His Savior, and therefore has followed the Spirit's leading in his life. But in my mind this is a qualified "no." Because there are people who at one time were "apparent" believers who ultimately do reject Christ—they do fall away.
Now this leads to our third point this morning: Don't harden your heart and fall away. Don't harden your heart and fall away.
Now I recognize we're getting into controversial territory here, but hear me out.
The Bible, in other places clearly admits that believers can at times resist the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. For instance, there are other less serious sins against the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4:30 talks about the grieving of the Holy Spirit. Specifically in the context of various sins of the flesh such as lying, stealing, bitterness and anger, the Apostle Paul tells us, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." And with respect to Spiritual gifts, we find this exhortation in I Thessalonians 5:19-22: "Do not quench the Spirit; 20 do not despise prophetic utterances. 21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; 22 abstain from every form of evil." In other words, believers can and do grieve, quench and resist the Holy Spirit in various ways.
And in the Book of Hebrews, the definitive book in the New Testament which warns us about the dangers of falling away from Christ, we find this exhortation in Hebrews 6:4-8: "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, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. 7 For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; 8 but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned." In other words, Hebrews 6 and its companion passage in Hebrews 10 is admitting that some who have followed Christ may indeed fall away, and apparently when they do so, it's impossible to renew them to repentance. In other words, even though a Christian cannot lose his salvation an "apparent" Christian can lose his faith! Why? Is it possible that an "apparent" previously-professing Christian can commit the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit as the Scribes and the Pharisees did in Matthew 12?
The next question we need to ask then is this, were they then true believers. The Apostle John answers this question for us in I John 2:19 as he talks about some "apparent: believers who had fallen away, he makes this comment: " They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us."
So then what demonstrates we are true believers? you may ask. The Book of Hebrews also provides us with an answer in Hebrews 3:12-14: " Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end." In other words, a true believer is one who perseveres in His faith until the end.
So, what conclusion can we draw from all of this? It's this Be careful that resisting the Spirit (i.e., hardening your heart) doesn't result in rejecting Jesus. And notice, the exhortation in Hebrews 3:12-14 is addressed to people who think they are believers—to people who have professed faith in Christ. It's addressed to "Brethren," so this exhortation applied to you and me!
How can we avoid this fatal and eternal error. That's the message of the Book of Hebrews and Psalm 95, taken from those who followed Moses into the wilderness but never got into the Promised Land: It's this:
“TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,
DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS, AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME.”
In other words, be careful that in resisting the spirit you never come to the place of rejecting Jesus entirely.
So my question for you this morning: What is the Spirit saying to you this morning? Whatever He's saying do, don't grieve Him, don't quench Him, don't resist. Today, if you hear his voice, heed Him, and forgiveness through Christ remains yours.
And whatever you, don't resist the Spirit, to the point you reject Jesus entirely. That could be the unforgivable sin!
Let's pray.
