The Unpardonable Sin - What is It and Why?

This post was added in April 2024 during our Bible study on Luke's Gospel.

Luke 11:14-23 and its synoptic (parallel) account in Mark 4:20-30, also parallels Jesus' words recorded by Luke in chapter 12, verses 8 to 12. The repeated statements speak of sin against the Holy Spirit. These parallel accounts also illumine the mystery of the nature of the Triune God. Luke 12 and Mark 4 specifically note that sin and blasphemy against the Father and Son will be forgiven, but one who sins and blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Frankly, this is one of the hardest statements in scripture. What is also illumined here is the holiness of God  - the depth of which we cannot grasp, and His choice to show mercy to whom He wishes to show mercy. Mercy is not a required response from God; do not be misled: God owes no one mercy! (another hard statement) He says so Himself:  "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy." (Exodus 33:19; Romans 9:13-18)  I have attempted within my understanding of the Scriptures to offer what is meant by the deadly penalty of blaspheming the Holy Spirit; see the attached below. 

Unpardonable Sin – Jesus’ Message on Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

The matter raised in Luke’s Gospel and Mark’s Gospel concerning sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit illumines for us even more the great mystery of the Triune Godhead – a mystery that cannot in human terms be fully explained nor comprehended.

Before we look at that dynamic, let us get a definition of blasphemy: Merriam-Webster says that “blasphemy, in a religious sense, refers to great disrespect shown to God or to something holy, or to something said or done that shows this kind of disrespect; heresy refers a belief or opinion that does not agree with the official belief or opinion of a particular religion.” Vocabulary.com puts it this way: “If you're saying something bad about a god, or taking the Lord's name in vain [the opposite of the Lord’s prayer where we say “Hallowed be your name”] or, questioning a religious institution in any way, you could be accused of blasphemy — insulting something sacred.” Blasphemy also includes a total and continued disregard or rejection of something holy or sacred. Since the Godhead is 3 in 1, i.e., all are co-equal, co-eternal, co-existent, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, how can only one of the Godhead be insulted to the extent of unforgiveness?

I’ll be honest – I do not know. I cannot on my own provide any verifiable light through any speculation - I can only go by what I am finding in scripture, and in researching Biblical references and works that exposit on this matter to get as close as possible (still lightyears away I’m sure) to a way to understand this. The following is a very limited explanation; one day, as the Bible says, we will be able to see and understand more fully some of the spiritual mysteries that challenge us now. Yet, I suspect that even then there will not be full disclosure as God is beyond the comprehension of any creature!

We agree on humans’ inability to fully explain and comprehend the Trinity; we can only offer very weak examples to try to illustrate the complex revelation of the Godhead. Personally, I only have very weak and very limited examples, which most assuredly pale in comparison to our Triune God. I share what I’ve found thus far.

(1)Let’s say that a trade association has 3 senior vice presidents who are all co-equal in executive authority, who co-exist within the association structure with responsibilities equal in importance to ensure a well-run organization. But they each possess a specific role unique to them within the context of the organization’s mission. One of the SVPs has the oversight, authority and leadership role of being an intermediary between the company’s paying member companies so as to develop a coalescense with their companies’ goals, and to develop in thought and action the face and voice of the industry. Another SVP has the oversight, authority, and leadership of the company’s Human Resources division to ensure that the company is well- and dynamically staffed, that all employees carry out their duties, follow company guidelines and that the company is in compliance with DOL regulations, and work as a team to promote the industry’s goals. The other SVP has oversight, authority, and leadership of the company’s financial assets and standing, ensuring that budgets are properly met, that financial assets and liabilities are correctly accounted for under existing national accounting standards, that the company is financially solvent and profitable, with an excellent credit standing that ensures the association’s goals will be undergirded by the financial wealth required for continuation of the industry’s goals. Each executes their unique but equal-in-authority roles as a leadership team to ensure that the mission of the organization is fully realized.

(2)Another example I came across: a Christian man whose three main roles and identities are the “priest” or faith leader of his family, a husband, and a father. The man physically does not change with each identity or role; those roles are unified within him.

Again, the foregoing are very weak examples! Like negative 1 minus 1! And are more symbolic or metaphorical than solid, literal explanation!

As noted, the Triune Godhead – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, are co-equal, co-existent, and co-eternal. They operate as One in three personhoods. God the Father begot God the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are consubstantial, each person of the Godhead being the One Eternal God and in no way separated. All alike are uncreated and omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are understood by and revealed to us primarily within the context of salvation and worship, as explained in Scripture. As the Godhead they are in agreement in all things; again, our best understanding of our Triune God of Love is within the context of God’s salvation plan. God the Father “orchestrates and creates the plan”, God the Son implements the plan, and God the Holy Spirit administers the plan. Who was it that “administered” the first advent of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? Who was in Him everyday during His humanity? Jesus further and succinctly describes the Holy Spirit’s role in the salvation plan in John 14-17 (see, for example, 14:16,26; 15:7-15,26-27; and 17:11-12,17-19). The Holy Spirit likewise God-breathed the words of the Father and Son to the epistle writers, who explain the salvation plan in depth. The Holy Spirit’s work includes convicting the world, that is, declaring the world to be wicked and sinful, deserving of God’s wrath, unable through any human effort to reconcile a relationship with a Holy God. He declares the need of a Savior-Redeemer. He indwells those believers who have been redeemed and saved through the implementation of the Son who shed His blood to cleanse them of the sin guilt and penalty. Ephesians, as in other letters, speaks to the salvation orchestration and implementation, and Romans, as well as the other epistles, speaks to the work of the Holy Spirit in believers. The Holy Spirit speaks and administers the Word of God in the lives of believers, God-breathing The Truth into each one continually as they feed on His Word, thus sanctifying each through transforming and regenerating the sin-laden hearts and souls of believers into the new life as children of God and heirs. (I have only pointed to two passages; you will find the salvation message and planall throughout the epistles.)

So here is what I think to be the crux of the matter as to the sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: Rejecting the sacred work of the Holy Spirit, continuing in unbelief and defiant irreverence, resisting His work and refuting His conviction, denying His sentience and speaking of Him as being a created force of God – thus denying His personhood, discredits and blasphemes Him. Such persons who reject the directions, signs, warnings, the opportunities that He repeatedly makes available to enable persons to do that “U-turn” back to God the Father and God the Son, who are rejecting His calling for whatever reason, continue condemned and on the “broad road” that leads to the just punishment of eternal separation from God (Ephesians 2; Romans 5:1-9). “Continue condemned” because as Ephesians and Romans tells us plainly, all of the offspring of Adam were born dead spiritually, with the prognosis of permanent death – eternal darkness and separation from God, unless by God’s grace they believe and trust in Christ and thus escape the wrath of God, who imputes Christ’s righteousness into them, placing His Spirit within them.

There are some clerics who teach against the Holy Spirit, who claim that the whole world is going to be saved according to their narrow interpretation and twisting of scripture (see varying examples here and here). They also teach against the Holy Spirit through false doctrine, refuting or substituting the truth (see 2 Peter 3:15-17). There are those who say that since Jesus ascended into heaven and no longer is physically present to perform miracles, that it is not possible to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Yet this Holy Person of the Godhead has already declared that such continued sin against Him equates to blasphemy, an unpardonable sin. 

 

…this is how I am understanding this matter at this time (April 2024) based on what I am gleaning from Scripture and hearing. I still have ????? and will continue to have them. But what I will not question is what the Holy Spirit has already stated clearly, speaking and testifying by and with the words of the Father and Son as He is charged to do.

 

Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, Donald S. Whitney.*
Question 3 – Are You More Loving?

As written at John 13:34-35, Jesus said that love is the clearest mark of a Christian. “By this all will know you are my disciples.” The author states that if we are growing in our love for others – especially in our love for Christians – then we are growing as a Christian.

The chapter offers a number of scriptures on the importance of love being the mark of Christians that are worth meditating upon:

·       John 15:12,17;

·       Romans 12:10, 13:8;

·       1 Corinthians 16:14; Galatians 5:14; Ephesians 5:2

·       1 Thessalonians 4:9; Hebrews 10:24, 13:1

·       James 2:8; 1 Peter 1:22, 4:8

·       1 John 3:11,23; 1 John 4:21; 2 John 5

Love is the badge and character of Christianity; without growth in the most important Christian distinctive – love – then we are “nothing”. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

When love grows colder, our sin increasingly manifests itself and we look more unlike Jesus. We lose patience, we are prone to be unkind, envious of others; when we are challenged about our lack of love, we quickly list all of the personal sacrifices and other proofs of our love (1 Corinthians 13:4). As our hearts harden or we become bitter, we become less courteous, we begin to look at our “rights” as more important than others’ and their needs, we are more easily angered, and more inclined to find fault in others, keeping score of their offenses (1 Corinthians 13:5).

So what kind of love are we to have? The author picks a scenario of loving family – nothing means more to them than their children; loving family means spending holidays together, sharing meals and other acts of intimacy; loving friends means being devoted to one another, and as the family circle and friendships grow, our love grows as well – correct?

The author answers: The Bible alone – not our own hearts – should be our standard both to define love and to describe it in practice (compare Jeremiah 17:9). We often classify as love what the King James Version of the Bible calls “natural affection (Romans 1:31 and 2 Timothy 3:3 KJV). In normal circumstances, parents love their children, family members love each other, and people love their friends and are good neighbors; this is true of both Christians and non-Christians. This is because God made humankind in such a way as to be able to naturally love certain people. Sometimes it seems to us that true love is at its height when we find others attractive and they are pleasing to us. Yet our love and happiness is regulated by whether the person continues to please us. There is also a “quid pro quo” kind of love. When our love is reciprocated, then, surely, that is true love, right? Yet with all of the emotion that may be expressed in those kinds of love, we cannot measure our growth in Christlikeness by these kinds of love.

The Greek language has different words for different kinds of “love” illustrated in part above: philia – deep friendship; eros – a romantic or carnal love; ludus – playful love; pragma – a longstanding affection; storge – a familial love; philautia – love of self; and agapé love – sacrificial love. Jesus, during His humanity, would have had a storge love for his family, a philia love for His friends – natural affections. However, when He gave the command to love one another, the word for love that He uses is agapé – a sacrificial love. It was that kind of love that brought Him to earth and placed Him on the cross. He did not come just to heal short-lived bodies, but to save sinners who are held captive by sin and its resulting forever death. By Jesus’ death on the cross we experience the love of God unto eternal life. One of the most loving things we can do for anyone is to give them the words that can lead to immortality in a radiantly glorious body, to not just speak the words, but sacrificially do the deed (1 John 3:18).

Growing in love, becoming more loving, we will want to examine whether our agapé love for other Christians is growing stronger (1 John 3:14). Secondly, has our love for the lost grown? Jesus’ experience with the rich young ruler, allowing him to admit that despite all the ‘perfect’ keeping of the commandments, he fell short of loving God and loving others. Jesus did not compromise His salvation message—He made it clear that the man must first forsake his ‘god’ – i.e., his possessions, and put Christ first. The author poses questions (paraphrased): Do we share the gospel message with the lost in a way that they can hear it; do we season our message with the salt of love? The more we begin to look like Jesus, the more we manifest the fruit of the Spirit and the more loving we will be to everyone, even our ‘enemies’ (Luke 6:27,32) Thirdly, when we examine our love for family, do we see observable growth, or are we living like enemies with our family members? Do we use harsh, harmful words, do we belittle one another, do we beat on one another either physically or psychologically? Do we become easily offended or put off when we cannot have our way? Do we act with gratitude to one another, and would our family members readily say, without compulsion, that we love them more and more?

The Bible says that the motive of Christian love at its best includes something that nonbelievers are incapable of knowing, as found at Romans 5:5, which tells us that “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Love begins with God; to love like Christ is to reverse every instinct in our fallen natures. The author, quoting Maurice Roberts in his article “The Supreme Grace of Christian Love,” published in The Banner of Truth, February 1989, relates that true Christlike love is against the grain of nature. Under the amazing power of grace in us through the Spirit, what our humanity cannot do, true Christians must do. Mr. Roberts notes in his article that he’s known Christians for whom the emphasis of their lives is growing in orthodoxy and knowledge; love is only relative. He further says that while God’s love is a gift to us through the Holy Spirit, it is not a spiritual gift like the gifts described in Romans 12 and Ephesians 4 – given to some and not to others. All true Christians receive God’s gift of love; we are accountable to Him in how we use it and grow in it. Do we pursue being more loving (1 John 4:8), meditating on this gift of God described in the scriptures noted above and any others we may find in the Bible on God’s love? Do we love like our Father loves? Does our love look like we belong to God the Father? Do we delight in imitating God (1 John 4:7; Ephesians 5:1-2)? Are we willing to identify those relationships where we most need to grow in love and to take the initiative in showing love in those relationships, not expecting anything in return? If we are choosing to imitate Christ, then we must be the initiator. Jesus did that.

*The foregoing represents my personal reflections on a study by Dr. Donald S. Whitney, Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. (2001. By Donald S. Whitney. NAVPRESS. ISBN 978-1-61747-187-2) Quotations and excerpts are from that source, unless otherwise identified. For the 2023 Lenten season I provided these thoughts to my local congregation's Bible study group. The questions are not, however, constrained by a particular liturgical season, holiday, or age group: these are questions every Christian may find useful in fulfilling God's command at 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test!" The church at Corinth looked a lot like many of our churches today.

Blessed Are the Poor In Spirit, for Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Some commentators interpret this passage as ‘the poor are blessed people.’ It is true that many people in Jesus’ day were poor; those who listened to Jesus’ sermon were mostly the common, ordinary and often poor persons who had been oppressed by taxes, stringent laws and regulations, and low wages. Jesus, in His humanity, grew up in a poor village; He even speaks about Himself as being homeless!


Yet, this is not the poverty that the first beatitude refers to.

This blessing relates to an impoverishment of spirit -- being spiritually poor before God.

What does “spiritually poor” mean? It means we don’t know what we think we know about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit; our knowledge and awareness of God are so limited that we have a skewed vision of who He is. We are impoverished or spiritually poor when we do not have the right relationship with God. (Compare Romans 1:20-22,28)

So, what does a right relationship with God look like? It begins when God speaks to us through His Holy Spirit: through His Spirit-authored Word the Bible, through prayer, and other ways (this calling is an individualized call unique for that person; only God knows how, when, where His Spirit will initiate the call). When we truly listen to and receive the Spirit’s call or prompting, we must respond to God, humbly surrendering mind, heart, and soul to Christ. We repent, i.e., turn away from our sinful attitudes, behaviors and from rejecting Jesus and His rightful Lordship over us. We seek, we beg God’s forgiveness. When our hearts are submitted to God and the Lord Jesus Christ, God pours out His grace on us; we are “cleansed” by the Word and Blood of the Lamb, and we receive God’s salvation and His Holy Spirit in us to enable us to follow Christ (see at verse 13 in the Ephesians link). As Ephesians 1:3-14 tells us, we become spiritually rich when we receive a father-child relationship with God.

As Christ followers who are spiritually rich, ours is the kingdom of heaven; we have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness, and transferred to the kingdom of God’s Son, which is the kingdom of heaven (Colossians 1:12-14). What is the kingdom of heaven, this kingdom of God’s Son? This kingdom, God's seat of authority, emanates from heaven where God dwells – Christ is its King. God’s kingdom of heaven is invisible in that it does not have a geographic location, a physical building or estate on earth; God’s throne is not visible to the human eye. God’s kingdom is the place of relationship with God, built on the richness of His love and grace, His justice and character, His mercies, His salvation. It is the rule or reign of God as Sovereign in our lives. It is visibly the universal Body of Christ, the True Church (those called out of satan’s kingdom of darkness – the 'ekklesia') in whose hearts Christ reigns – true disciples of Christ still living on earth and those who have been translated into the heavenly home (2 Corinthians 5:1) who represent God’s ways and authority. They belong to the light, to the kingdom and the kingdom is theirs; they are Citizens of God’s kingdom through the work of the Spirit, people who are obeying the commands of Christ and worshiping Him alone and sharing this good news with others, inviting them to enter the way of the Light of Life. (for further reference, see Jesus' preaching on what the kingdom of heaven is in Matthew 13:1-53, which He taught via parables)

Jesus does not want us to continue poor in spirit; He desires us all to come into a saving relationship with Him and to inherit the spiritual riches God has stored up for us. (John 3:16-17; Matthew 25:34)   When we are finally awakened in our desires, in our heart and spirit to our desperate need for Christ and pursue it -- and God transfers us to His kingdom of light, we receive not just a single blessing, but continual blessings for an eternity!

 

Explore

·       Imagine that you receive a notice that a bank account has been set up in your name and that each year $300,000 would be deposited into it tax-free, along with a home for life, the best education, and authority to live your life honorably and with purpose. What would be your response to the donor?


How is this illustration similar to this beatitude? How may it be different?

 

·       Which one do you think is worse: being spiritually poor or being financially poor? Why did you give that answer? 

·       If you become spiritually rich, what would you do with your riches?

Bonus: "You Know My Name" - Tasha Cobbs Leonard; "I'd Rather Have Jesus", Kevin Smith and Day III Chorale; "Who Am I", Casting Crowns

[view an overview of why the Beatitudes here]