Two weeks ago, we began a look at the passage of Matthew 12 that deals with what is popularly known as the unforgiveable or unpardonable sin. It is a passage that has confused and worried numerous believers throughout the centuries. “Have I committed the unforgiveable sin?” “Can I commit the unforgivable sin and lose my chance at heaven?” “Is there a sin that is truly unforgivable, something beyond God’s love or mercy?”
Now, we know that God is a God of love and mercy and therefore is by nature a God of forgiveness. It is not within Him to be unforgiving. In Micah 7:18 we read, “Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love.” The Old Testament is filled with statements like this about our loving heavenly Father. The Old Testament tracks the people of God throughout the ages showing over and over again the extent to which God will forgive. Adam and Eve sinned bringing death into the world through the curse and God promised redemption. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lied, tricked, and manipulated their way through life, and God forgave. Throughout the era of the judges God watched His people reject Him, be punished and when they repented, He forgave. Evil king after evil king arose in Israel and in Judah and yet God forgave and forgave and forgave.
In the New Testament, Christ preached a message promising the forgiveness of God. The apostles likewise promised God’s forgiveness. John wrote in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” It is the essential message of Scripture as it comes to mankind; man is a sinner and God forgives. To talk about an unforgiveable sin seems the polar opposite to everything we read about God in His Word. How can there be a sin that God cannot or will not forgive?
Even the worst of any sin ever committed was forgiven. There are many people who believe themselves beyond the forgiveness of God for some crime or another. Lifetimes of betrayal, theft, drug use, rape, murder, and yet we know that they are not beyond the forgiveness of God. If you were to narrow it down to the absolute worst crime against God, the worst sin ever committed it would be the premeditated murder of the Son of God Himself and even then, as He was hanging on the cross, as the looked down upon those who had put Him there and were standing by continuing to jeer at Him, what did He say? “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” God has promised to forgive, no matter the extent or volume of sin, and yet we call the one in our passage for today the unpardonable sin.
As we begin our time this morning studying this topic, let us begin by reading our passage from the beginning of the interaction back in verse 22.
“Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, ‘This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?’ but when the Pharisees heard this, they said, ‘This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.’
And knowing their thoughts Jesus, said to them, ‘Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; then will his kingdom stand? If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he firsts bind the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. 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 people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 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.”
In order to understand the unpardonable sin, we must understand the context in which it is found. That is why we took an entire sermon two weeks ago to go over verses 22-30. The Pharisees had been at odds with Jesus for some time and were looking for ways to destroy His ministry. They had been completely unable to challenge the teachings of Jesus because every time they brought up an objection, He had demonstrated an unquestionable understanding of the Law and its application, pointing out again and again how their traditions had caused them to disregard the spirit of the Law, to love God and to love their fellow man.
Instead of allowing the Sabbath to be a day of rest and worship, they had turned it into one of the most burdensome days of the week for the people by piling upon them rule after rule to follow that did nothing to bring their hearts closer to God. Instead of that tiresome burden, Jesus offered the people rest for their souls if they would accept His yoke and listen and obey His instruction. Jesus refused to follow their traditions and, like a teacher frustrated with prideful and ignorant students, stung them with the rebuke, “If you had known what this means,” “if you had paid attention the first time, if you had read scripture with a desire to understand it rather than to use it,” “if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.”
The pharisees cared nothing for their fellow man, using those who were suffering or enslaved to sinful lifestyles as building blocks upon which they could tower their self-righteous pedestals a little higher. As we saw back in verse 10 that they cared nothing for the man with the withered, only seeing him as a tool they could use to try and trap Jesus into breaking one of their taboos. In that encounter, as with all the other attempts, Jesus used simple and irrefutable logic to demonstrate that their traditions and self-righteousness were standing in the way of the true gospel of God.
Instead of recognizing their hypocrisy, they sought to destroy Him and all the way back in chapter 9 we saw that they were working to discredit the Lord by spreading the lie, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul.” The people who witnessed the miracles of Jesus recognized that what He was doing could only be supernatural. We saw in verse 23 that “The people were amazed” they were blown away; and they were wondering to each other, “Can this be the Son of David?” They knew that the messiah would come with wonderous miracles like Jesus was doing, but they expected something different and so it caused them to doubt.
The pharisees could likewise not give any natural explanation to the miracles of Jesus but instead of seeing the work of God the Holy Spirit through the man standing before them, they attributed His supernatural power to Satan. Jesus confronted the Pharisees with accusation, as we saw two weeks ago, and demonstrated that it was illogical, as a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. The accusation was blinded by prejudice, first in that the disciples of the pharisees cast out demons, and if they could do it why was Jesus different? And second, it was apparent to all who saw the ministry of Jesus that He was robbing the kingdom of Satan of hundreds of souls and that could only be done if the Lord had power over Satan.
This left them with only one real conclusion, “if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you… whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me, scatters.” You are either following Christ in the Kingdom of God or you are in open rebellion against Him and in the end, will be scattered.
Jesus had made it undeniably clear who He is. His miracles were supernatural, His teaching and logic was perfect, there was no way to remain on the fence. You can either accept Jesus as God or call the work of the Holy Spirit ‘Evil.’ The pharisees were in a position that required an eternal choice, and they turned their back on God. That is were we begin the discussion of the unpardonable sin, the pronouncement of anathema, damnation. “Therefore I tell you,” “because of all that undeniable truth just laid bare before your eyes, I tell you.” The pharisees had cursed the Spirit of God and now God, through Christ, is going to curse them. They had committed a sin that was unforgivable. Totally unforgivable. “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people.”
Now lets stop right there for a minute. “every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people.” What does Jesus mean by that? Every sin and blasphemy. Well, sin is anything we think, say, or do that is contrary to the character and law of God. Blasphemy is a type of sin. It is specific in its nature as being a direct and intentional assault on the person or character of God and in this context, the Lord is treating blasphemy as a distinct and extreme form of sin. All sin is bad, sin in this passage is referring to every kind of immoral and ungodly thought and action, but blasphemy goes that extra step into conscious denouncing and rejection of the Holy Spirit in the very face of God. Blasphemy is not just becoming frustrated at another bad turn of events and exclaiming, “oh my God.” Blasphemy is not just using the name of God in vain, attaching God to something you selfishly want. “God wants me to have this car so I can be happy.” Blasphemy is defiant irreverence, the uniquely terrible sin of intentionally and openly speaking evil against holy God or defaming or mocking Him. In the Old Testament, the punishment for blasphemy was stoning to death. In the end times it will be characteristic of those who live in open rebellion against God.
But, Jesus says, “every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people.” All manner of sin and blasphemy is forgivable. No matter what you have said or done, a lifetime of the worst sin imaginable can still be forgiven when we come to Christ in divinely inspired repentance. Paul holds himself up as the worst offender. He persecuted Christ by murdering the church. He says of himself in 1 Timothy “Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor and insolent opponent… I received mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
Jesus continues, “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.” What is the difference here? What is the difference between blaspheming Jesus and blaspheming the Holy Spirit? Is it saying there is some form of hierarchy? Is the Holy Spirit more important than Jesus? That is not it at all. The emphasis is on the title that Jesus uses to refer to himself, “whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man.” The title “Son of Man” is focused upon the humanity of Christ. He is called both “Son of Man,” and “Son of God.”
In his incarnation, in the time that Jesus was walking upon the earth we see him in his self-imposed humiliation. In Philippians 2, Paul describes the incarnation of Jesus as the greatest act of humility that the world has ever seen. “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In that servitude, Jesus hid his full glory in order to walk the earth as a man. What Jesus is saying here is that it is understandable, forgivable for people to question him in his humanity. The crowds that were witnessing his miracles still saw nothing more than a human standing before them. Their perception may not have even allowed them to consider deity as a factor. In their ignorance, they blasphemed the Son of Man, they blasphemed Jesus by calling him or treating to him something he was not. And in their ignorance they could be forgiven.
In fact, that is what Paul said of himself in the verse we just read from 1 Timothy. “I received mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.” Ignorance caused by the blindness of sin leads to all manner of sin and blasphemy. Sin keeps us from seeing the truth even when it is right in front of us. Our ignorance of the truth can lead us into all kinds of blasphemy and that is forgivable.
The Jews, the crowds who were seeing Jesus recognize there was something different about him, some of them even wondered “this man cannot be the Son of David can he?” They knew something was going on, but they were unimpressed with the human elements of Jesus. They were unimpressed by his humility, his meekness, his gentleness. They wanted a great leader at the head of a nation, of an army, and so they rejected Jesus as the Messiah and in so they blasphemed the Son of Man. That was forgivable because it was born out of their ignorance.
So then why did they commit this unforgivable sin when they blasphemed the Holy Spirit? It is because they had been given undeniable evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit and their conclusion was the very opposite of the truth; they were hopeless, their hearts beyond the capacity for repentance.
In order to blaspheme against the Spirit means that you commit blasphemy after God the Holy Spirit, whose job it is to apply the work of redemption of God the Son to us, after our minds have been illumined to an understanding of the truth of Christ. If the Holy Spirit reveals to an individual with absolute clarity that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, so that you know without excuse who He is; and you still, with the illumination of the Holy Spirit, say that Jesus is the devil, you have committed the unpardonable sin.
You can blaspheme in ignorance and have it forgiven. You can blaspheme out of blindness, out of confusion, and have it forgiven; thank God. I am quite sure that all Christians blaspheme in some form or another even after their conversion. I am sure there are many Christians, believers who blaspheme God regularly; who apply to Him thoughts, words, actions that He has nothing to do with. They may do it out of pride, they may do it out of ignorance, they may do it out of false systems of theology, and in all of that God is willing to forgive us.
But there is a difference. When we know the truth, when the Holy Spirit has made it undeniable and we in full knowledge of that truth call the work of the Holy Spirit, the work of the Son of God the work of the devil we have gone beyond hope of forgiveness.
And that is where the Pharisees were standing. They saw the undeniable work of the Holy Spirit through Jesus and they said, “it is the devil.” It was not just some backcountry preacher that sounds a little out there to begin with that they could dismiss. It was not John the Baptist running around in camel hair robes and eating locust ranting about the kingdom being near. They had seen undeniable miracles, massive numbers of miracles. They had heard the teaching and the preaching that they could not argue against. They had years, centuries of training and learning the revealed word of God to know who the Messiah would be, to recognize the signs. They were the most informed people on the planet and then they got to watch this supernatural onslaught against the kingdom of Satan, against the consequences of sin, against disease and sickness, calling of the storms, raising of the dead. They saw all this and they concluded that Jesus was of the devil. If they had just been confused about who Jesus was, that is one thing, if it was that they were quite sure about this man from Nazareth, they might have been forgiven. But they had so much evidence, the illumination of the Holy Spirit through countless miracles and through unquestionable teaching and they concluded the exact opposite, they were beyond hope. They could not be forgiven because they could never turn to God in repentance, it just was not possible because of their own hardness of heart.
That is what Jesus means when he says they cannot be forgiven in this age or in the age to come. They demonstrated an absolute and permanent refusal to believe which resulted in the opportunity for forgiveness being completely lost to them. There will never be another opportunity and even if there was, they would still refuse it. People think that the souls in hell should be able to pay off their debt at some point and be allowed into heaven but that assumes that they would repent if given the chance. The souls in hell are there for eternity not just because they refused God in this life but because their rebellion will continue in perpetuity, forever. They will bend the knee to Christ, Philippians 2, after Paul describes the humiliation of Christ he says “for this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Those under the earth is talking about those in hell. They will recognize Jesus as Lord, but they will continue in their rejection of Him even in hell, even while suffering the wrath of God.
That is the level of rebellion that existed in the heart of the Pharisees. That in the face of the undeniable work of the Holy Spirit through Jesus, the Son of Man, the Son of God, in the face of irrefutable proof the Pharisees called Jesus the devil.
The next, and vitally important question that we should ask after understanding what the unpardonable sin really is, is “can I commit the unpardonable sin?” And the answer to that is yes and no. Though the Pharisees were in a unique position, though this pronouncement of damnation from Christ against these Jewish religious leaders was unparalleled in history, Scripture does describe another unforgivable sin that sounds very much like the one we find here in Matthew chapter 12, and for that we have to turn to the book of Hebrews especially in chapters 6 and 10.
The book of Hebrews was written to both believing and nonbelieving Jews as a defense of the priesthood of Christ and an explanation of how he is the fulfillment of the Old Testament ritualistic system. In chapter 5 he is described as a priest in the order of Melchizedek. A priest of God outside the Aaronic or Levitical priesthood. And in chapter 6 we see a warning to those who are versed in the truth of Scripture, and in this case those who have been immersed from childhood in the Old Testament. In verse 4 we read “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 again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put him to open shame.”
The author of Hebrews is speaking to people who have been taught the truth of Scripture their entire lives, have known it and memorized it and understood it. This was written to the Jews of the first century, but it could be equally applied to millions of people around the world who have grown up hearing the gospel preached every week. They have “tasted the heavenly gift,” they have “tasted the good word of God,” they have “been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,” they have known and seen and partaken in the power of God in the church and then they have turned away. It is impossible to renew them again to repentance since they crucify the Son of God in their hearts.
Why? How are they committed this unpardonable sin? Because they were exposed to the truth in a way that was undeniable. They witness the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those around them and even in their own life and yet because of their hardness of heart they call that work evil. Like the unpardonable sin of the Pharisees, this is not a sin that God is incapable of forgiving, it is not beyond his power, but forgiveness is impossible because any possibility of repentance has been chased away by the individual.
In chapter 10 of Hebrews we see a similar statement. Starting in verse 26 we read “for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries… How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who is trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” And then in verse 31 it says, “it is a terrifying thing to fall on the hands of the living God.”
If you know, if the truth of who Jesus is has been revealed to you by the Holy Spirit of God, a full and complete and undeniable Revelation, and you trample underfoot the Son of God, you do violence against the Holy Spirit. And in that there is no forgiveness. There is no more truth to be given, no more revelation that will enliven the heart that so knowingly and willfully rejects God and calls Jesus the devil.
So then the question, “can I as a Christian commit the sin?” And the answer is yes and no. You are still fully capable of committing that sin, the matter how long you have sat under the preaching of the gospel, no matter how much knowledge of the truth you have, and fact the more knowledge you have the more severe the punishment that will come against you. The capacity for that sin is not erased from your heart by conversion. But at the same time, the answer is, “no.” I am convinced that anyone who truly receives the indwelling knowledge of the Holy Spirit and grace of forgiveness from God will be kept by God from ever committing that sin. God has promised in his mercy and his grace to complete the work in you that he has begun and by his saving Providence he will keep you until the end. And if he did not, you could and you would.
And what the apostle John tells us in 1 John 2:19 is that anyone who does walk away from the truth was never truly saved. “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.”
We can take comfort in that God has promised to maintain his adopted children until the end. It is not up to our flesh, our ability but up to his divine grace and his persevering love. All blasphemy is a serious sin, and if you are guilty of it in any way shape or form you need to be on your face before God pleading for his forgiveness because it is a terrifying thing to fall on the hands of the living God.
2 last quick thoughts before we close. First, we can never know if someone has committed the unforgivable sin. There are many people who grow up in the church and at some point in their life because of the tragedy or disillusionment walk away and reject God out right. We can never know their heart, we can never know if they have truly or completely rejected God and committed the unforgivable sin. That is not up to us and so we must evangelize everyone whenever we get the chance. We make no exception for anyone who is still alive no matter what they have said about God in the past.
The second thing is this, if you are worried that you have committed the unforgivable sin, you have not. By definition being fearful of God’s wrath in any form means you have not committed it and if you are willing to turn to God in repentance, he is promised to forgive all sin and blasphemy in your past.