What is the unpardonable sin? What is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? - Podcast Episode 173

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Welcome to the Got Questions podcast. We're doing a series on frequently asked questions about sin, so joining me today again is

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Kevin. Kevin's the managing editor of Got Questions Ministries, and Jeff is the administrator for BibleRef .com.

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Hello. Today we're going to be focusing on one specific question that we receive a lot, and we'll be discussing kind of the three main questions that go along with this particular

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Today's question is, what is the unpardonable sin, or also what is the blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit? To start, let me go ahead and read the passage so you'll know the passage we're talking about, in case it's unfamiliar to you, and then

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Kevin will jump in and kind of explain this passage, what Jesus is saying, what's happening, what's the context, and then we'll discuss it from there.

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Reading from Matthew 12, from the ESV, the context is

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Jesus just performed a miracle, healing a man of a withered hand, and then in verse 24 of Matthew 12, the

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Pharisees say, it is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.

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Then Jesus rebukes them, continues on, and in verses 31 to 32, it specifically mentions the unpardonable sin, the blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit, with, therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the

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Spirit will not be forgiven, and whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, whoever speaks against the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. So in this passage,

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Jesus is saying there's a specific sin, a specific action that identifies someone that God will not forgive, and obviously, for many, many people, this is a terrifying prospect.

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What is the unpardonable sin? What is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and how can

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I avoid committing that particular sin? So Kevin, what's going on in this passage? Help us to understand and grasp what's going on here.

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Well, moving back up to verse 22 of Matthew 12, the specific miracle that started all of this was a demon -possessed man that was brought to Jesus, and this man was both blind and mute, so that was connected to the demon possession somehow.

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So Jesus heals him, and the man is now talking and seeing just fine. The demon is gone, and then the people start asking, hey, could this be the

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Son of David? Could this be the Messiah? Because look, he's doing these miracles just like we would expect the

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Messiah to do, our Deliverer. And so the Pharisees make their accusation that Jesus is driving out demons by the prince of demons,

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Beelzebub, or the devil himself. And so Jesus knows their thoughts, and he confronts them, and he says, basically, in verses 25 and following, that their argument is both illogical and it is self -condemning.

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Number one, it's illogical, because if Satan is himself driving out his own minions, then he's a house divided, and a house divided cannot stand, as Jesus points out in verse 26.

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And then he also, Jesus points out that their argument is self -condemning, because the

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Pharisees also had exorcists, and it seems as if their practice of casting out demons was effective.

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And so who's to say that the Pharisees were not in league with the devil to be casting out demons?

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You say Jesus is, well, it's right back at you, if that's the accusation.

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It could go both ways. And so Jesus says, no, I'm not harnessing the power of Satan to do this work.

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In fact, the fact that I can drive out demons proves that I am working with a power that is greater than Satan.

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Verse 29, Jesus says, again, how can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man?

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Then he can plunder his house. So Jesus is driving out demons because he has more power than Satan.

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Jesus is operating under a greater power. And so he enters the house, Jesus enters the house, and he ties up the strong man, which is the demon, and then

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Jesus has control. So the exorcism was proof of God's power, the

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Holy Spirit's power, in Jesus, and one of the Pharisees at least got it.

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Nicodemus, back in John 3, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night and he says, we know that you are a teacher come from God because nobody could do these miracles that you do unless God is with him.

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So Nicodemus understood that the signs that Jesus did were proof of who

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Jesus was, that he was sent from God, that he was operating under the power of the Holy Spirit.

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So Nicodemus understood these Pharisees in Matthew 12, they're confronting Jesus, they don't get it, and they are actually very clearly taking sides against Jesus and setting themselves up in opposition to him.

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The thing that's interesting to me about that is that there's people like Nicodemus who recognize that what

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Jesus is doing is divine. You have Pharisees, or other

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Pharisees, I should say, who are rejecting that idea. And the theme seems to be the attitude that a person takes towards what

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Christ is doing. And I think that's important when we look at exactly what's happening because as we explore this idea of the blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit, we have to remember how consistent God is with the way he deals with people in the fundamental sense.

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And there's a form of legalism that's sort of involved when we want to say, if I make certain syllables with my mouth or certain movements with my hands, then

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I have now condemned myself and God cannot or will not forgive me for that.

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And that's more like voodoo and witchcraft than Christianity.

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So I think it's not as simplistic as just saying, oh, this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was saying a particular thing in a particular way.

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I do think that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was exactly what we're saying. It was these people saw

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Jesus perform a miracle, they understood on some level what they were seeing, and they made a deliberate choice to blaspheme, to insult, to disrespect the

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Holy Spirit by taking that work and that power and saying, well, that's Satan. That's not actually

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God. And the terminology that's even used in Scripture, it more often refers to the person who does it than the act itself.

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So when you have this heart that's so totally hardened against God, that you're willing to insult the

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Holy Spirit by saying, yeah, what you're doing is actually satanic, that's indicative of a hard attitude that is just not forgivable.

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Those persons are not in that mode. I don't think it's as simplistic as Jesus looking at the

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Pharisees and saying, oh, you said the magic words. You said the secret word.

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I am way too young for the Marx Brothers movies, but I love them anyway.

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And Groucho Marx had a show where he'd say the secret word and you win a certain amount of money. Well, blasphemy against the

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Holy Spirit is not like that. God's not just sitting there with a gotcha going, oh, you said the forbidden phrase.

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Now you're done forever. The attitude really is, I would hesitate to say everything because we don't want to be oversimplified.

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But in essence, it's really the attitude that matters much more than the exact words or the circumstances that somebody's in.

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Exactly. In fact, Jesus makes that very point in the context. In Matthew chapter 12, just continuing here in verse 33, immediately after Jesus makes that statement about the blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, he says, make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.

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Verse 34, you brood of vipers, he says to them, how can you who are evil say anything good?

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For the mouth speaks, but the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.

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And so Jesus immediately focuses on their heart condition. Their heart was evil, and because of that, their words coming out of their mouth were also evil.

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The blasphemy was coming from a place inside, inside their heart. And so the mouth, the words coming out of their mouth were simply the fruit of what was in their heart.

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So the root connected to the fruit. It wasn't the magic words that they were saying, but it was indeed a heart condition.

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And both of you bring up excellent points that are really helpful in understanding what's going on in this passage.

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So it's not just a one -time act. It's a culmination of hardness of heart.

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If you study the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke especially, Jesus is constantly arguing, debating, defending himself against the attacks of the

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Pharisees. And if someone could continue to witness Jesus performing these miracles, teaching these things, doing, saying amazing things that only

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God could do, could witness all of that and still come to the conclusion that Jesus is not the

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Messiah, Jesus is not the Son of God, Jesus is in fact demon -possessed, and that's how he's performing these things, to be that hard -hearted, to be that resistant to God's clear revelation of his

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Son, to be that rebellious against. It's a culmination that it's not just someone seeing a miracle and like, huh, well,

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I wonder if that's a miracle from God or from Satan, because the Bible does say there are counterfeit miracles. So it's not a matter of questioning.

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It's a matter of having witnessed Jesus again and again and again and again and still hard -heartedly rejecting him to the point that you're saying, you know what?

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I can't deny that he's performing miracles, so my only choice is here to say, basically, he's Satan -possessed.

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And to get to that point reveals this point. At that point, God is no longer, basically,

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I'm done with you. I'm no longer going to work in your life. I'm no longer going to call you. You are essentially stuck in your hard -hearted rebellion against me, and you will suffer the eternal consequences of that continued hard -hearted rebellion revealed by the fact that you contribute a clear miracle of God performed by my

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Son, the Messiah, God incarnate to Satan. So it's a culmination of hard -heartedness, not just a one -time questioning or even attack against Christ through the power of the

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Holy Spirit. Yes, going along with that culmination, Shay, is the fact that the

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Pharisees had been hard -hearted for a long time. They had rejected John the Baptist ministry, and so they're rejecting the

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Father who sent him. They're rejecting Jesus, the Son, and as they are rejecting the miracles that Jesus does, they're also rejecting the

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Holy Spirit. So they've rejected Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They have consistently rejected everything that God has shown them, plain as day.

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And Jesus says something very interesting. As he says, verse 31, every kind of sin and slander will be forgiven, except for the blasphemy against the

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Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come. I would take that as the age of the law, the age of grace, the two dispensations that Jesus was referring to there.

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But isn't it interesting that you speak against the Son of Man, Jesus in his incarnation.

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That's forgivable, because when Jesus was walking here in this world, he looked like an ordinary man.

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If you saw Jesus, you would not notice anything special about him, and if you reject that, that's understandable.

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That's forgiven, maybe. But when you start rejecting everything else that God has done, sending

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John the Baptist, the miracles that Jesus is doing, the incontrovertible proof that Jesus is the

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Son of God and the Messiah, Jesus says, now you have just denied your final witness, the

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Holy Spirit working through me, and you have sealed your fate. That is unforgivable.

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Kevin, that transitions really well into the next question. The first question was, what was the blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit at the unparalleled sin? The second question, can it be performed today? You read then in verse 32, it says, whoever speaks against the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come. As you said, the age to come would be the age that follows, the church age, the age of grace that we are currently in.

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According to this verse, seemingly in some sense, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the unparalleled sin, can be committed today.

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So maybe, Jeff, how would you see this same sin being committed today when we can't actually, literally, witness

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Jesus performing a miracle in the power of the Holy Spirit and then attribute that to Satan? Yeah, that context matters.

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I think when we look at it in that sense, that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as an action is something that can't be duplicated today.

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We're not seeing Jesus Christ in person performing miracles. We're not attributing that to the work of Satan.

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So I hesitate to say simplistic or oversimplified sense.

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It's correct to say that you can't commit blasphemy against the Holy Spirit today. That's something that you can no longer do because you're not in that circumstance.

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You're not in that situation. However, that is not to say that we can't express the same attitude or have the same heart or make the same mistake.

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Proverbs 29 .1 says that a person who gets corrected often and is constantly being stubborn is going to be cut off suddenly and with no remedy.

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It's very, very true that a person can get to the point where they immunize themselves to the

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Holy Spirit. So even though a person cannot literally attribute the work of Jesus to Satan, there is no one particular action.

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There's no certain thing. Again, this is not witchcraft. This is not voodoo. This is not spells.

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You don't say the right incantation or the wrong incantation, read the wrong book, say the wrong words, go to the wrong place.

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You put your right hand in, you put your right hand out. That's not how that works. You're not just suddenly flipping a toggle switch that says, oh, well, now you're gone forever.

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But you can resist the Holy Spirit. You can ignore God. And you can get to the point in time where the

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Holy Spirit's just not going to, he's not going to interact with you anymore. He's going to shrug his shoulders and say, well, then not my will, but yours.

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If that's the way you want it, go ahead and do what you're going to do. So in the sense that people are really worried about, because I know that's what concerns people really, is this idea of can

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I commit blasphemy against the Holy Spirit today? And this is not opening the wrong door, pushing the wrong button, clicking the wrong link.

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This is not spiritual spam or phishing. You cannot do this by accident. So this is not something that a person's just going to stumble into.

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It has to be deliberate. So you can't do it as literally as the

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Pharisees did it, but you can put yourself in a position spiritually where you can blaspheme the

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Holy Spirit to such an extent that you become immune, you become completely resilient and resistant to the

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Holy Spirit. But there again, I think it's that attitude. Anybody who comes to a sense of repentance, anybody who has conviction from the

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Holy Spirit can and will be forgiven of any sin that they have ever done and committed.

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Scripture just does not present the idea of a sinner who sincerely comes to God in repentance and says,

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I'm sorry, I'm repenting, forgive me. And God goes, no, you're out of luck.

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That's just not part of the way that works. So the persons who truly have committed some version of blasphemy against the

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Holy Spirit are not the persons who are later going to be coming to God and saying, oops, I made a mistake,

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I'm really sorry. They're the persons who are absolutely never going to have any interest in God at all.

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So perhaps a modern analogy would be, just look at the

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Pharisees and their relationship with Jesus and that they had witnessed him teaching, performing miracles again and again and again.

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They continued to reject him. So today it could be someone who had been witnessed to. The gospel has been shared with this person multiple times.

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They've seen God work in other people's lives. They've even perhaps witnessed a miraculous event of some sort.

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And yet, even though God is calling them, God is working, God is pricking their heart, God is trying to get their attention, but that person rejects

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God's call on his or her life again and again and again and again. And eventually God's going to get to the point and say, okay, you've chosen to reject me.

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I'm going to allow you to remain in that rejection. I'm no longer going to work in your heart and on your life or call you anymore to salvation.

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So since it wasn't just like the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, it wasn't a one -time, unpardonable sin, but it was a culmination of rejection of God's working to the point that God says,

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I'm consequences of your continued rejection of me.

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I think it's worth pointing out just that we're not unclear. There was something unique about what the people talking to Jesus at that time were doing.

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So it's not that we want to say that what they did was nothing particularly special, but I think maybe the thing that makes what they did most unique is just that it is so jaw -droppingly, amazingly blasphemous against the

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Holy Spirit. These are men who know the Old Testament very well. They see the condition of the people.

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They're there watching Jesus. I mean, they don't need any of this context stuff that we try to develop. Like, what does this word mean?

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What does this situation really entail? What was culture like? They are seeing everything in the absolute most ideal light to be evangelized in that sense.

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And they're not just rejecting that, but they're hatefully, blatantly insulting

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God by claiming that what's going on is actually satanic. So there is a sense in which what was happening there is absolutely unique and strange in human history in a sense it can't ever be duplicated in that way.

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So when we say that it is still possible for people to have that same heart and that same idea, that is very true.

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But that's also not that saying that what Jesus was talking about at that moment was not extraordinary.

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It really was. That was about as bad as it gets. Yes, absolutely.

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The Pharisees, I like to think of it this way, they had been given more light than anybody else ever had in the history of the world.

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Like you say, Jeff, they knew their Bibles backwards and forwards. They had studied the

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Daniel's prophecy about the timing of the coming of the Messiah. And so they should have been ready for that.

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They had the truth embodied, the man who is the truth standing right in front of them.

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And they had seen the miracles over and over. They were clear signs from God that this was

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God's chosen one. And they chose to reject all of that.

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And Jesus says, well, you've been given so much and a lot's going to be required of you.

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And nobody's received more light than you have. You are choosing the darkness. And that was your chance.

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You have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. And today, if a person ultimately rejects

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Christ, then they too are turning their back on their only Savior. They're not going to get another

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Savior from their sins. Jesus is it. Salvation is exclusive in Jesus Christ.

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The Bible's clear about that. So if we ultimately reject Christ today, then we're kind of placing ourselves in the same boat as the

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Pharisees did. And what they're doing is really the worst possible example of something.

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Maybe that's a good way to think of it is that sort of like Judas. Judas is probably easily the clearest example of somebody who cannot make the excuse that I didn't have enough evidence.

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I didn't have enough information. He literally walked, talked, ate, saw, served with Jesus in person more than all but a very few other people in human history ever did.

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And yet he could not bring himself to really commit his faith and his belief in that sense.

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Nobody beyond that, beyond those apostles, is getting that level of interaction with Jesus.

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But you don't have to have that level of stubbornness and hard -heartedness to be lost.

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So at the same time that we're saying that, yes, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable, but blasphemy against the

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Holy Spirit in a literal sense isn't something we can do anymore. We don't want to have the attitude of saying, but it's not something you have to worry about or think about at all.

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Because just because it's not a magic spell, just because it's not something that you can't do by accident, doesn't mean that you can't put yourself in a position where you're going to resist

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God and you're going to be immune to it. So it's more that it's the ultimate example of that.

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That's the pinnacle. That's the paradigm for rejection of God. And when you're there, there is no forgiveness.

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Well said, both of you. Question three, which we've already kind of been discussing, but how can we avoid committing the unpardonable sin or blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit today? I know you guys have seen the questions. Some of them are heartbreaking with someone who's just truly devastated in their faith, but somehow they've convinced themselves,

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I've committed the unpardonable sin. God will never forgive me, but I really want him to, and anyway, and I feel terrible, and I'm repenting, and I know he's not going to forgive me.

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And it's like a complete misunderstanding. So I'd like each of us to maybe address that, both in giving people the confidence that almost if you're repentant, that's a demonstration that you've not committed the unpardonable sin.

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If you're seeking God, if you're wanting his forgiveness, that's evidence that you've not committed the unpardonable sin.

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If you feel grief, remorse over what you did, that's evidence that you've not committed the unpardonable sin, because none of those things were present in the

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Pharisees. None of those were actions. One thing I've noticed, and it actually came through, I saw it a few days ago, where someone specifically wondered that they had witnessed a miracle from someone who

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I consider a false teacher, and they were questioning whether that miracle that they seemed to have witnessed was truly from God, or whether it could possibly be a demonic deception.

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Like, oh no, I just committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. It's like, well, hold on one second. Just look to Matthew 24.

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Other passages talk about counterfeit miracles. So questioning a miracle is not the unpardonable sin.

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It's not the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us to test the spirit. So God tells us that there will be counterfeits.

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There will be deceivers. There will be lies who will perform miracles. Even Satan, his demons masquerade as angels of light.

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So our enemy can perform counterfeit miracles. So questioning whether a miracle is from God is not necessarily unpardonable sin.

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It's something we should be extremely careful about. Recognizing that God does perform miracles and not automatically assuming that every miracle out there is demonic deception.

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So it's one thing to be careful. It's another thing to be overly aggressive in terms of trying to reject every claim of a miracle out there.

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So no, that is not the unpardonable sin. It's not something that the

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Bible actually specifically tells us to watch out for false teachers, for false prophets.

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So that's not the unpardonable sin. What are some other examples maybe you've seen in questions we've received or just what opportunities for ministries you've had with people who have committed, believe they've committed the unpardonable sin and how are you able to try to help them see that they have actually not committed that sin?

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I like to point to Psalm 51 for starters, where David was confessing one of his sins and he said that a broken heart and a contrite spirit are the sacrifices that God accepts and he will not despise those who are repenting.

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And so that's what we look for. Are you repenting? Do you have that contrite spirit, the humble spirit before God?

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Do you have that broken heart over your sin? God promises to forgive. He delights in forgiving those people.

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So whatever sin it was that you think might have been unforgivable in your past, go to Psalm 51 and there are so many more scriptures.

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James 4 and verse 8, come near to God and he will come near to you. Romans 5 verse 20, where sin increased, so it's getting bigger, grace increased all the more.

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You cannot outsend God's grace. You are not more powerful than God's grace. Your sin is not the one that is going to stump

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God and that the blood of Christ cannot cover. If you come to Christ, if you come to the

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Father through Christ, he promises to forgive. He promises to restore.

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He promises to adopt you as his own child. The Lord will never fail.

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Surely God is my salvation. Isaiah 12 verse 2, so I just encourage people to take

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God at his word. He promises forgiveness if you have that contrite spirit before him, the repentant heart he will not despise.

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I've heard people who are concerned because they have a moment of anger, frustration, weakness, and they say or pray something that's insulting or disgusting against God from as simple as,

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I don't believe in you anymore or I hate you to, you know, I renounce you, I turn my back on you, you know, that sort of a thing.

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And they're concerned that, does that mean that I've now blasphemed against the Holy Spirit? Does that mean that I've cut myself off now forever from God?

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And I would take the same basic tact that Kevin does, is to say everything we read in the New Testament talks about God's willingness and ability to forgive sin.

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Jesus lived as a human being. Hebrews 4, 15, and 16 says that he knows what it means to be human.

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He understands our weaknesses. He didn't succumb to sin, but he understands our weaknesses. And that gives us the ability to approach him with confidence instead of with fear.

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And the reason is because he gets that, he understands. And then we have the idea that nowhere in the

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New Testament do we have constant warnings about, don't ever say this, don't ever use these words, don't ever let yourself get to this point.

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That's something that you would think that a guy like Paul would be interested in bringing up. Paul, the guy who talks about how at some point in time, you have to throw a person out of a congregation because their sin is so heinous that they need to be convicted of that sin.

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Hebrews talking about people who fall away and all those arguments that we get into about that sort of thing. There's nothing in the

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New Testament that suggests that a person can get to that point. If your heart is interested in repentance, then that is in and of itself a sign that you are not beyond God's forgiveness.

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There is no such thing in the Bible as a sincerely repentant person that God rejects.

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Period. End of story. End of discussion. Every single person that is lost is lost because they are somehow ignoring, resisting, defying, disobeying something that God is showing them or doing for them.

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There is no such thing as the hopeless case of a person who wants to be saved.

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Is there such a thing as a hopeless case? Controversial as it may be, I say yes, there are.

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But those are the persons who are hardened. Those are the persons who are saying in their souls and their spirits and their deepest places, it does not matter what

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God ever does or ever says. So it's, I think, wise to tell somebody.

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If you're that worried about whether or not you've committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, that's almost in and of itself definition enough for me to say no.

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Because if you did, you probably wouldn't care. Right. Well said, both of you.

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Jeff, Kevin, thank you for joining me for this conversation today. And I think we've all probably met people in our lives who we question whether they've, in a sense, crossed that line or rejected

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God for so long that they're spiritually blind. And unless God performs a miracle, they're going to remain in that condition forever.

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Just how many times has this person heard the gospel or seen God transform people in their sphere of influence?

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And it's continued to hard -heartedly reject. So that's the blasphemy of the

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Spirit, the unpardonable sin today, this continued hard -hearted rebellion against God in the face of clear evidence of His working,

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His calling, His transforming power. Can that be committed today according to scripture?

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Yes, it can. But Jeff, I love how you explained it, that if you're worried about it, if you are repentant, that's a powerful sign that you have not reached that point, that you've committed the unpardonable sin.

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And Kevin, there are repeated references in the New Testament to God's forgiveness. And in the

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Old Testament to people who sought God's forgiveness, and God always provided their forgiveness. And I love, Jeff, your main point that there's not a single example in the entire

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Bible, at least that I'm aware of, of someone repenting, seeking God's forgiveness, and God pushing that person away.

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So just keep those things in mind as we study this passage. Remember the strong warning that there is a sin that is unpardonable, but also remembering that if we are seeking the

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Lord, asking for His forgiveness, repenting of our sins, a contrite heart, we've not committed that sin.

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So I hope our conversation today about the unpardonable sin, the blasphemy of the Spirit, has been helpful to you in understanding the passage, understanding what it meant then, whether it can be committed today, and how to avoid committing it today.

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This is the Got Questions podcast. Got questions? The Bible has answers, and we'll help you find them.