The Unpardonable Sin

Sometimes, Jesus said things that are difficult to understand, like the idea of a sin that cannot be forgiven. There is a sin that is unforgivable, and He also is unambiguous by identifying that unforgivable sin with the term blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Of all the sayings of Jesus, this one may be the foremost source of fear for Christians.

What is the unpardonable sin, and how do I know if I've committed it? Today on Renewing Your Mind, we continue Dr. R.C. 's role series, The Hard Sayings of Jesus. Our Savior said many things that may seem harsh to us, or like today's topic, things that are hard to understand.

In teaching this series, R.C. 's desire was to clear up the confusion. One of the most difficult passages in all of the New Testament, a passage that certainly qualifies for the category of a hard saying, are those passages recorded in the gospels where Jesus speaks about an unforgivable sin. Which unforgivable sin is identified as being blasphemy against the Holy Ghost?

Now, let's take a look at one of the versions of that record, looking at Matthew's account of it, where we read in Matthew chapter 12 this statement from Jesus. Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

Now, it's obvious why this passage has become such a problem to so many people. It describes and discusses a sin that is unforgivable. And of course, many people ask the question, have I committed that sin? And there are those who labor painfully under the fear that they have in fact committed such a sin which has excluded them from any possibility of forgiveness, either here or at the judgment seat of Christ.

And there are Christians who live in mortal fear that they might at some point commit that sin, which would cause them to lose their salvation and to lose the hope of heaven. Obviously, our Lord is teaching something here that is hard, and it is equally obvious that He is saying unambiguously that there is a sin that is unforgivable. And He also is unambiguous by identifying that unforgivable sin with the term blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Now, so far, so good. That is, so far we don't have to wrestle with ambiguities. But as soon as we ask the next question, we plunge into a sea of ambiguity and of great difficulty. And that question is, what is this unforgivable sin that Jesus identifies as blasphemy against the Holy Ghost or blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? There have been many attempts in church history to answer this question specifically, identifying exactly what this unforgivable sin is. And some have identified it with murder, because murderers are to be put to death. Others have identified it with adultery, because the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and to commit adultery, Paul tells us, is to sin against the Holy Spirit.

And so that's been advanced as a thesis. But we have an immediate problem with either one of those options, don't we? Basically, David was guilty of murder, and he was able to receive forgiveness. He was also guilty of adultery and likewise was able to receive forgiveness.

So we would rule those two out. But even more importantly, Jesus is talking about blasphemy. And we have to understand that blasphemy is something that is done verbally, either in writing, but more often in the spoken word. Even someone as brilliant as Augustine argued that the unforgivable sin of which Jesus speaks is a total and final unbelief, that is, that if a person persists to the end of their lives in rejecting Christ, in remaining in a state of unbelief, they will not receive a second chance in heaven, that unbelief is ultimately and permanently unforgivable. Well, I don't quarrel with Augustine's judgment about the results of permanent unbelief.

It's true. There is no reason to hope for a second chance after the grave. If you persist in this world and in this life in the rejection of Jesus Christ, you will not be forgiven for that rejection in the final day of judgment. But if you have rejected Him up to this point in your life, you still may be forgiven because who of us didn't reject Christ for a portion of our lives, in many cases a large portion of our lives before we submitted to His lordship. But not only that, we see that Jesus in this passage makes a distinction between a sin committed against Him and a sin committed against the Holy Spirit.

And that's, I think, what makes the problem all the more difficult. Let's look at it again where he says in verse 32, Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. Which suggests that it's okay to blaspheme Christ or to blaspheme the Father, but as long as you don't blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you're okay. I mean, you still have an opportunity to be forgiven.

You can feel the weight of that difficulty. I mean, my goodness, we ask ourselves the question, what difference does it make whether we blaspheme the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit? It's just as heinous to blaspheme against the Father or against the Son as it is to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.

Well, again, let's focus our attention. And remember that what Jesus is talking about here is blasphemy. And as I said, blasphemy is something we do principally with our mouths.

It's something that we say that denigrates the character of God. Now, if every form of blasphemy against God were unforgivable, dear friends, none of us would literally have a prayer because we have all blasphemed. And if every sin against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable, we would not have a prayer because all of us at some point in our lives have grieved the Holy Spirit in one way or another.

So do you see how that just makes this all the more excruciatingly difficult? Because we do see that the Bible seems to give us provision for forgiveness of all kinds of blasphemies. But there is one particular kind of blasphemy, and Jesus particularly applies it to the Holy Spirit. When He says that a word against the Son of Man, obviously when He speaks about the word against the Son of Man, He's referring to Himself, that that is forgivable. And not only does Jesus preach that it is forgivable, but He practices what He preaches when He's on the cross as the Son of Man, as the Lord of glory, in the midst of His own crucifixion when people are mocking Him and ridiculing Him and blaspheming Him. He utters a prayer for those people by saying to the Father, Father, forgive them.

But what does He add there that's important for us if we're going to understand this text? He says, forgive them for what? They know not what they do. That doesn't mean they were ignorant. Just because they were ignorant of what they were doing does not automatically excuse them.

It's important to realize that in the Old Testament sacrificial system, when God ordained and commanded certain sin offerings to be brought in the whole system of atonement of the Old Testament, there were special provisions given for sins done in ignorance, and that may cause you a further difficulty of understanding. This is a reason, incidentally, why the Roman Catholic Church historically has made an important distinction in their moral theology between two kinds of ignorance, ignorance that they call vincible ignorance or ignorance that is called invincible ignorance. Now, something that is invincible is unbeatable. You can't conquer it. You can't defeat it. Something that is vincible is something that can be conquered, something that can be overcome, something that can be beaten.

Now, what does Rome mean when it gives us this distinction between vincible and invincible ignorance? Well, let me illustrate it my favorite way. I live in the state of Florida. Suppose I drive my car into the state of Georgia, and I enter into a little village there, and I come to the intersection, and there's a traffic light there, and the traffic light is red. But I don't want to stop for the light, I just go right on through the red light, and the next thing I see is another red light, only this time it's on the top of the roof of a car behind me, and it's flashing, and here come the police, and they pull me over. And the man said, did you see that red light back there? And I said, yes, I did. Well, why didn't you stop? I said, well, I didn't know you were supposed to stop. I plead ignorance.

I had no idea that I was supposed to stop. He said, let me see your driver's license, and I show him my driver's license, a Florida driver's license. He said, well, don't you have red lights, traffic lights in Florida? I said, yes.

What do you have to do there? I said, well, in Florida, I know I'm supposed to stop at a red light at an intersection. I stop at red lights in Florida, but I'm not in Florida now, I'm driving here in Georgia. How was I supposed to know that the law in Georgia requires me to stop at a red light? Now, how far do you think that argument would go before the magistrate if I tried to dodge that ticket by pleading ignorance? It's tacitly understood that if I presume to drive my car in any state of this union, that I assume responsibility to know what the traffic laws and the motor vehicle regulations are in that state, and I am held accountable.

Why? Because those laws are published, they're public, they're easily accessible, and I am responsible to know what the rules are before I presume to drive my automobile in that state. We all understand that. So there, even if I didn't know that the traffic light meant to stop, I had the opportunity to know it, and my ignorance would have been easily overcome, and I can't plead ignorance as an excuse. Now, beloved, think about this in a multitude of ways. There are lots of things that we do out of ignorance. There are lots of ways that we disobey God out of ignorance, and we're going to plead ignorance on the final day, like the old-time song, I didn't know the gun was loaded, and I'm very, very sorry, my friend. And these arguments are not going to wash because we should know what the Word of God is. The Word of God has been given to us, and some of the times we sin in ignorance. We sin in ignorance because we have neglected a sober, diligent study of the things of God, which God has made perfectly clear and readily accessible to us. So we have to be very careful of trying to hide behind the cloak of the excuse of ignorance.

But there is such a thing, the Roman Catholic Church teaches, as invincible ignorance. Now let's change the scenario. Suppose the city fathers of Orlando here are facing a budget squeeze, and they need to raise money in a hurry, so the city council gets together this evening, and they say, well, we have an idea, tomorrow morning at seven o'clock we're going to have a new law in the city that everybody that drives into the city has to stop on green and go on red. And if you drive through a green light, it's going to be a hundred-dollar fine. And we'll post police at every traffic intersection, and we'll make a fortune because we're not going to tell anybody that we've changed the law and changed the rule.

And so the next morning we drive happily into the city, we see a green light, we go through the green light, the next thing you know we're pulled over and we're arrested for driving through this green light. Now if we plead ignorance before the magistrate, do we have a just defense? Yes, of course we do, because that ignorance was invincible.

There was no possible way we could have known that they had changed the rules in the middle of the game. So obviously the ignorance that the people had when they brought Jesus to the cross and crucified Him did not excuse them. They were guilty of crucifying Christ, and they should have known better. Had they searched the Scriptures, they would have seen that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures and was not this villain that they declared Him to be at His execution. But even though their ignorance was vincible ignorance and not invincible ignorance, Jesus interceded for them on the cross, saying, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing. You see, the same kind of thing in the book of Acts when the apostles are rehearsing to the Jewish community the travesty of the crucifixion of Christ and where we read in Acts, had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. And so there is a certain forbearance that is given here in the Scriptures to those who were responsible for the death of Christ, an acknowledgment of a certain level of ignorance. Now for us to understand this passage, I think it's critical that we look at what precedes this warning that Jesus gives. If we go back to Matthew 12 and look at verse 22, we read this account. "'Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute. And He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw, and all the multitudes were amazed and said, Could this be the Son of David?' Now when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons."

Do you hear what's going on? People recognized in the miracles of Christ the manifestation of the Messiah, the Son of David, but the arch-enemies of Jesus wouldn't even acknowledge His identity then. And they accused Jesus of performing His works by the power of Satan. Now beloved, that's blasphemy.

It is blasphemy to accuse Jesus Christ of being satanic and of being in league with the devil. And it's on this occasion that Jesus, knowing their thoughts according to the gospel, takes this opportunity to give this very severe warning to the Pharisees. It's as if Jesus is saying, Look, you guys, you've been plotting, you haven't listened to Me, you have rejected Me, you've done all these things, and I've patiently taken it, but you are coming now to a line in the sand that if you cross that line, you're finished.

It's as if He's saying to these men, Watch it, watch yourselves, be careful. You're coming so close to committing the ultimate sin, the unforgivable sin, that if you don't be careful, you're going to forfeit any possibility of forgiveness either now or in the future. But He couches that by this distinction between speaking against Him and speaking against the Holy Spirit. Now, time doesn't permit a fuller exposition of this, but if you look carefully after the resurrection of Christ, if we go into the book of Hebrews in chapter 6 and chapter 10, there is now a falling away at the distinction between blaspheming against Christ and blaspheming against the Holy Spirit once a person has been illuminated and they have received from this Holy Spirit the clear revelation that Jesus is the Christ. If the Holy Spirit would open your eyes and get you to see that Jesus is the Christ, and then after you know by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is the Son of God, and then you accuse Jesus of being satanic, now you have committed the unforgivable sin.

Now, let me say two things in closing that I hope will give you some comfort. On the one hand, the only kind of person that could theoretically commit the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would be a Christian, because they're the only people who have received this revelation and have a clear understanding by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is the Son of God. So, they're the only ones who know full well that Jesus is not satanic. That's the bad news, that only Christians could do it. The good news is theoretically, I think all of us are capable of that kind of sin and that kind of evil, but I don't believe many of us ever have or ever will commit that sin, because this is the very thing that Jesus intercedes for us at the throne of grace that we would be preserved from falling and from losing our salvation that He has purchased for us. And so, though the warning is a real warning to the Pharisees to be very careful, I don't think that this is something that need concern us in terms of having to worry that we are going to lose our salvation, I mean not that we shouldn't be concerned about our mouths and about our decorum and so on, but I have no worries that any of you who are in Christ who have been made alive by the Holy Spirit who have known the illumination of His knowledge of the identity of Christ, that you would ever sink so far as to accuse Jesus of being satanic. Well, that is comforting, isn't it?

Many believers live in fear of committing this unpardonable sin. Today on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. R.C. Sproul has helped us think through this difficult passage. We're glad you've joined us for this Saturday edition of our program.

I'm Lee Webb. Each week we're airing a message from R.C. 's series, The Hard Sayings of Jesus. So far we've learned how it could be that Jesus, being truly God and truly man, didn't know the day of His own return.

We've also studied why Jesus called a crowd to repent after a national tragedy. We'd like to send you the full series as a digital download for your donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries. There are a couple of ways you can reach us to make your request. One is by phone at 800-435-4343. You can also go online to renewingyourmind.org.

Perhaps you've asked some of these questions yourself, or they've come up in conversation with friends or family. Dr. Sproul carefully searches Scripture to bring clarity to each of these hard sayings. So again, request the digital download of this series. Our web address is renewingyourmind.org. Our phone number, 800-435-4343, and on behalf of all of my colleagues here at Ligonier Ministries, thank you for your donation. Let me also recommend Ligonier Connect to You. That's an online discipleship community that allows you to join with friends so that you can study online together. For $9 a month, you have the opportunity to access more than 70 interactive courses from Dr. Sproul, along with Sinclair Ferguson, Stephen Lawson, and other trusted pastors and teachers.

To find out more and enroll in Ligonier Connect, go to connect.ligonier.org. Did God intend to save everyone? If that's the case, why isn't everyone saved?

Is it possible for people to somehow frustrate God's redemptive plans? I hope you'll join us again next Saturday as Dr. Sproul addresses another hard saying of Jesus. As we close, here's Dr. Sproul with our Coram Deo thought of the day. I want to remind you again of what Coram Deo means. It means to live before the face of God, under the authority of God, and to the glory of God. I've tried to comfort you, if you are a Christian, to being at rest and at peace, that you're not going to ever commit the unforgivable sin, not because you're not capable of it, in and of yourself, but because your Lord is gracious enough to hold your tongue from it and preserve you from this ghastly crime. But that ought not to give us a sense of being at ease in Zion with respect to the very serious nature of blasphemy. Remember that one of the Ten Commandments safeguards the sanctity of the very name of God. And Christians need to be exceedingly careful with their tongues about how they speak of Christ, how they speak of God, how they speak of the Holy Spirit. It is extremely offensive to God to have His name used in vain. And I doubt if there's anything more offensive to the Father than to hear the name of His beloved Son be used as a common, ordinary curse word. And for those of you who are not believers, I realize that you use the name of Christ frequently without even thinking as part of your expletives. I plead with you to think about what you're doing, that you are heaping abuse upon the One whom God has appointed to be your Judge and our Redeemer.