Unforgivable Sin

[awfulthings9]

After watching the Dateline debate, I have a side-question. I had always understood the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit in (I think) Mark 4 and in Matthew (maybe 13?) to refer to a persisting blasphemy, as if one continues to commit blasphemy until death. Can someone who is more versed in Greek than me give me some grammatical analysis of this? Does the tense or aspect of the verb indicate this?

 

[thistle]

After watching the Dateline debate, I have a side-question. I had always understood the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit in (I think) Mark 4 and in Matthew (maybe 13?) to refer to a persisting blasphemy, as if one continues to commit blasphemy until death. Can someone who is more versed in Greek than me give me some grammatical analysis of this? Does the tense or aspect of the verb indicate this?

This is the Church teaching. Very clear what is meant.

CCC 1864 “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.” There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.

 

[awfulthings9]

This is the Church teaching. Very clear what is meant.

CCC 1864 “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.” There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.

Yes, I understand what Church teaching is, but for purposes of conversation with a Bible-only Christian, I would like an analysis of the Scriptural text that supports the notion that the verse implies that “such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss,” rather than the inference of some that to merely utter the words, “I don’t believe in the Holy Spirit”, condemns one for eternity, no matter what subsequent repentance follows (as many believe it does).

 

[thistle]

Yes, I understand what Church teaching is, but for purposes of conversation with a Bible-only Christian, I would like an analysis of the Scriptural text that supports the notion that the verse implies that “such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss,” rather than the inference of some that to merely utter the words, “I don’t believe in the Holy Spirit”, condemns one for eternity, no matter what subsequent repentance follows (as many believe it does).

D-R Bible Haydock Commentary:

Mark 3:29. See St. Matthew xii. 32. — Of an everlasting sin; i.e. of eternal punishment. (Witham) — What is here called everlasting offence, is (as St. Matthew expresseth it) that which shall neither be remitted in this life, nor in the life to come; which words would not be true, says St. Augustine, if some sins were not forgiven in the world to come. Now, as no mortal sin can be forgiven after death, there must necessarily be smaller transgressions, which we call venial; though many of our separated brethren will needs have all sins to be mortal; which is very far from a comfortable tenet.

Matt. 12: 31. The blasphemy[2] against the Spirit, or against the Spirit and the Holy Ghost. St. Augustine takes notice, that this is one of the most difficult places in the Scriptures. According to the common exposition, here is not meant a sin committed by speaking against the third person of the blessed Trinity, the Holy Ghost, but that sin by which the obstinate Jews wilfully opposed Christ, and attributed those miracles to Beelzebub, which he performed by the Spirit of God, of which they could not be ignorant, but by a wilful blindness. (Witham) — The sin here spoken of is that blasphemy, by which the Pharisees attributed the miracles of Christ, wrought by the Spirit of God, to Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Now this kind of sin is usually accompanied with so much obstinacy, and such wilful opposing the Spirit of God, and the known truth, that men who are guilty of it are seldom or ever converted; and therefore are never forgiven, because they will not repent. Otherwise there is no sin which God cannot, or will not forgive to such as sincerely request, and have recourse to the keys of the Church. (Challoner) — Therefore I say: this therefore is not referred to what immediately precedes, but to what is said in verse 24. (Maldonatus) — Whosoever he be, says St. Augustine, that believeth not man’s sins to be remitted in the Church of God, and therefore despiseth the bounteous mercies of God, in so mighty a work, if he continue in his obstinate mind till death, he is guilty of sin against the Holy Ghost. (Euchir. lxxxiii. ep. 50. in fine.)

 

[thistle]

and also John Paul II’s Domimum et vivificantem:

**6. The Sin Against the Holy Spirit **

1. Against the background of what has been said so far, certain other words of Jesus, shocking and disturbing ones, become easier to understand. We might call them the words of “unforgiveness.” They are reported for us by the Synoptics in connection with a particular sin which is called “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.” This is how they are reported in their three versions:

Matthew: “Whoever says a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

Mark: “All sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”

Luke: “Every one who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”

Why is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unforgivable? How should this blasphemy be understood ? St. Thomas Aquinas replies that it is a question of a sin that is “unforgivable by its very nature, insofar as it excludes the elements through which the forgiveness of sin takes place.”

According to such an exegesis, “blasphemy” does not properly consist in offending against the Holy Spirit in words; it consists rather in the refusal to accept the salvation which God offers to man through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the Cross. If man rejects the “convincing concerning sin” which comes from the Holy Spirit and which has the power to save, he also rejects the “coming” of the Counselor-that “coming” which was accomplished in the Paschal Mystery, in union with the redemptive power of Christ’s Blood: the Blood which “purifies the conscience from dead works.”

We know that the result of such a purification is the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, whoever rejects the Spirit and the Blood remains in “dead works,” in sin. And the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit consists precisely in the radical refusal to accept this forgiveness, of which he is the intimate giver and which presupposes the genuine conversion which he brings about in the conscience. If Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven either in this life or in the next, it is because this “non-forgiveness” is linked, as to its cause, to “non-repentance,” in other words to the radical refusal to be converted. This means the refusal to come to the sources of Redemption, which nevertheless remain “always” open in the economy of salvation in which the mission of the Holy Spirit is accomplished. The Spirit has infinite power to draw from these sources: “he will take what is mine,” Jesus said. In this way he brings to completion in human souls the work of the Redemption accomplished by Christ, and distributes its fruits. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a “right” to persist in evil-in any sin at all-and who thus rejects Redemption. One closes oneself up in sin, thus making impossible one’s conversion, and consequently the remission of sins, which one considers not essential or not important for one’s life. This is a state of spiritual ruin, because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not allow one to escape from one’s self-imposed imprisonment and open oneself to the divine sources of the purification of consciences and of the remission of sins.

 

[awfulthings9]

Thank you, Thistle. I’ve been doing the grammatical study independently and have not come to any conclusive insight there, which might explain the silence on that end from this post. Your citations are helpful in taking it to the next step.

 

[Grace_Seeker]

I just did a quick check of the Matthew 12 passage and I can’t find any thing in it based on grammatical constructions that would shed any special light on understanding of its meaning.

dia touto (on account of this) ties vs. 31 to the preceeding verse 30 “he who is not with me is against me”, but the verbs are all fairly straight forward. aphethasetai is future passive, but “will be forgiven” is a good translation of that.

D.A. Carson in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Frank Gaebelein, ed., Zondervan, 1984 has this to say:

Among the many other interpretations of this difficult incident, the best treats it in its setting during Jesus’ life. The Pharisees have been attributing to Satan the work of the Spirit and have been doing so, as Jesus makes plain, in such a way as to reveal that they speak, not out of ignorance or unbelief, but out of “conscious disputing about the indisputable”…

…within the context of the larger argument the first sin is rejection of the truth of the gospel (but there may be repentance and forgiveness for that), whereas the second sin is rejection of the same truth in full awareness that that is exactly what one is doing – thoughtfully, willfully, and self-consciously rejecting the work of the Spirit even though there can be no other explanation of Jesus; exorcisms than that. For such a sin there is no forgiveness, “either in this age or the age to come” (cf 13:22, 25:46)–a dramatic way of saying “never” (as in Mark 3:29).

If this interpretation is correct, the distinction between Son of Man and Spirit is relatively incidental. After all, blasphemy against the Spirit is also a rejection of Jesus’ own claims: the christological implications of the sin are not diminished but increased in moving from “blasphemy against the Son of Man” to :blasphemy against the Spirit."

Personally, I have a slightly different spin on it. I recall that the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of sin and lead us into all righteousness (see John 16:7-9). One can turn away from Jesus, and still have another opportunity to profess faith in Jesus in the future. There is no limit (in this life) to how many times one may walk away from Jesus and still find that he accepts and welcomes when we finally, like the Prodigal Son, come to our senses and in repentence return to him.

But if we reject the Holy Spirit, and will not listen to his promptings and pleadings, as he attempts to lead us back to God in Christ, then we exclude ourselves from the gift of salvation that is avaialable to us. As long as we have our head in the hog trough, we cannot sit at the banquet table that is prepared for us. The Holy Spirit comes to tell us that we have our head in a hog trough, invite us to pick our head up out of the trough and then to guide us back to the table prepared for us. But as long as we will not listen, as long as we reject him, there is no salvation for us. Even though salvation is still offered we have made ourselves unable to receive it because we refuse to listen to the one sent to tell us that we need it and how to receive it.

 

[Benadam]

another way of conceptualizing the Sin Against the Holy Spirt. As mentioned before Jesus taught this in response to the obstinancy of some of the Jews. He advised them to believe Him because of the Miracles they saw if not for what He taught. After saying this e taught about the unforgiveable sin. this was appropriate at this time because they had received the revelation of God in as much as they were capable of receiving it. There was nothing more that God could do that would change their minds. Satan did this as well. Even in possession of the full revelation of God Satan turned against God. There is nothing more that could be revealed about God if one is in possession of the full revelation that would cause one to reconsider.