Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And 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.
(Matthew 12:31-32 RSV-CE)
What is this sin? What is the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
In the context of the passage, the sin is a
continuous calling of Good Evil.
The English translation doesn’t do the passage justice, for the present tense in the Greek is not the same as the Present tense in English. In Greek it means an ongoing, continuation of the status quo.
One can not be forgiven until they stop the sin; The Pharisees, who had been attacking Jesus, were relentless. It eventually ended in his death, and even after his death – they continued to say that which he did was evil; when in fact, there was no way to deny that it was Good.
In another place Jesus says “they are Guilty of an Eternal Sin”, for the simple reason that if one continously commits a sin, the sin – by definition – never ends. Forgiveness requires that the sin stop – at least briefly !
James Akin does do a reasonable analysis of the passage; although, he notes the continuous tense in the passage above – he seems to forget it’s importance when speaking about the passage in Hebrews. The issue is identical.
It is impossible to bring someone to repentence, who refuses to quit running around publicly saying “Jesus is a false prophet, and deserved the crucifixion.” on a
continuous basis. They have to at LEAST stop the sin, in order to be reasoned with – and brought back to the truth.
A word, spoken against Jesus,
will be forgiven, – a continual and endless complaint – can’t be forgiven; it is by definition – an “eternal” sin.
