We are returning this morning to Matthew 12, where
Jesus gives that chilling warning about the unpardonable sin.
Specifically, Matthew 12:31-32: "Every sin and blasphemy
will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will
not be forgiven. And whoever speaks 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."
That is a troubling passage. Lots of people are confused
and confounded by it. I know that because people ask
questions about it all the time. Some people simply want to
know how to explain it, but there are also a lot of people
(Christians and non-Christians alike) who worry that they
might have committed a sin that is unforgivable. I've known
people (some in the church, some outside the church) who
are practically paralyzed with fear that they are guilty of
some sin that can never be forgiven.
Now, let's face it: anyone who takes Jesus' words
seriously should be troubled by a warning as dire as this. If
you can blow a passage like this off as nothing to be
concerned about, I'd be more worried about your soul than I
am about the guy who feels the burden of guilt and knows
there's no easy remedy for his sin.
Matthew 12:31-32 2
Still, if you confess Christ as Lord and trust in Him as
SaviorCif you understand the high price He paid to atone for
your sinCyou should not be perpetually stymied with the
fear that your sin is greater than His grace. There's especially
no reason for a Christian to have to entertain relentlessly
nagging anxiety about whether they can find forgiveness.
And yet we know some Christians do struggle with such
fears, because the issue comes up all the time in the
counseling room, in our Bible studies, in Q&A sessions, and
in private conversations. So that's why I wanted to take three
sessions to look at this passage in depth.
Even if you personally aren't tortured by fear when you
encounter this passage, I want to try to equip you to help
those who do grapple with those fears. Because if you have
meaningful spiritual relationships with peopleCor if you do
much evangelism, you will be asked questions about this
passage.
Here's a fact that may surprise you: Lots of people who
have never darkened the door of a church know this text is in
the Bible and secretly worry about it. When I used to do
street evangelism in Chicago during my student years,
people brought up this question all the time. In all likelihood,
some of your friends and neighbors and people you do
business with are privately wracked with fear that they might
have sinned past the point of no return. I know from
firsthand experience that there are a lot of people in the
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 3
secular world who may never give any indication that they
think about God, but nevertheless, their own consciences are
telling them that they may already have sinned so badly that
anything they ever tried to do good would never make up for
the sin.
That's true, by the way: Nothing you do that's good will
ever make up for your sin. It's true about all of us, of course:
nothing good we can do could ever atone for the sins we
have already committed. That's a vital part of the gospel
message.
Of course, the gospel is good news because it explains
how our sins can be forgiven anywayCnot by any penance or
self-redemption we do for ourselves, but completely and
only because of the atoning work of Christ.
Still, some people imagine that some sin they have
committed is too big or too bad for even Christ to wash
away. They think God has given up on them. Therefore, they
have given up on GodCin the sense that they have put Him
out of their thoughts; they have seared their consciences, and
they have convinced themselves that they have no further
duty to God. Of course that is a Satanic lie, and that's the
kind of thoughtless spiritual apathy that keeps people in
bondage to their sin.
Even those who aren't merely apathetic sometimes use
this text as a pretext for not coming to Christ for forgiveness.
While I was in the process of preparing this message, I got a
Matthew 12:31-32 4
letter from a man who said he has been wresting for more
than a decade with the question of whether his sin is
unforgivable, and he said at the end of the process, "All I
have now is despair, terror, my pile of unimaginable sin, and
evil." We get letters like that all the time at Grace to You.
This guy once professed to be a believer, but he never
actually lived like a believer. Then someone showed him
Hebrews 10:26-27, which says, "if we go on sinning
deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no
longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of
judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries."
And a parallel passage, Hebrews 6:4-6, says, "In the case of
those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the
heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted
the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to
come, and then have fallen away, [it is impossible] to restore
them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again
the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to
contempt."
So this guy is fearful. I have spoken to him several times,
and each time he raises the question of whether those
warnings apply to his case. Has he sinned away the
possibility of saving grace? How can he know for sure one
way or another? Because if you take the plain, simple
straightforward meaning of the words of Hebrews 10, he
thinks he is guilty as charged. He sinned deliberately after
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 5
receiving the knowledge of the truth. And now he is wracked
with doubts about whether his sin can ever be forgiven. He's
become obsessed with the subject.
So this morning, I want to sweep all those questions
together and take a second look at Matthew 12:31-32 and its
broader context. Last time we considered the question of
what was the nature of the sin Jesus described as
unpardonable. This time let's consider why Jesus gave these
words about unpardonable sin in this particular context.
We'll talk about what this admonition meant to those who
heard Him, and we'll consider some very specific questions
about how the matter of unpardonable sin is relevant to you
and to me.
Matthew 12:31-32. I already read the text, and I hope you
have your Bibles open to it. Remember that when Jesus
spoke these words of warning, He was responding to a group
of Pharisees who accused Him of using the power of Satan to
cast out demons. They didn't make such a ridiculous
allegation because they actually believed it. This wasn't a sin
of ignorance or misunderstanding on their part. They didn't
really believe He was working in Satan's power; they were
just desperate to discredit Jesus any way they could, no
matter what He did.
In fact, it appears from John 11 that they knew full well
that He was the legitimate Messiah of Israel, because they
simply could not deny all the signs and wonders he did.
Matthew 12:31-32 6
Listen to John 11:47-48: "the chief priests and the Pharisees
gathered the Council and said, 'What are we to do? For this man
performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will
believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both
our place and our nation.'" So attributing the miracles of Jesus
to Satan was a desperate, last-gasp attempt to defame and
disparage HimCnot because they didn't believe He was who
He claimed to be, but because He simply wasn't the kind of
Messiah they wanted, and especially because He represented
a major threat to their political power. They wanted a
messiah who would defeat their enemies, not someone like
Jesus, who kept pointing out where they were wrong. They
wanted a messiah who would do what they said, not a Lord
whom they had to submit to. So they rejected Jesus and tried
their best to discredit Him even though they had no
legitimate reason whatsoever to doubt Him or challenge
Him.
In other words, the blasphemy they uttered was deliberate,
premeditated, and done with their eyes wide open. Jesus
called it "the blasphemy against the [Holy] Spirit"Cas if it were
the consummate, climactic apogee of all blasphemies. And it
was, because Jesus did His miracles in the power of the Holy
Spirit, and by saying He was working in Satan's power, they
were in fact calling the Holy Spirit "Beelzebul, the prince of
demons."
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 7
So keep this in mind: That was the precise sin that
prompted Jesus to issue these famous words about the
unpardonable sin. It was a direct and personal onslaught
against Christ (and even more so against the Holy Spirit) in
the face of overwhelming, irrefutable evidence for the truth
of His claims. It was a deliberate, public, verbal act of
blasphemy by men who had looked Jesus in the eyes, seen
the truth, and had sufficient evidence for believing in
HimCbut they were determined at all costs to destroy Him
anyway.
And last time we looked at this passage, we observed
three singular characteristics of the unpardonable sin: One, it
is extraordinary, not common. Two, it is deliberate, not
accidental. And three: it is a sin of the heart, not merely of
the lips.
Last time I also pointed out something I want to stress
again this week: Even this grim-sounding section of
Scripture about one unpardonable sin is accompanied by a
vast promise of forgiveness that covers every conceivable
kind of sin and every imaginable degree of sin anyone might
ever repent of. Verse 31: "every sin and blasphemy will be
forgiven people."
That, to me is the most remarkable aspect of what Jesus
was saying in this passage. It would not be surprising for an
omnipotent God who is perfectly Holy and righteous to
declare every kind of deliberate sin and thoughtless
Matthew 12:31-32 8
blasphemy unforgivable. If we truly understood even a
fraction of the diabolical evil that is inherent in even the
smallest of our transgressions, we would marvel that a
righteous God would ever be willing to forgive any sin.
So that's really the most remarkable aspect of Jesus'
statement: He expressly states that (except for one very
specific kind of blasphemy) every type and every degree of
evil we have ever committed is forgivable, redeemable, and
capable of being fully covered by God's grace and washed
whiter than snow by His redemptive work.
Psalm 136:1 in the KJV says "The LORD is good: [and] his
mercy endureth forever." The word "mercy" is translated
"steadfast love" in the ESV and "lovingkindness" in the New
American Standard. The Hebrew word includes the ideas of
goodness, lovingkindness, pity, and mercy. It includes all
those ideas. But the context here in Psalm 136 does seem to
put the stress on God's tenderhearted compassion for people
who don't deserve it. So "mercy" is certainly at the heart of
the idea.
That four-word phrase ("his mercy endureth forever")
appears 41 times in the King James version of the Bible. It is
one of the most commonly-used statements about God
anywhere in Scripture. It appears 26 times in Psalm 136
alone. It's the refrain of that psalmCappearing once in each
verse of the text. God's mercies are inexhaustible, and
Scripture stresses this over and over again. His grace is
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 9
greater than all our sin. "The steadfast love of the LORD never
ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every
morning" (Lamentations 3:22-23). In the words of Psalm
86:15, "God [is] full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering,
and plenteous in mercy and truth." Micah 7:18 says "[God]
delights in mercy." The kindness, compassion, grace, and
forgiveness of God are infinite, inexhaustible, never-ending,
new and fresh and every morningCand Scripture stresses that
fact from beginning to end.
"Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people." That's an
amazing promise, and it is Jesus' own starting point here. He
reminds us that there's no sin so dark and evil that it cannot
be washed by His blood and made as white and pure as the
driven snow.
So it should be obvious that what makes the blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit unforgivable cannot be some
deficiency in the magnitude or extent of God's mercy. Divine
mercy is infinite. Scripture teaches that truth again and again:
the grace of God is utterly inexhaustibleCit never runs out
and never fails. To say it another way, there is no evil so
great or so monstrous that divine mercy could be utterly
overwhelmed and extinguished by it. There's no evil that is
bigger or more robust than God's benevolence.
But what makes this particular blasphemy unforgivable is
a settled hardness in the heart of the sinner. It's not some
Matthew 12:31-32 10
kind of inadequacy or insufficiency in the kindness and
mercy of God. But this sin is beyond the pale of forgiveness
because the person who commits this kind of sin has already
received the full light of gospel truth; he knows it is true; he
has seen the kindness and compassion of God in the bright
light of abundant revealed truthCand yet he so utterly
despises the grace and goodness of Christ that he turns away
from Christ forever with the full knowledge of what he is
doing. So it's more than a mere thoughtless rejection of
Christ; it involves open and outright animosity against Him.
It is a full and final renunciation of Christ that is so decisive,
so deliberate, so brazenly blasphemous that it extinguishes
all hope forever for the person who commits it.
In other words, this is such a cold-hearted, hate-filled,
purposeful, irrevocable, and terminal act of reprobation that
the person who commits a sin like this would never even
think of having any kind of regret. The sin itself by
definition entails such a deliberate and decisive hardening of
one's own heart against the gospel (even after full proof of
the gospel has already been seen, heard, and understood) that
the person who commits such a sin would never again think
of, dream of, or wish for repentance. That is what makes this
sin unpardonable.
After all, no one's sin is ever pardoned apart from
repentance and faith, so when someone spurns the Holy
Spirit with this kind of finality and intentionality after
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 11
already being enlightened to the truth of the gospel, then
naturally, all hope for that person is utterly extinguished.
So (to wrap up our review) this much is crystal-clear
about the unpardonable sin: It's a deliberate sin. It's not a sin
of omission or neglect, and not something you could commit
accidentally, merely by a slip of the tongue or by blundering
into it through some unexpected mishap. In fact, it is
unforgivable because it seals forever the utter,
self-determined hardness of the sinner's heart. It's not a sin
anyone who commits it would ever even have second
thoughts about.
Now, having said all that, let's acknowledge also that we
still have a lot of questions about the unpardonable sin, and
Jesus doesn't stop to answer them here. We're left with lots
of hazy details, and several questions we'd like to raise whose
answers are completely shrouded from us. For example, can
we tell when someone has crossed that line? It would seem
pointless to try to evangelize or even pray for someone who
has committed this sin. One of the most difficult verses in the
New Testament is 1 John 5:16, where the apostle writes,
"There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that [any]one
should pray for that." Why aren't we given an infallible test by
which we can know whether someone has passed the point of
no return or not? For that matter, why isn't Jesus' explanation
Matthew 12:31-32 12
of the unforgivable sin more specific? "The blasphemy
against the [Holy] Spirit" isn't a very precise description.
But still, this is clearly a very distinctive sin. As we saw
last time we looked at this passage, the definite article is
important here. It's "THE blasphemy against the Spirit"Cnot
just any kind of careless remark invoking the Spirit's Name
in vain, but one particular type of blasphemy against His
Person and workCa blasphemy so horribly egregious as to be
completely unpardonable. It's a sin that specifically
desecrates Holy Spirit, in distinction from other kinds of
blasphemyCeven including every kind of blasphemy against
the Son of God. Jesus expressly says that all those other sins
are forgivableChowever grotesque they might be. (That's
assuming, of course, that the blasphemer repents.) Only this
one uniquely personal, uniquely deliberate blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit is not forgivable, ever. Wouldn't you
like to know the precise boundaries of that kind of
blasphemy, the better to avoid it? But Jesus gives no further
explanation about the specifics of this sin.
That's because the particulars of the sin are not what is
most important here. Jesus made this statement in the context
He did for a reason. It's not a statement about the sin per se;
it's a statement about these PhariseesCthe gross wickedness
of their way of thinking, the extreme dangers of their
singular brand of spiritual arrogance, the obscene folly of
persisting in known sin, and (most of all) the appalling
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 13
enormity of the mortal peril that hangs like Damocles' sword
over the head everyone who knows the truth about Christ and
yet hesitates to embrace Him as Lord and Savior by faith.
It is probably significant that all three synoptic gospels
mention the unpardonable sin. You'll find cross references to
this passage in Mark 3:28-29 and Luke 12:10. The fact that
the Holy Spirit preserved the record of Jesus' words about
the unpardonable sin in three of the four gospels underscores
its importance. Although Jesus addressed this rebuke to the
Pharisees, He said these things in the presence of His
disciplesCfor their benefit and for ours as well. So there's an
important spiritual lesson for you here whether you are a
believer, a blasphemer, or a fence-sitter.
For those obstinate Pharisees, rejecting Christ even after
they knew the truth about Him, Jesus' words were a
pronouncement of judgment. Jesus sealed their doom forever
with these remarks.
For the disciples, Jesus' words were a solemn warning,
calculated to provoke godly fear. The eleven faithful
disciples were about to be sifted like wheat. Specifically,
they were going to be tempted to abandon their faith in
Christ and forsake their calling as His disciples. They needed
to hear this warning and ponder the gravity of that kind of
unfaithfulness.
Matthew 12:31-32 14
And for Judas in particular, this was an admonition about
the looming dangers of his hypocrisy and his hesitancy with
regard to Christ. Judas was a classic hypocrite, and Jesus
knew it. He pretended to be a close disciple of Christ, but he
wasn't really even a believer at all. Judas knew it, too. So
Jesus' response to the Pharisees' sin ought to have awakened
a holy fear in his heart. He was well on the road to the same
kind of deliberate self-hardening as the Pharisees, but at this
point he had evidently not yet rejected Christ with complete
finality the way the Pharisees already had. He was still sitting
on the fence at this juncture, and Jesus was telling him he
couldn't possibly stay there. Verse 30: "Whoever is not with
me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me
scatters."
Now, this morning, I want to look at our passage from
those three perspectives. Because whoever you are, you fit
roughly into one or the other of those three categories.
You're either an undecided unbeliever like Judas was at this
point, a true believer like the disciples (but still subject to
temptation), or else you are a hardened unbeliever like these
blaspheming Pharisees. I hope there is no one here this
morning who has reached that level of unbelief and
deliberate opposition to the Holy Spirit, but if we learn
anything at all from this passage, it's that some people do go
to irrational and utterly ungodly extremes in their rejection of
Christ as Lord and Savior.
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 15
So let's consider each of these perspectives one at a time,
starting with the Pharisees. First, notice that this passage isC
1. A JUDGMENT AGAINST THE PHARISEES
This whole episode represents a clear turning point in
Jesus' interaction with the hostile Pharisees. With these
words about the unpardonable sin, Jesus was in effect
making a summary pronouncement of eternal judgment
against some of the chief religious leaders of the Jewish
nation.
This was a decisive moment for them. The One to whom
all judgment has been committed pronounced His verdict
against them, and in effect He declared that judgment
irreversible. From this point on, their doom was sealed. The
final sentence had already been read against them, and
although the execution of that sentence will be delayed until
the Great White Throne, nothing in earth or
heavenC"[n]either in this age [n]or in the age to come"Ccan
ever change or mitigate that judgment. They had sinned
away their last opportunity for forgiveness.
Remember what had brought them to this point. Certain
leading Pharisees had hounded and harassed Jesus
throughout His ministry. They were seeking by all means to
try to embarrass Him publicly. They repeatedly tried to
confound Him with trick questions, discredit Him in the eyes
of His followers, or otherwise show Him up. And all those
Matthew 12:31-32 16
efforts had utterly failed, every time. Everything they did in
opposition to Him only established His authority and
confirmed His claims while causing public disgrace for them.
But they only became more determined in their opposition,
until their fury finally boiled over.
The blasphemy that Jesus said was unforgivable was the
culmination of their long, relentless campaign of opposition
to Jesus. It's possible to oppose Christ and push Him away,
and even hate Him and yet still be drawn by the Holy Spirit,
won over by the gospel, and forgivenCeven after
blaspheming Christ. That is what Jesus Himself means when
he says in verse 32 that it's possible to "[speak] a word against
the Son of Man [and yet] be forgiven." That is precisely what
happened to the apostle Paul. It's happened to countless
people who have become convicted of the truth of the gospel
and the claims of Christ after they have already opposed
Him. The moment they repent, all of that is instantly
forgiven.
But with these Pharisees what you have is the exact
opposite phenomenon. They become convinced that Jesus is
for real; they know in their hearts that His claims are true;
they see the lightCand that only makes them more bold in
their determination to destroy him and discredit him in the
eyes of other people, by whatever means they can. This was
not a sudden shift in their posture with regard to Christ. This
was not an accidental blasphemy that inadvertently slipped
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 17
from unguarded lips. This was not merely a one-time
infraction that Jesus arbitrarily judged more harshly than He
judged other people's wrongdoing. This was the culmination
and the termination point of their opposition to Him. From
this point on their hatred for Jesus was not rooted in mere
ignorance; because in order to persist in this level of
antagonism against Jesus, they had to spurn the Holy Spirit's
enlightenment. And in giving voice to willful hatred of Him,
they thereby committed the consummate act of blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit.
Matthew takes pains to stress that this didn't just come out
of nowhere. It happened after a series of key incidents
recorded in Matthew 12 where Jesus demonstrated that He
was Lord even over the Sabbath. He had just healed a man's
incurable physical defect, and instead of rejoicing with the
man who was healed and praising God that they were
privileged to witness such an undeniable miracle, Matthew
12:14 says, "The Pharisees went out and conspired against him,
how to destroy him." Their opposition against Jesus had
reached the point where they were even willing to plot
murder. And that, of course, was the seed of the conspiracy
that ultimately put Jesus on the cross.
So don't underestimate the gross wickedness that was
behind their hatred of Jesus. It wasn't merely unbelief. In
fact, they did not dispute whether the miracle actually
occurred. It was undeniable.
Matthew 12:31-32 18
Someone might be thinking, Yeah, but that was a much
more gullible age than ours. People were especially
susceptible to claims of miracles. That culture was not prone
to doubt supernatural claims, and that's why the Pharisees
didn't suggest that Jesus was merely performing
sleight-of-hand tricks. That ignores the truth about
first-century Judaism. Check the biblical record and you'll
see that there had been no verifiable miracle for several
centuries before Jesus came. According to John 10:47, even
John the Baptist (whom Jesus said was greater than anyone
before him) never did a single miracle. Miracle-claims were
by no means common, and if the Pharisees had wanted to
discredit Jesus, the easiest thing in the world to do would
have been to expose Him as a mere trickster. You can bet
they would have done that if it were possible. But when so
many people knew people who had been born blind and had
been given their sight by Jesus, it was a little hard to write
that off as a parlor trick. Here (in Matthew 12:22) was a man
both blind and mute and demon-possessedCand Jesus
instantly made him physically and spiritually whole. Before
that (verses 10-12) it was a man with a withered armCand
the Greek word suggests that his hand was severely and
visibly deformedClike a wilted, dried-up leaf. Suddenly,
before everyone's eyes, (v. 13) his hand was made to be as
healthy as the other one.
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 19
There was absolutely no point in questioning the reality of
the miracles. They were too public and too impossible to
fake. So these desperate, hate-filled Pharisees instead
accused Jesus of using Satan's power to work mighty
wonders. And when they said that, they deliberately
blasphemed the Holy Spirit, because He was the one who
empowered Jesus' miracles. Luke 11:20CJesus said, "it is by
the finger of God that I cast out demons." In Luke 4:14, at the
very starting point of Jesus' public ministry, Scripture tells us
that He came "in the power of the Spirit." To say Jesus did
miracles by Satan's power was tantamount to calling the
Holy Spirit the prince of demons. And since they had already
hardened their hearts against everything they knew to be true
about Jesus, this was a sin with no remedy.
Thus Jesus' words to them should not be seen as a
warning, but as a pronouncement of doom. It was a
declaration of judgment. The Pharisees' self-hardening and
deliberate unbelief had reached its culmination in this
stunning expression of blasphemy. They had seen every truth
the Holy Spirit could possibly show them. They knew the
full truth about Christ. They had seen Him exercise His
power; they had witnessed the beauty of His goodness up
close and in personCand it had only stirred them to a deeper
hatred of Him. They had rejected the only remedy for their
hardness of heart and now with this shocking expression of
blasphemy, they sealed their rejection forever.
Matthew 12:31-32 20
Such a sin is unforgivable because it is an expression of
full and final impenitence. Once again: it's a sin no one ever
could or would repent of. The language of Mark 3:29 makes
this clear: "whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit . . . is
guilty of an eternal sin" That means the sin itself is by
definition never-ending, everlastingCit goes on forever and
ever. That is the very nature of it, and that is why it is
unforgivable. These men could not and would not ever have
forgivenessCbecause they had so deliberately fixed their
opposition to Christ that they would never bow to receive a
pardon from someone they were so determined to hate. They
had rejected every ray of light and every pang of conscience
in their blind determination to discredit Christ, and from now
onCstarting on that very SabbathCthey would reap the bitter
consequences of their own self-will.
Therefore Jesus pronounced their doom, and He did it
publicly, emphatically, and with irreversible finality. He was
not pleading with them or offering them a second chance.
His goal was not to instruct them or admonish them, or even
solicit their repentance. He was finished with them, and this
was his formal pronouncement of God's verdict against them.
That becomes obvious in the way he begins to speak to
them after this. In Matthew 12:34 He says, "You brood of
vipers!" and in verse 39 he calls them "An evil and adulterous
generation." That's not merely name-calling. He is addressing
them as sons of Satan, condemned liarsCirreversible
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 21
reprobates. Because that is exactly what they now were:
damned fools. He was simply pronouncing their judgment.
They didn't seem to get it, though, and they asked Him for
another sign in verse 38. This is merely a taunting challenge
from the same group who had already judged his miracles
satanic. Of course, Jesus refused to perform for them. He
promised the sign of the prophet Jonah (v. 39-40Cof course,
he is talking about his resurrection), and then He again
declares their doom in even more emphatic terms (verses
41-42). This is a prophecy about the day of judgment: "The
men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation
and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and
behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the
South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and
condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the
wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than
Solomon is here."
And then the whole encounter closes with an insight into
the dark side of the spirit world that underscores the futility
of moral reform without true faith. That, of course, was the
whole problem with the Pharisees; they were clean and swept
on the inside, but their hearts were the habitation of demons.
So the closing line of the conversation sums up Jesus' whole
message to them: (v. 45) "The last state of that person is worse
than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation."
Matthew 12:31-32 22
Not very uplifting is it? Still, I'm convinced there is a
gracious and benevolent reason Jesus pronounced all that
doom and gloom in public. And this (I believe) is also the
chief reason this episode is recorded for our benefit in all
three synoptic gospels: It is an urgent warning, a sober
admonition, and a tender plea to everyone other than the
Pharisees who were already guilty of that unforgivable
blasphemy.
And here's point two. (Point 1: this was a judgment
against the Pharisees.) Point 2, it wasC
2. A WARNING FOR THE DISCIPLES
I'm convinced this episode is given so much prominence
in the gospels because it is still important today. It was
important for the disciples to hear this, and it is important for
you and me as well.
Now, I've said it's a warning, and you might be wondering
why. Why would he warn His disciples about the dangers of
an unpardonable sin? Most if not all of them (except for
Judas) were already believers by this point. No authentic
believer can or would ever do anything that would cost them
the loss of their salvation. Jesus Himself said, "whoever hears
my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does
not come into judgment, but has [already] passed from death to
life."
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 23
So if it's impossible for a genuine believer to come into
judgment, then it's also (by definition) impossible for a true
Christian to commit the unpardonable sin. We know that
simply from what we know about the nature of the
unpardonable sin.
So how is this a warning to the disciples? Well, they were
about to be sifted like wheat. Remember in Luke 23, during
the Last Supper, when Jesus was warning the disciples that
He was about to be betrayed by one of them? The mood was
very somber, and Jesus turned to Peter and He said (Luke
22:31): "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you,
that he might sift you like wheat." The Greek pronoun ("you")
in that verse is plural. Satan was going to sift them all like
wheat. Just before the crucifixion, all of them would be
subjected to a Satanic trial that would stress their faith to the
maximum. Jesus went on in verse 32 to say to Peter, "but I
have prayed for you that your faith may not fail." And there he
was speaking to Peter particularly (probably saying this
quietly, out of earshot of the other eleven)Cso he uses a
singular pronoun. "I have prayed for you, Peter, that your
faith will remain intact." This was a private reassurance to
Peter that even though he was about to go through the
darkest trial of his life, Christ was praying for him, and God
would sustain him, so that even though his resolve would fail
and his courage would melt, his faith would remain intact.
And it did.
Matthew 12:31-32 24
I have no doubt that one of the factors that kept Peter's
faith intact was the cumulative weight of everything Peter
had ever heard from Jesus' own lips about the deadly dangers
of unbeliefCincluding a healthy, holy fear of the kind of
blasphemy that Jesus said could ever be forgiven.
I'm sure you have noticed that Scripture is peppered with
warnings addressed to groups of Christians about the danger
of falling away, the danger of losing ground spiritually, and
other dangers associated with hypocrisy. And if your faith is
healthy, I'm sure you think about those warningsCand think
seriously about them. Second John 8, for example. The
apostle writes: "Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose
what we have worked for, but may win a full reward." In those
verses I read earlier, Hebrews 6 talks about the dangers of
falling away, and Hebrews 10 warns about sinning after we
have received knowledge of the truth. Bible teachers and
commentators have debated for years about whether those
verses suggest that Christians can in fact lose their salvation.
We don't believe that's what those texts teach, of course.
But one fact is beyond debate, and it's this: those
warnings were all addressed to people who professed to be
Christians.
Now let me say this clearly, even though we don't have
time this morning to do a full exegesis on Hebrews 6 and 10.
(We'll come back and look at them in another message, Lord
willing.) But I'll tell you emphatically that those passages do
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 25
not nullify the promise of John 5:24: Genuine believers have
passed from death unto life and will never come into
condemnation. Salvation is forever. Eternal life is our present
possession, and it is (by definition) permanent and
everlasting. You can't lose it, because it wouldn't be eternal
life at all if you could. And justification would mean
nothing, either, if it could eventually be overturned by a
future guilty verdict. Grace would mean very little as well, if
something I do could nullify what Christ has already done
for me.
And we've been over this subject many times, so for now,
let me just reiterate that I don't believe it's possible for a
genuine Christian to lose his or her salvation. Therefore, it's
also impossible for any genuine believer to commit the
unpardonable sin.
So what are all these warnings in Scripture about? Let me
give you two basic reasons for that; First of all, they are
warnings to people who have professed to believe but aren't
true believers yet. (Let's keep that on the back burner and
we'll take it up when we get to point three.)
But second, and more to the point here, those warnings
are promptings that the Holy Spirit uses to keep true
believers faithful. Warnings such as this encourage us to
examine ourselves, to see whether we are truly in the faith.
They provoke godly fear. They remind us of the exceeding
sinfulness of sin.
Matthew 12:31-32 26
If you are truly in Christ, you are eternally secure in Him.
In fact, we sometimes refer to this truth as the doctrine of
eternal security. But the classic name for the doctrine is the
perseverance of the saints. And I like that expression a little
better than "eternal security," because it gets more to the
heart of the truth. The idea is not that if you are saved, you
are OK no matter what you do, but that if you are truly
saved, you will see the fruit of salvation in how you live. If
your faith is real, you won't fall away. But security isn't
automatic or mechanical, irrespective of what we do. Those
whose faith is real are secure because God keeps them
faithful. We "are kept by the power of God through faith unto
salvation" (1 Peter 1:5). That's the King James Version again.
The English Standard Version says, "By God's power[,
believers] are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready
to be revealed in the last time." Same idea. God is guarding
and keeping our faith alive. He uses means to keep us
faithful. Warnings such as these are a vital part of the means
He uses to do that.
Now, there are people who do fall away. Sometimes
people who we think are the best of saints fall away, and
abandon the faith. And what that actually proves is that they
were never genuinely saved to begin with. They weren't true
believers at all. "They went out from us, but they were not of us;
for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
The Blasphemy Against the Spirit 27
But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not
of us" (1 John 2:19).
I've had a few friends over the years who I thought were
solid believersCpeople who seemed to understand Scripture
well and have a solid grasp of doctrineCwho have hugely
disappointed me and dishonored Christ by falling away and
turning against Him.
Judas was like that. There's not a hint anywhere in the
gospels that any of the disciples ever thought he was a
phony. They trusted him so much they made him their
treasurer. And even when Jesus told them that one of the
Twelve would betray Him, every one of them suspected
themselves before they suspected Judas, according to
Matthew 26:22.
But Judas was a phony, and that is why I believe Jesus'
words about the unpardonable sin were chiefly for his
benefit.
Point 1: this was a judgment against the Pharisees. Point
2: it was a warning for the disciples. And now point 3: it
wasC
Matthew 12:31-32 28
3. A PLEA TO JUDAS
Now I'm going to do something I never do. I almost
always finish my outline, even if it means going overtime.
But this morning I'm going to stop there and pick it up next
week. That will enable us to close a lot of dangling threads.
First of all, years ago, when I first began teaching in
GraceLife, I did a series on the bad boys of the Bible, but I
never did a message on Judas, who was the baddest bad-boy
of all.
Second, as I've said, I believe this section on the
unpardonable sin was chiefly for Judas's benefit, and for the
benefit of all the fence-sitters and phonies like him. So I
don't want to cut this study short.
And third, There is so much to say about false professions
of faith and phony Christians in the New Testament that it
would be a shame to cut this third point short. So I'm going
to leave it there for this week and ask you to hold this
thought in your mind all week, and come back next week
prepared to do some serious self-examination.
OK? Bear with me for a week, and we'll come back and
pick it up right here next week, Lord willing.