January 3, 2009 (Matthew 12:15-37)

I’d like to address Jesus’ famous words regarding “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.” (12:31). For decades—if not longer—this passage has provoked fear, questioning, and not a little despair. In order to understand what is meant by “blaspheming the Holy Spirit” we need to keep in mind the context.

According to Matthew, Christ has just healed a demoniac who was both blind and mute due to a demon. It’s important to realize that both the man’s possession and Jesus’ exorcism of his demon were PUBLIC knowledge. In fact, this particular miracle was so obviously and publicly performed that it caused the crowd to become amazed and ask “Could it be that Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah?” (12:23)

Enter the Pharisees. They do not challenge that the miracle happened. They do not seek in any way to investigate the claim of the miracle. They seek ways to discredit it. They are not struggling to come to faith; but rather are desperately trying to find some way to ignore the effects of God’s power through the life of this man, Jesus. They are trying to do anything they can to marginalize Him—even to the point of making a ludicrous argument against what was obviously a blessing from God. (i.e., the healing of the demoniac) Jesus responds to them in 12:26-27 by pointing out the irrationality of what they’re saying (i.e., “if Satan is casting out Satan, he is divided and fighting against himself. His own kingdom will not survive…”) as well as its hypocrisy (i.e., “if I am empowered by Satan, what about your own exorcists? They cast out demons, too, so they will condemn you for what you have said…”)

It seems to me that the “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is a poetic way of talking about someone who willfully defies God in the face of blatant proof that He is calling them to respond to Him in some particular way. Once again, Jesus was not introducing anything new. He wasn’t “springing” some new law on the Pharisees. Consider the following words from the Old Testament book of Numbers:

…those who brazenly violate the LORD’s will, whether native-born Israelites or foreigners, have blasphemed the LORD, and they must be cut off from the community. Since they have treated the LORD’s word with contempt and deliberately disobeyed His command, they must be completely cut off and suffer the punishment for their guilt. -- Numbers 15:30-31 [emphasis mine]

So, when the topic of the “unforgivable sin” comes up, what’s a Christian to do? First, we should quit saying that people can’t commit the unforgivable sin today. Of course they can! We can be just as brazen, contemptuous, and deliberately disobedient as any Israelite in the wilderness or Pharisee of the first century. Once we have afflicted the comfortable, however, we need to make sure to also comfort the afflicted. In my experience, those who worry the most about whether they have committed the unforgivable sin are those who are the most righteous. A good rule of thumb is: if you’re genuinely afraid that you’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit, that’s a pretty solid sign that you haven’t.

-- Justin