How do we define the umpardonable sin?

[marco]

In Matthew 12:31 we have: “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.�

Was Jesus just being dramatic here, trying to frighten his listeners? What on earth is "blasphemy against the Spirit"? Did Jesus, somewhere, elaborate on this dramatic statement?


And in what way is such blasphemy worse than, say, mass murder?

[marco]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

The Holy Spirit is a nebulous concept, the so called Paraclete, manifesting itself as tongues of fire. Most of us have never seen such a phenomenon, so in what way can we blaspheme against it.

Would it suffice to say: There's no Holy Spirit - for us to sin unpardonably? It would seem Jesus here was working in hyperbolic mood, as was his custom.

[PinSeeker]

The meaning of Matthew 12:32 is clearer when we consider the passage in its totality (vv. 22–32). Even though they should know better, the Pharisees attribute Jesus’ exorcisms to the power of the Devil (v. 24). This is absurd since it is irrational for Satan to cast out his own minions and tear down his own kingdom (vv. 25–26). Moreover, if Jesus exorcises demons by the Devil’s power, then the followers of the Pharisees who do the same must also be acting under the Adversary’s influence, a deduction these scholars cannot endorse (v. 27). These teachers inconsistently accuse Jesus of being in Satan’s thrall while seeing God at work among their own students. Stubbornly and persistently, the Pharisees are attributing the work of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s ministry to the Devil.

The unforgivable sin is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit by calling Jesus a devil after being enlightened by that same Spirit. As human beings, we commit such sacrilege only when we knowingly endeavor to extinguish the Spirit. There can be no salvation if the work of the Spirit is knowingly rejected. This act reveals a heart so hard that repentance is impossible (Hebrews 3:7–19). Ultimately, it is unrepentance that is a blasphemy against the Spirit. And this leads to something that it is impossible to hyperbolize.

The good news -- for Christians, anyway -- is that all those who are Christians... those chosen by God, His elect... will be kept from committing this sin by God Himself through the power of His Spirit. He will keep us from stumbling (Jude 24), and, having begun a good work in us, will bring it to completion at the day of Christ (Philippians 1:6). Too, if anyone is worried that he may have committed this unpardonable sin, that should be assurance that he has not... and will not.

[ttruscott]

And in what way is such blasphemy worse than, say, mass murder?

Sins are not better nor worse than each other since absolutely any deviation from HIS righteousness has an ultimate disvalue in GOD's eyes. This means that sins themselves cause no difference in HIS response to sin...all differences between HIS response to sinners is found in the people themsleves, not their sins.

Pre-conception Ideology on this topic as I see it:
Preamble:
in colloquial terms, some people have chosen to join GOD's family and church and to come under HIS protection before they sinned and some others refused HIM and HIS offers of protection from sin and thus are outside of HIS protection.

My operating premises on this topic is 1. that only a personal free will decison to reject GOD or to rebel against HIS purpose for our creation can make us sinful 2. that all men are conceived as sinners because they have already chosen to be sinful in HIS estimation by a free will decison against HIM before their conception. That is, our conception is not the start of our creation but only the start of our life on earth as human in the same way our death is not the end of our life but is only the end of our earthly human life while we continue life in the spirit world.

Since I find a suggestion in Col 1:23...This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. that every person ever to be created heard the gospel pre-earth in Sheol, the spirit world, before the creation of the physical universe and since we have Satan being characterized as a liar and a murderer from the beginning while others are characterized as being chosen to the heavenly marriage with GOD from the foundation of the world, ie, also at the beginning, I have concluded that this separation between the eternally evil ones and those who joined HIS family happened at this time by our free will response to hearing the gospel for the first time.

I also concluded that to be valid such a momentous free will decison about life and death matters must have contained full information about the consequences of each option though without proof of that information being true since that would force the decision and it would not be free.

This begs the question: What were those (Satan et al) who chose to reject YHWH as their GOD thinking to take the chance on ending in hell IF HE were ever to prove HIS deity and power? IF they experienced GOD in HIS glory (as orthodoxy likes to suggest) they must have also been aware they they themselves could NOT manifest such glory and that they could never surplant HIM as GOD and no rejection of HIS deity could have happened. This proves we all were only aware of HIS claims to be our creator GOD and were asked to accept HIM on faith, that is, an unproven hope (holding our scepticism in abeyance for the time being) and it was our response to HIS claims that separated all creation into HIS family, flock, church, OR HIS eternal enemies.

Getting there...:
The gospel before sin (ie, election) was the promise of salvation from any and all future sin for those who put their faith in HIM as their GOD and in HIS Son as their saviour by faith, without proof and without consideration of why the person was choosing to put their faith in HIM. It was also the warning that a rejection of HIS deity and HIS Son as our saviour would result in our becoming eternally evil in HIS sight and subject to HIS judgement, banishment to the outer darkness as eternally unsuitable to be chosen to be HIS Bride.

After much thought about this I have concluded that there is only one explanation for Satan and his people to choose this option to take the chance on damnation. If anyone has a better one please let me know.

The Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit:
They had to commit strongly to the belief that YHWH's claims were false, that HE was lying about heaven and hell, that HE was lying about sin and death and that therefore HE was a false god, no god at all and as the first liar, HE was the most sinful evil person in all of creation. This was the start of their depictions of HIM as a megalomaniac driven by narcissism and insecurity trying to force people to worship HIM out of fear of hell.

All three times Jesus spoke of the unforgivable sin it was in the context of the religious leaders of the day claiming that Jesus was doing His miracles by the power of evil ascribing evil intentions and power to him and his obviously evil god, (Matt 12:23, Mark 3:22, Luke 12:1). Jn 3:18 ...but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. contends that the Satanic demons, the reprobate tares, are condemned already at the time of their conceptions as human and I contend this was because of their prior commitment to YHWH and HIS Son being deemed to be liars and devils before they themselves were conceived as human.

Their sin was an eternal (unforgivable) sin because:
- as a free will decison it was inviolable because if GOD could just change their minds because HE knew they were wrong then their decisions were hardly free at all and therefore meaningless. The sins of the elect could be forgiven because they could always be brought back to their free will choice to be HIS people and to follow HIM in all HIS ways...Their sin was temporary due to the promise of salvation they chose to be under which gave HIM permission to go against their sinful will and thereby save them.

- by rejecting HIM as their GOD and the Son as their saviour they removed themsleves from the only power that could free them from their enslaving addiction to evil for ever. As completely corrupt and evil they could not cure themselves of their evil but they had removed themselves from HIS loving grace which could have cured them.

[Difflugia]

In Matthew 12:31 we have: “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.�

Was Jesus just being dramatic here, trying to frighten his listeners? What on earth is "blasphemy against the Spirit"? Did Jesus, somewhere, elaborate on this dramatic statement?

In the contexts of both Mark 3:22-30 and Matthew 12:22-32, I think it's clear that Jesus means attributing the source of miracles to demons rather than God. That is, attributing to evil ("blaspheme" means to speak evil) the works of God. Both Matthew and Mark treat the Holy Spirit in a more Old Testament sense, referring to the generic power of God rather than a separate being. According to Matthew and Mark, if you say out loud that God's miracles were the acts of an evil power, you can't be forgiven.

Luke's problem with this interpretation is not that speaking evil of God is bad, but that Jesus seems to say that speaking evil of Himself (as "a son of man" in Mark and "the Son of Man" in Matthew) isn't the same as speaking evil of God. The casting out demons pericope in Luke 11 omits the bit about blasphemy against the spirit because Luke doesn't want the distinction between speaking evil of Jesus and speaking evil of God. It does appear in Luke 12:10, but I think it's a later interpolation. Luke 12:8-12 otherwise says that denying Christ on Earth will lead to loss of salvation (Luke's version of the unforgivable sin). That contradicts Matthew and Mark, so I think a later scribe inserted verse 10 to try to harmonize the three Synoptics. Now verses 8 and 9 contradict verse 10.

John doesn't have an unforgivable sin. For John, salvation is for anyone that believes.

All of the weird unforgivable sin theologies spring from the attempt to harmonize Matthew and Mark with John. Just calling a miracle evil seems a petty reason for condemnation within the nearly universalist context of John, so it must mean something at least hard to do. That's where things like "denying in your heart the salvific power of Christ" and whatnot come from.

And in what way is such blasphemy worse than, say, mass murder?

It's like the old notion of treason being a crime against one's betters and high treason being a crime against the Crown. Blaspheming the holy spirit (or Holy Spirit) is a crime against God's holy, sovereign self. Killing a bunch of regular, non-holy losers is nothing compared to saying that the holy, sovereign God's wondrous works were performed by a demon.

In merrie England, murder got you the rope. High treason got your guts pulled out and burned in front of you while you watch and scream.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 5 by Difflugia]

You got the sense of it, Difflugia. My understanding goes along with what you infer, that attributing to the demons what the spirit of God has done is unforgiveable. If someone really believes that, or even if he doesn't believe it but doesn't care who is harmed by him saying it and says it anyway, and he never repents, he will not be forgiven. Imagine observing Jesus raising a dead person and saying that he got his power from the demons! That's really evil.

[brianbbs67]

Blasphemey is saying something is less than what it is and or making it something it is not by diminishing it. The Father is spirit, so apparantly, He doesn't like being lied about. Just like the "prophets of the Tanakh" that put words in His mouth whom he had never spoken to at all.

[marco]

The meaning of Matthew 12:32 is clearer when we consider the passage in its totality (vv. 22–32).

Yes I rather suspected Christ meant something other than what he said.

Even though they should know better, the Pharisees attribute Jesus’ exorcisms to the power of the Devil (v. 24). This is absurd since it is irrational for Satan to cast out his own minions and tear down his own kingdom (vv. 25–26).

We are now discussing wilful ignorance and refusal to accept Christ as God's messenger. The Holy Spirit isn't involved. Incidentally it would be a Satanic masterstroke to appear to go against his own in order to thwart his enemy's intentions. The simplistic explanation offered by Christ about a house divided against itself takes no account of Satanic craft and guile. The Pharisees, like many people today, wisely hesitate to accept the words of what they see as a street magician. They are far from rejecting the Holy Spirit: just asking for Christ's credentials. Caution in no sin.

The unforgivable sin is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit by calling Jesus a devil after being enlightened by that same Spirit.

This does not make a lot of sense. They are dealing with a man and apparently rejecting a ghost. I cannot imagine there are any humans who "knowingly reject the Holy Spirit". It is hard enough to understand what the term means far less blaspheme against it. The Pharisees know they must shun witchcraft - and they must first recognise it. Are they to suppose Christ's "explanation" is solid gold testimony from the Holy Spirit?

The good news -- for Christians, anyway -- is that all those who are Christians... those chosen by God, His elect... will be kept from committing this sin by God Himself through the power of His Spirit.

I think you mean that the good news is there are some humans who have been selected, perhaps randomly, for a prize in a divine lottery and they, while not understanding the term any better than poor Marco, will be kept out of areas where they might just transgress. This seems pleasantly artificial.... and a tad unfair.

[marco]

Sins are not better nor worse than each other since absolutely any deviation from HIS righteousness has an ultimate disvalue in GOD's eyes. This means that sins themselves cause no difference in HIS response to sin...all differences between HIS response to sinners is found in the people themsleves, not their sins.

This is a statement of an idea about the way God works. How can we know this?

What were those (Satan et al) who chose to reject YHWH as their GOD thinking to take the chance on ending in hell IF HE were ever to prove HIS deity and power? IF they experienced GOD in HIS glory (as orthodoxy likes to suggest) they must have also been aware they they themselves could NOT manifest such glory and that they could never surplant HIM as GOD and no rejection of HIS deity could have happened. This proves we all were only aware of HIS claims to be our creator GOD and were asked to accept HIM on faith, that is, an unproven hope (holding our scepticism in abeyance for the time being) and it was our response to HIS claims that separated all creation into HIS family, flock, church, OR HIS eternal enemies.

I accept that the theological geometry on which you form your theorems can be made consistent with Scripture. Once we enter that world and subject ourselves to its statutes, there are no arguments against it. The big difficulty is accepting the axioms that you take for granted.

as eternally unsuitable to be chosen to be HIS Bride.

I find the marriage metaphor inappropriate.

The Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit:
They had to commit strongly to the belief that YHWH's claims were false, that HE was lying about heaven and hell, that HE was lying about sin and death and that therefore HE was a false god, no god at all and as the first liar, HE was the most sinful evil person in all of creation.

This is NOT how it works. Unbelievers see Yahweh not as a liar or deceitful engineer, but the product of human minds, just as Atlas and Achilles were. I don't see that this theory is any more sinful than supposing the Earth orbits the sun.

[marco]

According to Matthew and Mark, if you say out loud that God's miracles were the acts of an evil power, you can't be forgiven.

I'm not sure that the loudness of one's voice exaggerates the sin. If one believes in God one would be insane not sinful to attribute his miracles to Satan. However, one can justifiably question whether Jesus was the agent of evil rather than of God. It is a necessary question in reaching a conclusion about his identity. Does changing water to wine illustrate divinity of some sort, or just magical expertise?

That contradicts Matthew and Mark, so I think a later scribe inserted verse 10 to try to harmonize the three Synoptics. Now verses 8 and 9 contradict verse 10.
John doesn't have an unforgivable sin. For John, salvation is for anyone that believes.

And this ironically illustrates a house divided among itself. Where is truth then? If only Jesus had learned to say exactly what he meant - we could abandon exegesis.

In merrie England, murder got you the rope. High treason got your guts pulled out and burned in front of you while you watch and scream.

And does God act in the absurdly harsh ways of Merrie England? Surely not?