March 5, 2019 – Click here to listen
I was drawn to the “unpardonable sin” this morning. Matthew 12:31-32 – And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”
I along with many others have often pondered whether or not a believer can commit the unpardonable sin. I practiced witchcraft in my youth and said and did vile things during this period of my life. Though it occurred over 50 years ago it has on occasion been a thorn in my flesh.
Jesus spoke of the unpardonable sin while berating the Pharisees who continuously, deliberately, and verbally attributed His miracles to demons and therein directly related evil to God. This amounted to a degradation of the miracle-working supernatural power of the Holy Spirit who lived within Jesus. The Pharisees demonstrated “defiant irreverence” to God almighty when they attributed His miracles to the demons of hell and their leader Satan, and they were unrepentant.
But what about today? Like me many a Christian has agonized over some particularly grievous sin committed by them before or after accepting Christ or saying something terrible about the Holy Spirit. Often, they live in dread that something grave they have done or said before or after conversion might be that sin. My brother Jim who cursed God after his 5-year old son died of a brain tumor was one of those people. Those outbursts tortured him all his life and he spoke of it often.
Those who committed the unpardonable sin have no godly regrets. If you do fear you’ve committed some “unforgivable sin,” or even that your heart has already reached such a state of hardness, there is still hope. If you worry about unforgivable sin, that is sure proof that you have not! Not yet.
Hearts with “settled” hardness against Jesus and his Spirit don’t go around worrying about it. My interpretation is that the unpardonable sin is not some particularly grievous sin committed by a Christian before or after accepting Christ, nor is it thinking or saying something terrible about the Holy Spirit. It is deliberately and steadfastly resisting the Holy Spirit’s witness and invitation to turn to Jesus until death ends all opportunity to do so. I’m convinced that we need not fear a specific moment of sin as much as the development of a hardness of heart incapable of repentance that would see Jesus as true and yet walk away. Remember it’s not that forgiveness isn’t granted by our merciful God, but that it’s not sought. The heart has become so stubborn and intractable and at such odds with God’s Spirit, that it becomes incapable of true repentance.
In order to experience God’s peace, we must come to Him, trusting His promises. Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” In 1 John 1:9 we read: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Our God is a compassionate and merciful God. He desires that no one should be lost,
but that all should come to salvation through repentance and personal faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord.
John 6:37
“Whoever comes to me I will never drive away”