The Unforgiveable Sin

In the course of the inevitable and escalating conflict between Jesus and his opponents, there comes a point when Jesus’ opponents begin to sling mud. They claim that he only casts out demons by demonic power. Their disparagement of the spiritual origins of Jesus’ power, exacerbated in Matthew’s gospel by the explicit reference to the anointing of the servant of God with the Holy Spirit in the earlier citation of Isaiah 42, well illustrates, in my opinion, a biblical proverb (Prov 27:4): “Wrath is ferocious, and anger is a flood, but who can stand before jealousy?” Jealousy is why, on the one hand, the accusation is so underhanded; on the other hand, though, Jesus’ zeal for the third commandment is why his rebuke is so strong: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, 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” (Matt 12:30-32 ESV).

Now, Jesus’ response likely raises at least a few questions. First of all, how is it that a distinction can be made between blasphemy against the Son of Man and that against the Holy Spirit? Are not Father, Son, and Spirit one? The beginning of an answer turns on Jesus’ self-reference. The title “Son of Man” does not refer to Jesus’ divine identity but rather to his mission as Messiah and consequently to his human nature. While “Son of Man” has roots in Daniel 7:13 and thus indicates certain messianic expectations, “it does not follow that the people in general, or that even the disciples, on hearing the name, immediately thought of the Messiah. … People perhaps understood by it only that he was special, that he was an extraordinary human being, a fact that was immediately substantiated by his words and works.”[1] This observation then suggests that a certain amount of mystery is wrapped up in the revelation of the Son of Man, mystery that does not excuse blaspheme against him but does allow for forgiveness. While the revelation of Jesus as the Son of Man has progressed considerably since the time of his earthly ministry, the existential experience of one who encounters the Son of Man today may still suffer from ignorance. There is, then, the possibility of forgiveness for blaspheming the Son of Man.

But the same is not so for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. But why is it so, and what is the nature of that sin? In the context of Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees, the wonderful works of God are being misattributed to the devil by means of the Pharisees’ mudslinging. The context demands that Jesus’ opponents understand, at some point or another, that a willful rejection of the Spirit’s work in the coming of the kingdom amounts to an irreconcilable breach between God and man.[2] Importantly, this means that the unforgiveable sin, as Herman Bavinck puts it, “does not simply consist in unbelief, nor in resisting or grieving the Holy Spirit in general, nor in denying the personality or deity of the Holy Spirit, nor in sinning against better knowledge and to the very end without qualification.” And that means this sin follows certain prerequisites: “objectively, a revelation of God’s grace in Christ, the nearness of his kingdom, a powerful working of the Holy Spirit; and subjectively, an illumination and conviction of the mind so intense and powerful that one cannot deny the truth of God has to acknowledge it as being divine. In this case it does not itself consist in doubt toward or the denial of that truth, but in a denial that contradicts the conviction of the mind, the illumination of the conscience, and the intuitions of the heart.”[3] In this way, Jesus’ response does not necessarily indict the Pharisees on the spot. At a minimum, it calls them to account for their bitter jealousy and to be converted from their wrath and anger.

We might conclude, then, that the Lord Jesus is certainly able to stand before the jealousy of his opposition, for he simultaneously stands before the zeal of the Lord for his own holiness that issues in judgment against every careless word. In this way, among others, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, the only way to the Father. To reject the work of his Spirit is to grab the Door and slam it shut on the path of life. That is the unforgiveable sin.

[1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Baker Academic, 2003), 2:250; So also Herman N. Ridderbos, Het Evangelie Naar Mattheus, 2nd ed., Korte Verklaring Der Heilige Schrift (J. H. Kok, 1952), 1:242.

[2] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:155-156; J. H. Bavinck, Geschiedenis der Godsopenbaring: Handboek voor de Kennis van de Bijbelsche Geschiedenis (J. H. Kok, 1938), 2:203; Ridderbos, Mattheus, 1:242.

[3] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:156.