The Sin That Is Not Forgiven Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

INTRODUCTION

Let me pull the chair up beside you again, the way an older brother once did with me, for this is a text that has

Page 1

The Sin That Is Not Forgiven • Difficult Passages in Matthew — No. 1

frightened tender hearts for a very long time. I am not handing you a hammer to swing at anyone; I am opening the Book on the table between us and asking, gently, do you see what I see here? This is what I was taught more than fifty years ago, and it has steadied many a shaking soul since, and it has held.

There are few sentences in all of Scripture that have troubled more sincere people than these: “Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven” (Matt. 12:31). A sin that will not be forgiven — not in this world, nor in the world to come. Faithful men and women have read those words at midnight and lain awake wondering whether some hard thought, some angry word once flung at heaven, has shut the door of mercy against them forever. I have sat with them. Perhaps you have been one of them.

So here is the honest question, and it is a tender one, not the folly of a fool: What is this “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,” and — the question that keeps people awake — can I have committed it, or commit it still today? I want to take that fear seriously, because behind it is almost always a soft heart, not a hard one. And I want us to read the passage the way the Lord set it down, in its own setting, and let Jesus Himself tell us what He meant.

Come with me into Matthew 12 slowly. The Lord gives us what we need inside the passage itself, and I believe it opens along three lines: the Setting that frames the sin, the Substance of the sin itself, and the Solace for the trembling heart. Watch this with me — and tell me if you see it too.