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All Saints Church |
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Thorpe Acre Road, Loughborough, |
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Sin Against the Holy Spirit
Intrtoduction Today we are going to consider
Mark 3:20-30. In this passage Jesus said something that is quite hard to
understand. In v28-29, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be
forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be
forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." What Jesus says here is hard to understand, or even hard to accept, for a number of reasons. First, what he says here seems to contradict what he says elsewhere. In John 3:16 he said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” If whoever believes in him shall not perish then how can this one particular sin cannot be forgiven? The 2nd problem is that if there were any sin that could not be forgiven then one would expect it to be a sin that was morally wrong by any standard. But Jesus said all sins – including murder, adultery, cheating, etc – can be forgiven but blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, which does not hurt anybody, cannot be forgiven. What is Jesus trying to tell us? We will look at the context and the Bible’s teaching on God’s forgiveness as a whole to provide an explanation. The context Jesus had begun his ministry. He had appointed his twelve disciples. He also had large crowds following him. Many of them wanted to be healed of their illnesses, freed from evil spirits and to hear him teach. However, there was also a group of people who was critical of him. This group of people were among the religious leaders of the time – the teachers of the law, the Pharisees, the Priests, etc. They wanted to discredit Jesus. They did not like what they saw or heard. He was getting too popular. What he taught challenged their teaching. What he did challenged their practice. Moreover, his presence threatened their authority. They would do whatever they could to stop his influence continuing. We know that they would stop at nothing, even to the point of having Jesus killed. We need to see that this was the mind set of this group people when they accused Jesus of possessed by demon. They would say white is black and black is white just to achieve their own end. Instead of recognising and acknowledging what Jesus was doing was good and was from God, they bent the truth and said that by the prince of demons that he drove out demons. They wanted to discredit Jesus and to turn the crowd away from following him. In response to their accusation Jesus did two things. One is to explain that their accusation is illogical and the other is to give a warning against the consequence of their hard heartedness. V23-27, Jesus spoke to them in parables to explain that their accusation was illogical: "How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. In using these parables Jesus is asking his listeners to think it through logically. What Jesus is saying essentially is that he is not using Satan’s power to drive out demons. He is not part of Satan’s kingdom. In fact, he can drive out demons because he has power over the “strong man” in the house, which is Satan, the Prince of demons. Jesus has power over Satan and his kingdom and that is why he is able to drive out demons. The purpose of Jesus’ miraculous signs is to demonstrate the in breaking of God’s kingdom here on earth and that he is the Saviour that the people have been waiting for. In Luke 7 we read that John the
Baptist sent two of his disciples to Jesus. When the men came to Jesus, they said,
"John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, 'Are you the one who was to
come, or should we expect someone else?'" Jesus’ reply to the messengers
was, "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind
receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed
is the man who does not fall away on account of me." Jesus performed miraculous signs to authenticate his ministry. Unfortunately, the religious leaders’ minds were so blind that they could not see clearly nor reason logically. Jesus’
explanation was followed by a warning, “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is
guilty of an eternal sin." The explanation We can now see why Jesus said that if we refer to v30: he said this because they were saying, "He has an evil spirit." Remember Jesus was saying this to the group of religious leaders. Their minds were so wicked, there eyes were so blind, and their intention was so devious that they would never see or accept Jesus as the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. Having said that Jesus was possessed by an evil spirit they would never come to Jesus as Lord and King and ask him for forgiveness. In other words, they had condemned themselves by what they said. Forgiveness would never be given to them because for them repentance would never take place. Jesus knew that the wickedness of their minds had taken them beyond that point of repentence. Jesus’ warning was not about taking God’s name, the name of Jesus or the name of the Holy Spirit in vain in a casual way. The warning is for people who is hostile against Jesus and whose heart is so hard that they would never see the need to repent, or that they will never humble themselves and repent. The questions of
consistence and fairness We are now also in the position to answer the two questions we raised earlier on. First, what Jesus says seems to contradict what he says elsewhere. In John 3:16 he said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” If whoever believes in him shall not perish then how can this one particular sin cannot be forgiven? This sin cannot be forgiven because people who commit this sin will not ask for forgiveness. It is as simple as that. They have put up for themselves an impenetrable barrier between them and God. They have made themselves beyond the reach of forgiveness! The 2nd question is that if there were any sin that could not be forgiven then one would expect it to be a sin that was morally wrong by any standard. But why did Jesus say that all sins – including murder, adultery, cheating, etc – can be forgiven but blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, which does not hurt anybody, cannot be forgiven. Forgiveness from God is by his grace, not because some sins are too severe that they cannot be forgiven or others are not so serious therefore they can be forgiven. God’s grace is sufficient to forgive all sins – there is no sin too big for him. Recently, I re-watched the DVD Amazing Grace, which of course is based on a true story. In the film, John Newton, a captain of slave ships who became a priest said something like this to Wilberforce, “I live with the ghosts for 20,000 slaves in this small church. I still have blood on my hand. I am not even strong enough to make my own confession.” The guilt of making so many thousands of slaves suffer was still on his back. He could not forgive himself and yet he knew that God had forgiven him. It is this depth of understanding of God’s love and grace that inspired him to write the song “Amazing Grace”. There is no sin that is too great that God cannot forgive. However, there is one thing that stands between God’s forgiveness and any human being and that is unbelief. We don’t know who will believe and put their trust in Christ and who will not. God, the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives if we let him. All people, no matter what they have done in their lives, have a chance to repent, even up to the point before they die. Last year around this time, Anissa’s father committed his life to Jesus at the age of 84, a week before he died. It is never too late. However, Jesus warns that hearts could become so hard towards the Holy Spirit that they would not be sensitive towards the prompting of the Holy Spirit anymore. They have brought onto themselves the condemnation of an eternal sin and Jesus called this the blasphemes against the Holy Spirit. I repeat what I said earlier, blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is not referring to casual remarks that take God’s name in vain. It is the deliberate, persistent hardening of the heart against the Holy Spirit that brings oneself to the point of no return. Without repentance than there is no forgiveness. Without forgiveness than one is condemned. Relevance The fact that we are here worshipping God indicates that we are not wilfully opposing the Holy Spirit or the Lord Jesus. Therefore, what is the relevance of this passage to us today? First, we need to remind ourselves that if we have put our trust in the Lord Jesus then all our sins have been forgiven, praise God. There is no need to live under the dark shadow of guilt anymore. Second, even though we have become Christians our minds could still be very narrow and our hearts could still be very hard. Just as narrow mindedness and hard heartedness had stop the religious leaders from receiving eternal lives; narrow mindedness and hard heartedness will stop Christians from receiving blessings from God. As a result our faith would not grow; our love for God would not grow; and our love for others would not grow. Like the religious leaders, do we criticise others because of our own insecurity? Do we stop short of giving credits to others because we are too concerned about our own popularity? No one can claim their motives are always clear? No one can claim their decisions are always objective or based on faith. We need to be aware of our own blind spots and move on. Guard your heart: keep it compassionate; keep it tender; keep it pure. Flush our any bitterness, greed, jealous, anger with the love of God. Let the love of God flow through you. Guard your mind: whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things (Phil 4:8). |
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