Have I Committed the Unforgivable Sin

Introduction:

Witness encounter - God can’t forgive me

As we begin our study today of the unforgivable sin, we first need to take a survey of the landscape and see what we are looking at. Every teaching in Scripture occurs within a context. If we ignore that context, we will not be able to properly interpret the passage. Let’s first take a look at the outline of the passage we are studying this morning.

Outline of the text:

The Call to Confess Christ Before Man (vv.8-9)

The Warning Against the Unforgivable Sin (v. 10)

The Empowerment of the Spirit to Confess Christ Before Man (vv.11-12)

It is important before we dive in to understand this question in context. First, if a person is asking the question because they are scared that they might do something to lose their salvation, then they can rest assured. We cannot earn our salvation and we cannot lose it. This line of reasoning is the equivalent of a child that receives a new bike from his parents on Christmas and gets worried that he might make his parents mad and cause them to take the bike back.

If you are a parent, you know that your love for your child doesn’t work that way. We don’t take a bike away just because a child makes mistakes. Salvation is also not like a bike. It is more equivalent to a child being adopted into a new family. You don’t un-adopt them because they mess up.

The second way this question can be asked is by someone who is not saved. THey haven’t trusted Christ and they feel they have sinned so greatly that God won’t accept them.

Neither of these scenarios is what Jesus had in mind when He gave this teaching. Jesus is talking about an event that occured with those who lived during His time. We will look at what this sin is and if it is possible to still commit the unforgivable sin.

Let’s take a look.

1. What is the Unforgivable Sin

Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit

Matthew 12:31 ESV

Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

Luke 8:10-

Luke 8:10 ESV

he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’

Mark 3:28–30 ESV

“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

What is that?

Luke 12:10 ESV

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

What is that?

First of all what is blasphemy.

Blasphemy is defined as “profane or sacrilegious talk about God or sacred things.

In other words it is an angry shaking of the fist at God in defiance of Him. It is cursing God.

Now this is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. So we are talking about blasphemy against the third Person of the Trinity.

By the way, for your non-Trinitarian friends, you might ask them how to explain this if God is not One in three. Jesus says that sins against the Son will be forgiven, but not against the Holy Spirit.

This statement makes sense once we understand what we are dealing with. We are essentially talking about two things.

A. Attributing the Works of Christ to Satan

Mark 3:22–30 ESV

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

In this passage we see that Jesus is performing obvious signs that show that the power of God is present among them. These signs are so obvious that everyone could see that Jesus was acting in the power of God to do these miracles like raising the dead and healing the sick.

The Pharisees see this AND have the witness of the Holy Spirit telling them that this is from God and yet they refuse to believe. They stiffen their necks and become obstinate and refuse to accept that Jesus is from God. They also go so far as to attribute this power to Satan and not God.

B. Denying the Witness of the Holy Spirit About Jesus

The second interpretation of the unforgivable sin is denying the witness the Holy Spirit gives to Who Jesus is. and address this.

Acts 7:51 ESV

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.

Hebrews 6:4–6 ESV

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

Heb. 6:

Both of these passages speak about resisting the witness of the Holy Spirit about Christ and hardening the heart.

2. Can I Commit the Unforgivable Sin?

The answer to this is yes and no.

First of all, we need to again look at the context of what you are asking. If you are asking if you can sin somehow and not be forgiven, then - no, you cannot commit this sin and have not committed it.

However, if you are asking if a person can still technically commit the unforgivable sin, then the answer is yes. Now, I was always taught early on that you cannot commit this sin, but if we go back and look at the two definitions for what this is, then we see it is possible. Now we do not see with our eyes what Jesus was doing like the Pharisees did, but we do have the account written down for us to believe or reject.

Scenario 1 is the person who despite the obvious evidence for who Jesus is, they refuse to believe in Jesus. There can be a number of reasons why they will not believe, but that person hardens their heart and resists the evidence of Who Jesus is and will not believe.

Scenario 2 is similar. It is the person that simply will not believe the witness of the Holy Spirit in their heart that they need to trust Jesus. They can even have a religious experience like what talks about and seem like they were saved. They can walk and aisle, say a prayer, and get dunked and not be saved, all the while convincing everyone else that they were saved.

We hear a lot these days about de-conversion stories. These are people that supposedly walk away from the faith. Listen to what John says about them.

1 John 2:18–19 ESV

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

:18-19

John is equating all of those who reject Christ as having the spirit of antichrist. He even says that it is a good thing that they went out from us to reveal who they really are. The Bible is clear that the church has wheat and tares. It is hard to tell them a part and 1 of 2 things will happen. They will either reveal themselves by walking away from the faith or they will be exposed in the final judgment.

has scared some people to believe that you can lose your salvation. That sounds kind of like an unforgivable sin. But is simply saying that if you don’t accept Jesus, you can’t be saved again because their is no other salvation outside of Jesus.

Conclusion:

When we think of the unforgivable sin, one thing needs to come to our minds. Have I rejected Jesus? If I have, there is no salvation for me. If I am to commit the unforgivable sin, it means that I will ultimately never change from my position that Jesus is no Lord.

However, if a person once believes that Jesus is not the Son of God that died for our sins but later changes their mind and believes that it is necessary to believe on Him to be saved and trust in His saving work on the cross for our sins, then they have not committed the unforgivable sin. To commit that sin requires that a person remain in their obstinate rebellion rather than trusting Christ.

So can you be forgiven of anything you’ve had done? Yes.

Is their any sin keeping you from God? None!

Will you trust in Jesus as your Savior and Lord? That’s up to you to determine!