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Why Is Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit Less
Forgivable Than Against Jesus?
Why are insults against Jesus more
forgivable than insults against the Holy Spirit? Consider what Christ taught concerning insulting the
Holy Spirit in Matt. 12:31-32: "Therefore I tell you, every sin
and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will
not be forgiven. And whoever says a word against the Son of man [Jesus]
will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be
forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come." In context, Jesus was replying against the
Pharisees’ accusation that Jesus cast out demons by the power of Satan (verse
24). But Jesus was using the Holy
Spirit as the source of His power to cast out evil spirits, the demons. Perhaps, as “The Bible Background Commentary”
explains in its volume on the New Testament
(p. 144), that here “Jesus probably means that [the Pharisees’ hearts]
were becoming so hard they would never think to repent.” The Pharisees were opposing Jesus’
messiahship so strongly that they were resorting to false accusations of
sorcery in order to avoid admitting the Spirit’s signs that confirmed His
identity. By rejecting a key proof of
Jesus’ identity as the Messiah (i.e., His power to do miracles, such as by
casting out demons), the Pharisees were permanently rejecting His identity. If they could explain this power away, they
could explain anything else away as proof that God sent Him. By resorting to extremely tenuous
explanations of Jesus’ power to do miracles, they were putting their own chance
for salvation at risk.
So why does God regard
insults against the Holy Spirit as worse than insults against
Jesus? Maybe that's because the Holy Spirit is the means by
which saved Christians are granted eternal life
conditionally. The continued, conditional presence of the
Holy Spirit is necessary for salvation (II Cor. 5:5). Paul told us that
(Col. 1:27) "Christ in you [is] the hope of glory [final
salvation]." So then, if someone insults the means by which he
or she would gain eternal life, there's no way for such a person to be saved. II Cor. 3:17 says, "Now the Lord is the
Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." So
if Jesus is in us through us having the Spirit, and the Spirit is almost
the same as Jesus Himself, then insults against the Spirit of God are really
against Him also. Furthermore, let’s
consider an explanation found in Matthew Henry’s Commentary (p. 1675, one
volume edition), the Holy Spirit was distributed and gained by Christians on
Pentecost after much more knowledge was available about God’s truth (including
Jesus’ death and resurrection), but while Jesus walked the earth in the flesh,
people could have more doubts and uncertainty despite the miracles He did. That is, as God allowed more evidence to be
given over time, people have less excuse to deny the Holy Spirit than Jesus
Himself.
In Ephesians 4:30, Paul wrote:
"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the
day of redemption." Now the Greek word here is "lupeo,"
which means "to cause pain," "to distress," "to be
sad," "to become sorrowful," and "to grieve."
According to the Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich Greek-English lexicon (p. 481), they
think the word means in this context, "vex, irritate, offend,
insult." So clearly we can insult or offend the Holy Spirit by
other means than with words.
Let’s turn to a key proof of Jesus'
Deity. Consider Jesus' ability to
forgive sins by His own authority.
While healing the paralytic, Jesus told him "your sins are
forgiven" (Mark 2:5; cf. Luke 5:19).
Immediately, some of the scribes hearing Him questioned His apparent
presumption: "Why does this man
speak that way? He is blaspheming; who
can forgive sins but God alone?" (Mark 2:7). Despite knowing their thinking, Jesus proceeded to assert His
authority to forgive sins (v. 10), without doing anything to correct their
interpretation of His statement.
Remember, He wasn't forgiving sins committed against Himself, i.e., as
an individual who had been wronged or offended, but was forgiving sins
generically.
Now does Jesus’ ability to forgive
sins really show that He is God (Mark 2:7-11)? In response to this argument, it’s been said (while quoting John
20:23 as proof) that this power was later given to other men who clearly
weren't God. In this text, Jesus told
the apostles: "If you forgive the
sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any,
they have been retained." Hence,
if anyone can forgive anyone else for his or her sins, and assuming this wasn't
a specific power given to the ministry about their authority to
disfellowship/excommunicate (I Cor. 5:3-5, 11-13), then Jesus' power to forgive
sins is no proof of His divinity. So
then, is there a difference between forgiving the sins of someone who did
something against you personally, and generically forgiving the sins of someone
who sinned against God or someone else?
For example, it makes sense I can forgive a friend in the church for
offending me, but could I forgive (say) the sin of idolatry that a now
repentant ex-Hindu committed by worshiping an idol in a temple in Calcutta last
week? It seems that this basic
distinction between what sins that a man can forgive another man for is not
some creation of traditional Protestantism attacking the power of Catholic
priests to pronounce absolution upon a parishioner who confessed his sins, but
reaches much further back.
Notice that Peter, long before the
crucifixion, asked Jesus, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me
and I forgive him? Up to seven
times?" (Matt. 18:21). I've heard
it said that Peter's question was partially a response to a Jewish teaching
that you had to forgive someone only three times for his or her sins against
you. Peter's question doesn't seem to
reflect anything particularly innovative or "controversial," as if he
were asking for a prerogative that only God had had, but he was asking for
additional light on how to conduct his life properly. Given this background, John 20:23 likely concerns the forgiveness
of sins committed against the apostles personally, not the generic power to
give absolution to the sins of all repentant comers, similar to what Catholic
priests do after confessions. There is
no case in the New Testament in which an apostle forgave the sins of repentant
believers that had been committed against God or against others besides himself. Hence, for the Arians and Unitarians to
carry this argument against the Deity of Christ, they have to prove more from
Scripture that individual believers can directly forgive any sins committed by
anyone else against anyone else.
In order to avoid the witness of such
texts as John 10:30-33 and John 8:58-59 for the Deity of Christ, it has been
argued that the Jews misunderstood Jesus.
How is it known that they misunderstood Jesus? It's assumed before experience (a priori) that the Old
Testament almost uniformly reveals God to be one Person. So when Jesus says anything that causes the
Jews to accuse Him of making claims to divinity, it's said that their
accusations can't be true in any shape or form. But let's take a more open-minded approach that doesn’t
automatically assume the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament is
correct. This argument's fundamental
flaw is if someone allows others to think he is God when he isn't, and he fails
to correct it immediately, he is abominably negligent morally. Since Christ's character was so much higher
than our own, an immediate and clear correction would have been morally
required had others falsely thought that He was claiming to be God.
Undeniably, Jesus could attack clearly
the errors and misunderstandings of His listeners when in debate or dialog with
them, such as when Peter thought He wouldn't be crucified (Matt. 16:22-23) or
when arguing with the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. 22:15-46). He corrected misunderstandings about how to
keep the Sabbath when confronted with them (Luke 6:1-10; Mark 2:23-28). Importantly, when the Jews were wrong on
something, frequently it involved a misplaced emphasis or wrong spiritual
priorities within a list of requirements to obey God, not complete error (Matt.
23:23; Mark 7:5-13). Furthermore, three
times in the Bible after someone mistakenly started worshiping someone else
falsely, he was (or they were) immediately corrected. When Cornelius "fell at his feet," Peter told him,
"Stand up; I too am just a man"
(Acts 10:25-26). Having been
overwhelmed by the visions he had received through one angel, John "fell
down to worship at the feet of the angel." But the angel replied to him, "Do not do that; I am a fellow
servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the
words of this book; worship God" (Rev. 22:8-9). After the pagans of Lystra misidentified Paul and Barnabas as the
gods coming down to earth as men, they brought sacrifices out to offer to
them. In response, Paul and Barnabas tore
their clothes and cried out to the crowd, "Men, why are you doing these
things? We are also men of the same
nature as you, and preach the gospel to you in order that you should turn from
these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the
sea, and all that is in them" (Acts 14:11, 14-15). These were immediate, clear corrections, not
implicit acceptances or "sidesteps" that partially changed the
subject.
Hence, since Jesus failed to correct
the misunderstandings of the Jews concerning His own identity, but was willing
to correct them on just about everything else they had wrong (Matt. 23!), the
accusations of the Jews can only be seen as correct. Jesus didn't make His divine claims even more clear because He
didn't want to be taken before His time (cf. John 2:4; 7:6, 8, 30; 8:40). Since the Jews were quick to pick up stones
to throw at Him for committing seeming blasphemy (John 8:59; 10:31-32), there
was no need to tempt fate unnaturally.
It's a rationalization to say the Jews
were trying to stone Jesus for asserting He was just a greater human than
Abraham in John 8:53, 58-59 since the reasons to stone someone under the law
were clear and narrow. Notice that
Jesus' repeated denunciations of the Pharisees never resulted in a stoning
threat, including when He called them "sons of vipers" destined for
the Lake of Fire (Matt. 23:33). A
person could be stoned for having a spirit (Lev. 20:27), cursing (blasphemy)
(Lev. 24:10-23), false prophesying (Deut. 13:5-10), being a disobedient,
stubborn son (Deut. 21:18-21), and the sexual sins of committing adultery and
rape (Deut. 22:21-24; Lev. 20:10).
True, the Jews accused Jesus of demon possession (John 8:48, 52). This Jesus plainly denied (v. 49). The final trigger was Jesus' statement
"before Abraham was born, I am" in v. 58, making it clear blasphemy
was why they stoned him. It has been
claimed that Jesus was merely saying He was older than Abraham (which
ironically undercuts a Unitarian interpretation of John 1:1 as an allegory
since it concedes Jesus pre-existed literally, not just mentally in the mind of
God). But had Jesus only meant this, no
stoning threats would have come His way, since asserting that He was older than
Abraham wasn't blasphemous, but merely (seemingly) eccentric. For Jesus to say lived before Abraham did,
who had lived some 2000 years earlier, still reflected a question about His
true identity, since no possible ordinary human could have lived that long
before. Neither in John 8:58-59 nor in
John 10:30-39 did Jesus issue an equally plain denial that He was God, despite
it would have instantly defused the second incident.
Furthermore, as it has been pointed
out, the Gospel of John is full of Jesus making "I am" statements of
unusual significance (John 4:26; 6:35, 48, 51; 8:12, 24, 28, 58; 10:7, 11, 14;
11:25; 14:6; 15:1, 5; 18:5, 6, 8). It's
logical to conclude these statements are tied to one another thematically, so
to translate John 8:58 as "I have been" robs it of its apparent tie
to these other texts. The contrast
between Abraham's coming into existence and Jesus' "I am" of
self-existence is paralleled by Psalms 90:2, which compares the mountains'
coming into existence with God's eternal existence: "Before the mountains were born . . . from
everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." As Robert Morey observes, the Greek words
translated "I am," "ego eimi," are undeniably in the present
indicative. If Jesus had merely meant
that He had existed before Abraham, He easily could have used the imperfect
tense, "I was." Claiming that
Jesus used the historical present (which uses a present tense in order to make
a description of a past event more vivid) is not persuasive, because this
grammatical construction is found in narratives, not dialogs and debates, as in
John 8. Since Jesus nearly got stoned
for saying "ego eimi," it's simply not convincing to believe those
listening thought He merely meant, "I have existed," instead of,
"I am that I am."
Here
above blasphemy against Jesus and the Holy Spirit was explained and
described. We should always be wary of
attacking a manifestation of God or His Power when sufficient proof via
miracles and revealed character are available.
There’s no good reason to doubt then.
Eric
Snow
Click here to access
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notes for sermonettes: /sermonettes.html
Why does God Allow Evil?
Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why
Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
May Christians work on
Saturdays? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Protestant
Rhetoric vs Sabbath Refuted.htm
Should Christians obey
the Old Testament law? /doctrinalhtml/Does
the New Covenant Abolish the OT Law.htm
Do you have an immortal
soul? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Here
and Hereafter.htm
Does the ministry have
authority? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Is
There an Ordained Ministry vs Edwards.html
Is the United States the
Beast? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Are
We the Beast vs Collins.htm
Should you give 10% of
your income to your church? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Does
the Argument from Silence Abolish the Old Testament Law of Tithing 0205 Mokarow
rebuttal.htm
Is Jesus God? Click
here: /doctrinalhtml/Is
Jesus God.htm
Will there be a third
resurrection? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Will
There Be a Third Resurrection.htm
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