Blaspheming the Holy Spirit? I do not think it means what you think it means…

Bible Readings for Sunday, June 10th, 2012
– The Time after Pentecost

*Click on each bible passage to expand the text.

Genesis 3:8-15

8. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10. He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11. And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12. The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13. Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14. So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Psalm 130

1. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;
2. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
3. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?
4. But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.
5. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
6. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
8. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

2 Corinthians 4:13—5:1

13. It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, 14. because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. 15. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.16. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.1. Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

Mark 3:20-35

20. Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”22. And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”23. So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? 24. If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house. 28. I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. 29. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”30. He said this because they were saying, “He has an evil spirit.”Jesus’ Mother and Brothers31. Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

33. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.

34. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35. Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

“…guilty of an eternal sin.”

Mark 3
28. I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. 29. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”

This passage about the “one eternal sin” we can commit has always been my bugaboo. I cannot wrap my head around what this sin “is”!

I do not accept the populist modern Evangelical explanation, which is encapsulated in the following quote:

The Typical Modern Evangelical Attempt at Explanation

“I believe, the only unforgivable sin is the rejection of Jesus Christ’s offer of salvation, His free gift of eternal life, and thus, His forgiveness from sin.”

- Mary Fairchild, Calvary Chapel

“Unforgivable sin”? I do not think it means what you think it means…

Therefore, this popular interpretation makes absolutely no sense.

Calling for Backup…

And because this is exiting my realm of ability to provide adequate commentary, I will now turn to the matchless wisdom of William Barclay, renowned bible commentator:

We must begin by remembering that Jesus could not have used the phrase ‘the Holy Spirit’ in the full Christian sense of the term. The Spirit in all his fullness did not come until Jesus had returned to his glory. It was not until Pentecost that there came to men and women the supreme experience of the Holy Spirit. Jesus must have used the term in the Jewish sense of the term. Now in Jewish thought the Holy Spirit had two great functions. First, he revealed God’s truth; second, he enabled that truth to be recognized. That will give us the key to this passage.

Barclay, William (2010-11-05). The Gospel of Mark (The New Daily Study Bible) (p. 91). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

We must use the term “Holy Spirit” in the Jewish concept: that which revealed God’s truth and enabled that truth to be recognized.

The Holy Spirit enabled men and women to recognize God’s truth when it entered their lives. But if people refuse to exercise any God-given faculty they will in the end lose it.

• If they live in the dark long enough they will lose the ability to see.
• If they stay in bed long enough they will lose the power to walk.
• If they refuse to do any serious study they will lose the power to study.
• And if people refuse the guidance of God’s Spirit often enough they will become in the end incapable of recognizing that truth when they see it.

In their eyes, evil becomes good and good evil. They can look on the goodness of God and call it the evil of Satan.

Barclay, William (2010-11-05). The Gospel of Mark (The New Daily Study Bible) (pp. 91-92). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

For example:

If we repeatedly and cynically deny the truth of God’s will for charity, we will begin to see charity to the less fortunate as foolish and naive on the part of those doing the giving. If we willfully deny the the dangers of worshiping Mammon, we will begin to view greed and avarice as positive traits, and even as signs of righteousness and riches as a blessing from God. And if we accept God’s free gift of Grace for ourselves and others like us, and yet deny it to others, we will begin to pervert that “free gift” into “a reward that must be earned”, negating Grace.

All these things are “eternal sins”.

But why are these things “eternal sins”?

There is only one condition of forgiveness and that is penitence. As long as people see loveliness in Christ, as long as they hate sin even if they cannot leave it, even if they are in the mud and the mire, they can still be forgiven. But if people, by repeated refusals of God’s guidance, have lost the ability to recognize goodness when they see it, if they have got their moral values inverted until evil to them is good and good to them is evil, then, even when they are confronted by Jesus, they are conscious of no sin; they cannot repent and therefore they can never be forgiven. That is the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Barclay, William (2010-11-05). The Gospel of Mark (The New Daily Study Bible) (p. 93). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

The reason that these sins are “eternal” is because true healing from sin requires us to become aware of it in the first place!

• The greedy man will never be healed because he refuses to see himself as sick with greed.
• The callous cynic will never be healed because they view themselves as “more enlightened” and “won’t be made a fool anymore”.
• And the “us vs. them” religious types will never be healed because they think divisions and barriers are what God actually wants!

We choose to make these sins “eternal” and “unforgivable”, and as long as we are blind to them, we are blind to God and the difference between good and evil.

It is not God who denies forgiveness and healing, it is we who deny it to ourselves:

One of the Lucifer legends tells how one day a priest noticed in his congregation a magnificently handsome young man. After the service, the young man stayed for confession. He confessed so many and such terrible sins that the priest’s hair stood on end. ‘You must have lived long to have done all that,’ the priest said. ‘My name is Lucifer and I fell from heaven at the beginning of time,’ said the young man. ‘Even so,’ said the priest, ‘say that you are sorry, say that you repent and even you can be forgiven.’ The young man looked at the priest for a moment and then turned and strode away. He would not and could not say it; and therefore he had to go on still desolate and still damned.

Barclay, William (2010-11-05). The Gospel of Mark (The New Daily Study Bible) (p. 93). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.