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31 Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. ~ Matthew 12:31-32
Today, we return to our study of Matthew 12 where the Lord Jesus has just delivered a man from demon-possession and the religious leaders of Israel accused Him of casting out the demon by the power of Satan. In response, the Lord Jesus told them a story to help them see the reality of what was happening. The Lord Jesus was there to deliver all mankind from the clutches of the enemy, and, to present the gospel of the forgiveness of sin to all who were willing of heart enough to believe Him.
In today's passage we read, "31 Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come."
Blasphemy is defiant irreverence which does not allow the presence of God to enter within. The evidence that the Lord Jesus was the promised Messiah was piling up, but, the religious leaders had not yet responded affirmatively to that mountain of evidence. Due to their continual resistance, the Lord Jesus here gave them a jolting warning which didn't change their hearts. All through the Scriptures we learn that it is the Holy Spirit's responsibility to point us to faith in the Lord Jesus and to awaken us to God. This is why the Lord Jesus gave these religious leaders this warning. He told them if they continued to reject the witness of the Holy Spirit, they would run out of opportunities to do so. To reject the Holy Spirit's witness of the Lord Jesus as the Messiah is the unforgivable sin. This explanation makes all the sense in the world since it is believing in the Lord Jesus as our Savior that qualifies us for forgiveness from God and admission into heaven.
Many have wrongly concluded that the unpardonable sin is suicide or some other egregious sin. There is nothing here or in the parallel gospel passages that suggests such. It is important to note that the religious leaders had not yet committed the unpardonable sin when they accused the Lord of being of Satan. Otherwise, the Lord Jesus would have never warned them of the unpardonable sin. By His very words, we can confidently conclude they had not come to that point. But, they were very close. The fact that the Lord Jesus warned the religious leaders makes it clear that they had not yet committed the unpardonable sin which is resisting the wooing of the Holy Spirit to believe in the Lord Jesus as Savior.
Since the religious leaders of Israel continued to resist the Holy Spirit, they died without being forgiven of their sin. Well, most of them because it was Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, two former religious leaders of Israel who took the dead body of the Lord Jesus down from the cross and buried Him. Yet, there was still a chance that those had yet to believe would have been forgiven by God. Of course, this would have only happened had they followed the wooing of the Holy Spirit to believe in the Lord Jesus as their Savior. But, they refused the Holy Spirit's promptings. They had seen the Lord Jesus demonstrate power over the demonic realm and over disease and over nature, and they knew they had to give some sort of an explanation for His supernatural power. Since they were unwilling to say it was by the power of God that He performed the miracles, they accused Him of being possessed by Satan.
The religious leaders of Israel were close to rejecting the promptings of the Holy Spirit to believe in the Lord Jesus as the promised Messiah when they accused Him of being on Satan's side. And, since they resisted the wooing of the Holy Spirit to believe in the Lord Jesus, there would be no hope for them. There is no other basis for the forgiveness of our sin other than faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus on the cross. We are forgiven when we believe in Him alone as our Savior for the forgiveness of our sin. But, if our hearts are resistant and we reject the claims of the Lord Jesus as the Messiah, the result is that there can be no forgiveness of sin for us.
We have all struggled with the thought of whether God has forgiven us of our sin or not. We have also wondered if we lost His forgiveness due to our sinfulness. These doubts are necessary for the development of our faith and they also reveal the immaturity in our theology. We needlessly question like this if we have trusted in the Lord Jesus as our Savior. Once we have concluded the Lord Jesus is God, then we have not one thing to be worried about because He took our sin head on while on His cross and God forgave all of our sin as if we had never sinned in the first place.
The unforgivable sin is not some other evil behavior like suicide, murder, lust or malice. This is why the Lord Jesus came to this earth in the first place, to be our Savior. And, it is the Holy Spirit who does the work of wooing us to God and regenerating our hearts toward Him. It is the Holy Spirit who restores us to the Father through the Lord Jesus. What matters, then, is our responsiveness to the Holy Spirit who calls us to give our allegiance to King Jesus. Just as there is growth to our faith, there is growth to our allegiance to the Lord. The equation is the Lord Jesus work on the cross plus nothing that we do equals forgiveness of our sin. It is so simple and all we have to do is to believe and to receive from the Lord Jesus the free gift He longs to give us.
