Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 3:28
Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:
28. Verily I say unto you ] a favourite formula of our Lord’s, which we often find in St John, when He would draw special attention to any of His Divine utterances.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mar 3:28; Mar 3:30
All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men.
Great sin not unpardonable, but continuance in it
There is great comfort to be derived from this statement, for such as are tempted by Satan to think their sins are too great to be forgiven. Thus thought wicked Cain, and thus many good though weak Christians are tempted to think still. Let such be assured, that there is no sin so great but Gods mercy is sufficient to pardon it, and the blood of Christ sufficient to purge away the guilt of it; neither is it the multitude or greatness of sins simply, that hinders from pardon, but impenitency in sins, whether many or few, great or small. Therefore look not only at the greatness of thy sins with one eye, as it were, but look also, with the other, at the greatness of Gods mercy and the infinite value of Christs merits; both which are sufficient to pardon and take away the guilt of thy most heinous sins if truly repented of. Look therefore at this, that there be in this a great measure of godly sorrow and repentance for thy great sins; and labour by faith to apply the blood of Christ to thy conscience for the purging of thy sins, and thou needest not doubt but they shall be pardoned. Whether thy sins be many or few, small or great, this makes nothing for thee or against thee as touching the obtaining of pardon; but it is thy continuing, or not continuing in thy sins impenitently, that shall make against thee or for thee. To the impenitent all sins are unpardonable; to the penitent all sins are pardonable, though never so great and heinous. Yet let none abuse this doctrine to presumption or boldness in sinning, because Gods mercy is great and sufficient to pardon all sins, even the greatest, except the sin against the Holy Ghost. Beware of sinning that grace may abound; beware of turning the grace of God into wantonness, for God has said He will not be merciful to such as sin, presuming on His mercy. Besides, we must remember that, although God has mercy enough to pardon great sins, yet great sins require a great and extraordinary measure of repentance. (G. Petter.)
Blasphemy
In that our Saviour, setting out the riches of Gods mercy, in pardoning all sorts of sins, though never so great (except that against the Holy Ghost), doth give instance in blasphemy, as one of the greatest; hence gather, that blasphemy against God is one of the most heinous sins, and very hard to be forgiven. This sin is committed in the following ways.
1. By attributing to God that which is dishonourable to Him, and unbeseeming His Majesty; e.g., to say He is unjust, cruel, or the author of sin, etc.
2. By taking from God, and denying unto Him that which belongs to Him.
3. By attributing the properties of God to creatures.
4. By speaking contemptibly of God. Pharaoh (Exo 5:2); Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 3:15). (G. Petter.)
Remedies against this sin of blasphemy
1. Consider the fearfulness of the sin. It argues great wickedness in the heart harbouring it.2. Consider how God has avenged Himself on blasphemers, even by temporal judgments.
3. Our tongues are given us to bless God and man.
4. Labour for a reverent fear of God in our hearts.
5. Take heed of using Gods Name irreverently, and of common swearing. (G. Petter.)
The man who will not be forgiven, cannot be forgiven
In one place Jesus seems to speak of this sin as an action, at another time He calls it speaking a word against the Holy Ghost. Is there any one word or action that a man or woman can perpetrate which will forever cut them off from Gods mercy and pardon? Not one! Study this phrase of the scribes, that Jesus cast out devils by Beelzebub, for it was the phrase which brought them under sentence for sin against the Holy Ghost, and you will understand what that sin of theirs really was. The word spoken is nothing apart from the state of heart which it reveals. It has only power to save or damn, because out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. It bears witness to that. The sin is not a word or an action, then, but a state-a state of heart; the state which sees good and denies it; which turns the light into darkness; which can look on Jesus and still lie. Such a state is the unforgiven and unforgivable sin in this world-in the eternity that now is or in that which is to come. Pardon is between two parties; he who will not be forgiven cannot be forgiven. In the hardened state above described-the state which is sin against the Holy Ghost-you will not, therefore you cannot, be forgiven. As long as you are so, that will be so, but it is nowhere said that you shall never be lifted out of that state; converted-awakened-aroused-saved-just as a man lying down with the snow torpor upon him, which means coming death, may be kept walking about, or lifted out of that torpor and saved; but as long as he is in it he cannot be saved-he must die. (H. R. Haweis, M. A.)
The unpardonable sin indescribable
Explanation of this mystery there is probably none. It best explains itself by exciting a holy fear as to trespass. Another step-only one-and we may be over the line. One word more, and we may have passed into the state unpardonable. Do not ask what this sin is; only know that every other sin leads straight up to it; and at best there is but a step between life and death. From what the merciful God does pardon, we can only infer that the sin which hath never forgiveness is something too terrible for full expression in words. He pardons abundantly. He pardoned Nineveh; He passed by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage; where sin abounded, He sent the mightiest billows of His grace; when the enemy would have stoned the redeemed, by reminding them of sins manifold, and base with exceeding aggravation, behold their sins could not be found, for His merciful hand had east them into the sea. Yet there is one sin that hath never forgiveness! As it is unpardonable, so it is indescribable. If it be too great for Gods mercy, what wonder that it should be too mysterious for our comprehension? My soul, come not thou into that secret. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Irreclaimable
Those who make the best things effects of the worst are irreclaimable. (J. H. Godwin.)
The unforgivable sin
If you poison the spring, the very source, you must die of drinking the water, so long as the poison is there. And if you deny and blaspheme the very essence from which forgiveness springs and flows, forgiveness is killed (for you) by your own hand. There can be no remission, no healing for that, since it is in fact-Evil, be thou my good; good, thou art evil! How significant it is that it is the attributing goodness, righteousness of word, life, action, good works in short, to an evil source, which is the unpardonable sin-not the converse; not the ascribing unworthy things to the source of good; not the having faulty conceptions of Him. If it were that, who among us would escape? (Vita.)
Sin against consciousness greater than against sight
Christ taught that a word spoken against the Son of Man would be forgiven, but that a word spoken against the Holy Ghost would not be forgiven: by which He probably meant that in His visible form there was so much that contravened the expectations of the people, that they might, under the mistaken guidance of their carnal feelings, speak against One who had claimed kingly position under a servants form; but that in the course of events He would appear not to the eye but to the consciousness of men; and that when He came by this higher ministry, refusal of His appeal would place man in an unpardonable state. The vital principle would seem to be, that when man denies his own consciousness, or shuts himself up from such influences as would purify and quicken his consciousness, he cuts himself off from God, and becomes a son of perdition. Speaking against the Holy Ghost is speaking against the higher and final revelation of the Son of Man. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God wilt vindicate His honour
During the prevalence of infidelity in America after the reign of terror in France, Newbury, New York, was remarkable for its abandonment. Through the influence of Blind Palmer, there was formed a Druidical Society, so called, which had a high priest, and met at stated times to uproot and destroy all true religion. They descended sometimes to acts the most infamous and blasphemous. Thus, for instance, at one of their meetings they burned the Bible, baptized a eat, partook of a mock sacrament, and one of the number, with the approval of the rest, administered it to a dog. Now, mark the retributive judgments of God, which at once commenced falling on these blasphemers. In the evening he who had administered this mock sacrament was attacked with a violent inflammatory disease; his inflamed eyeballs were protruded from their sockets, his tongue was swollen, and he died before the following morning in great bodily and mental agony. Another of the party was found dead in his bed the next morning. A third, who had been present, fell in a fit, and died immediately; and three others were drowned a few days afterwards. In short, within five years from the time the Druidical Society was organized, all the original members met their death in some strange or unnatural manner. There were thirty-six of them in all, and of these two were starved to death, seven drowned, eight shot, five committed suicide, seven died on the gallows, one was frozen to death, and three died accidentally. Of these statements there is good proof; they have been certified before justices of peace in New York.
The unpardonable sin
The doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of Christianity, both as a system of doctrines and as a religion. We stand in special relation to the several persons of the Trinity. All sin as against the Father or the Son may be forgiven, but the sin against the Holy Ghost can never be forgiven.
I. Its general character.
1. That there is such a sin which is unpardonable.
2. It is an open sin, not a sin merely of the heart. It is blasphemy. It requires to be uttered and carried out in act.
3. It is directed against the Holy Ghost, specifically. It terminates on Him. It consists in blaspheming Him, or doing despite unto Him.
II. Its specific character. This includes-
1. Regarding and pronouncing the Holy Ghost to be evil; ascribing the effect which He produces to Satan or to an evil, impure spirit.
2. The rejection of His testimony as false. He testifies that Jesus is the Son of God. The man guilty of this sin declares Him to be a man only. He testifies that Jesus is holy. The other declares He is a malefactor. He testifies that His blood cleanses from all sin. The other, that it is an unclean thing, and tramples it under foot.
3. The conscious, deliberate, malicious resistance of the Holy Spirit, and the determined opposition of the soul to Him and His gospel, and a turning away from both with abhorrence.
His sin supposes-
1. Knowledge of the gospel.
2. Conviction of its truth.
3. Experience of its power.
It is the rejection of the whole testimony of the Spirit, and rejection of Him and His work, with malicious and outspoken blasphemy. It is by a comparison of Mat 12:31, and the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, with Heb 6:6-10; Heb 10:26-29 that the true idea of the unpardonable sin is to be obtained.
III. The consequence of this sin is reprobation, or a reprobate mind.
IV. Importance of clear views of this subject.
1. Because erroneous views prevail, as
(1) That every deliberate sin is unpardonable, as the apostle says He who sins wilfully.
(2) Any peculiarly atrocious sin, as denying Christ by the lapsed.
(3) Post-baptismal sins.
2. Because people of tender conscience often are unnecessarily tormented with the fear that they have committed this sin. It is hard to deal with such persons, for they are generally in a morbid state.
3. Because as there is such a sin, every approach to it should be avoided and dreaded.
4. Because we owe specific reverence to the Holy Ghost on whom our spiritual life depends. (C. Hedge, D. D.)
The unpardonable sin
I. Now, what is forgiveness? It is the remission of the consequences of a violation of law, and of pains and penalties of every kind which arise from having broken a law. It may be considered as, first, organic. In other words, far away from human society the Divine will expresses itself in natural law. Thus a man, by intemperance, by gluttony, by excess of activity, by violation of physical law, may disarrange his whole structure. His head may suffer, his chest may suffer, any part of his body may suffer. Violence may fracture a limb, or some sprain may distort a tendon or a muscle; and everywhere man, as a physical organization, is in contact with Gods organic law in the physical world in which we live.
II. The principle of forgiveness runs through creation. That is to say, all violations of law are not fatal. They may inflict more or less pain; they may bring upon a man suffering to a certain extent; but so soon as a man finds that the derangement of his stomach has arisen from eating improper food, although the knowledge and the reformation do not take away the dyspepsia, yet, if he thoroughly turns away from the course he has been pursuing, and pursues wholesome methods, in time he will recover. Nature has forgiven him. Throughout the physical world you may cure fevers, dropsies, fractures, derangements of vital organs; you may violate all the multiplied economies that go to constitute the individual physical man, and rebound will bring forgiveness; but there is a point beyond which if you go it will not, either in youth, in middle life, or in old age. Many a young man who spends himself until he has drained the fountain of vitality dry in youth is an old man at thirty years of age; he creeps and crawls at forty, and at fifty, if he is alive, he is a wretch. Nature says, I forgive all manner of iniquity and transgression and sin to a man who does not commit the unpardonable sin.
III. For there is an unpardonable sin, physically speaking, that is possible to every man. If a thousand-pound weight fall upon a man so that it grinds the bones of his leg to powder, like flour, I should like to see any surgeon that could restore it to him. He may give him a substitute in the form of wood or cork, but he cannot give him his leg again. There is an unpardonable sin that may be committed in connection with the lungs, with the heart, or with the head. They are strung with nerves as thick as beads on a string; and up to a certain point of excess or abuse of the nervous system if you rebound there will be remission, and you will be put hack, or nearly hack, where you were before you transgressed natures laws; but beyond that point-it differs in different men, and in different parts of the same man-if you go on transgressing, and persist in transgression, you will never get over the effect of it as long as you live. (H. W. Beecher.)
The unpardonable sin
I. What are the signs? This I speak by way of relief to many and many a needlessly tried soul. The inevitable sign of the commission of the unpardonable sin is a condition in which men are past feeling; and if a man has come into that condition in which he is unpardonable-incurable-the sign will be that he does not care. If you find a person who is alarmed lest he is in that condition, his very alarm is a sign that he is not in it. I know not what was the particular case that led to the request that I should preach on the subject; but if there be those that are suffering because they fear that they have committed the unpardonable sin, in the first place, it is not a single act, it is a condition that men come into by education; and, in the second place, that condition is one in which there is a cessation of sensibility. It is a want of spiritual pulse. It is a want of the capacity of spiritual suffering. Therefore, if you do not suffer at all, it may be, it is quite likely, that you are in that condition. Those who are in that condition are never troubled about their spiritual state. But where persons are anxious on the subject of their spiritual state, and are in distress about it, and talk much respecting it, they are the very ones that cannot be in the unpardonable condition. What would you think of a man who should anxiously go around asking every physician if he did not think he was blind, when the reason of his anxiety was that he had such acuteness of vision that he saw everything so very plainly and continuously? Acuteness of vision is not a sign of blindness. What would you think of a man that should go to his physician to ascertain if he was not growing deaf, because his hearing was so good? The symptoms of deafness do not go that way. And how incompatible with the condition in which one has committed the unpardonable sin is fear lest one has committed it. That condition is one in which a person is past all feeling, and is given over to his wickedness.
II. This subject will lead us to make an important discrimination-one which we may all of us need-whether we are in a sinful state or are beginning to lead a Christian life. There is a tendency to fear great sins, and a tendency to be indifferent to little ones. Now, there are certain great sins that, being committed, may give such a moral shock to a mans constitution as to be fatal in their effects; but these are not usually fallen into. Men are not very much in danger of great sins. They are ten thousand times more in danger of little ones. Men are not in danger of committing perjury as much as they are of telling white lies, as they are called. Men are not so much in danger of counterfeiting as they are of putting on little minute false appearances. Men are not so much in danger of committing burglary as they are of committing the myriad infinitesimal injustices with which life is filled. Any particular act, to be sure, such as I have alluded to, which of itself is simply as a particle of dust, is not so culpable as a great sin; but what is the effect on the constitution of a series of these offences that are so small as to be almost imperceptible? It is these little sins, continued and multiplied, that by friction take off the enamel of a mans conscience. It is these numberless petty wrongs that men do not fear, persisted in, that are the most damaging. I should dread the incursion into my garden, in the night time, of rooting swine, or trampling ox, or browsing buffalo; but, after all, aphides are worse than these big brutes. I could kill anyone, or half a dozen, or a score of them, if they came in such limited numbers; but when they swarm by the billion I cannot kill one in ten thousand of them-and what can I do? Myriads of these insignificant little insects will eat faster than I can work, and they are the pest and danger of the garden, as often my poor asters and roses testify. There is many and many a flower that I would work hard to save, but the fecundity of insect life will quite match and overmatch, any mans industry. Weakness multiplied is stronger than strength. Now, that which does the mischief is these aphides, these myriad infinitesimal worms, these pestiferous little sins, every one of which is called white, and is a mere nothing, a small point-a mote, a speck of dust. Why, many a caravan has been overtaken, smothered and destroyed by clouds of dust, the separate particles of which were so minute as to be almost invisible. Many men are afraid that they will be left to some great sin-and they ought to fear that; but they have not the slightest fear of that which is a great deal more likely to bring them to condemnation-the series of petty violations of conscience, and truth, and duty, with which human experience is filled. Here is where every man should most seriously ponder his condition, and ask himself, What is the effect of the conduct that I am day by day evolving? Am I educating myself toward moral sensibility, or away from moral sensibility?
III. This leads me to say that every man should take heed to the way in which he treats his conscience. If the light in him be darkness, how great is that darkness! When we put a lighthouse on the coast, that in the night mariners may explore the dark and terrible way of the sea, we not only swing glass around it to protect it, but we enclose that glass itself in a network of iron wire, that birds may not dash it in, the summer winds may not swoop it out, and that swarms of insects may not destroy themselves and the light. For if the light in the lighthouse be put out, how great a darkness falls upon the land and upon the sea. And the mariner, waiting for the light, or seeing it not, miscalculates, and perishes. Now, a mans conscience ought to be protected from those influences that would diminish its light, or that would put it out; but there are thousands of men who are every day doing their utmost to destroy this light. When they do wrong, their conscience rebukes them, and they instantly attempt to suppress it and put it down. They undertake to excuse themselves and palliate the wrong. The next day, when they do wrong, the same process goes on, and they make a deliberate war against their conscience; for it is a very painful thing for a man to do wrong and carry the hurt, and he feels that he must overcome this tormentor if he would have any peace, a great many men not only are making war against the light of God in the soul, but are beginning to feel the greatest complacency in their achievements. They come to a state in which they can lie and not feel bad. They come to a state in which they can do a great deal of injustice, and not have it strike them any mere as injustice. Men that have got along so far in this moral perversion that their conscience has ceased to trouble them, and they think of wrong-doing merely as a thing that is in the way of business, are sometimes surprised as their mind strikes back to the time when they were more sensitive to right, and they say, I recollect that, ten or fifteen years ago, when I first began to do such things, I used to be so troubled about them that I lay awake nights; but, it is a long time since they have given me any trouble. They muse, and say, How queer it is. I used to shrink from things that were not just right, and to be afraid to deviate in the least from the strictest rectitude; but I have got over it. Now I do not feel so. How is it? I wonder what has happened to me. Oh, yes; you wonder what has happened to you. There has been death in your house. The cradle is empty. Souls die. The moral element of your soul is dead. Why, many and many a man, who used to be sensitive to purity, whose cheek used to colour at the allusion to impurity, has got so now that the whole literature of impurity is familiar to him. Impure scenes, impure narratives, the whole morbid intercourse of impure minds, they now never feel any shrinking from. Their moral nature is seared as with a hot iron. There are men that come not only to be wicked, but to be struck through and through with wickedness, so that they love men that are, wicked, and hate men that are not. They come to have a great contempt for anything that is not wickedness, and to have a great regard, if not respect, for wickedness itself. And this they come to not at a plunge. Men never go down such a moral precipice headlong. They go down by degrees. The decline from a state of moral sensitiveness is very gradual-so gradual that it does not seem to men to be on the downward way. Flowers are round about their feet, the path is shaded and pleasant, and they go far down before they begin to have any sense of an approaching change. The way from right to wrong is a deceptive way, and a fatal way, and on it men go far along toward destruction before their suspicions are awakened. (H. W. Beecher.)
Warning and encouragement
1. There is here a very full proclamation of the grace of the gospel-the efficacy of His blood.
2. A particular sin is nevertheless singled out, and placed beyond the reach of forgiveness. Warned against it rather than charged with it. It seems to belong to the gospel dispensation.
3. Its characteristics are-It is committed against the Spirit personally, against the clearest demonstration, from malice, without relenting or repentance. Repentance, being a grace of the Spirit, would show that it had not been committed. (J. Stewart.)
Despair vanquished by prayer
I have read of one in despair whom Satan persuaded it was in vain to pray or serve God, for he must certainly go to hell; he nevertheless still went to prayer, and begged of God that if he must go to hell when he died, yet He would please give him leave to serve Him whilst he lived. Having thus prayed, his terrors vanished, being clearly convinced that none could pray that prayer who had sinned against the Holy Ghost. (Sheffield.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 28. See Clarke on Mr 3:27.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Verily I say unto you,…. The Scribes and Pharisees, who had not only blasphemed him, but the Spirit of God also:
all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme; God; or the Son of God, angels, and men, and that through the blood of Christ, and when brought to a sense of the evil of them; for though pardon is procured before, it is not applied till then; [See comments on Mt 12:31].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Compare Mt 12:31; and note Mark’s superior precision and fullness of detail.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Verily I say unto you,” (amen lego humin) ”Truly, surely, or truthfully I assert to you all; – Jesus turned from reasoned argumentation to a solemn warning to these scribes concerning their perilous, moral condition, their open-eyed, self-willed rejection of evident truth, Pro 29:1, Rom 2:1.
2) ”All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men,” (hoti panta aphethesetai tois huiois ton anthropon ta aphartemata) “That all (kinds of) sins will be forgiven or pardoned to the sons of men;- The term (Gk, amen) verily or truly was uttered in a solemn tone, not to be forgotten, lest they be damned in hell as in Psa 9:17.
3) ”And blasphemies,” (kai hai blaspemiai) “And the blasphemies,” of all kinds, shall be pardoned or forgiven the sons of men. Matthew uses the term of blasphemies against the “Son of man,” Mat 12:31-32.
4) “Where with so ever they shall blaspheme:” (hosa ean blasphemesosin) “Whatever they may blaspheme,” of whatever kind of blasphemy it may be against the Son of man, as an individual, as a person, derisions, and profanity, and mockery (of all manners and kind) will be pardoned for and against all who come to Jesus, in response to the call and drawing of the Holy Spirit, Joh 6:37; Joh 6:44. The perilous danger and the solemn warning of such blasphemy is not that such is not pardonable, but that no one knows when the call of the spirit is being blasphemed, spoken against, for the final time for any individual, Heb 4:7.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
C. THE UNPARDONABLE SIN 3:28-30
TEXT 3:28-30
Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin: because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.
THOUGHT QUESTIONS 3:28-30
146.
What is meant by the word blaspheme?
147.
Why use the expression verily I say unto you? What does it mean?
148.
Is Jesus saying the sins of men will be forgiven them or could be forgiven?
149.
When Jesus warned concerning it, had anyone committed the eternal sin?
150.
Why is it impossible to forgive this sin? (Please attempt an answer of your own).
COMMENT
TIMEAutumn of 28 A.D.
PLACEAt home in Capernaum.
PARALLEL ACCOUNTSMat. 12:31-37.
OUTLINE1. Forgiveness promised, Mar. 3:28. 2. One exception, Mar. 3:29. 3. The cause of such a severe warning, Mar. 3:30.
ANALYSIS 3:28-30
I.
FORGIVENESS PROMISED, Mar. 3:28.
1.
Promised with great certainty.
2.
To all the sons of men.
3.
All sins and blasphemies.
II.
ONE EXCEPTION, Mar. 3:29.
1.
Applies to all.
2.
The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
3.
An eternal sin with no forgiveness.
III.
THE CAUSE OF SUCH A SEVERE WARNING, Mar. 3:30.
1.
The Pharisees and scribes involved.
2.
The words, He hath an unclean spirit caused the warning.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
I.
FORGIVENESS PROMISED, Mar. 3:28.
Mar. 3:28-30. I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven . . . He hath an unclean spirit. We learn clearly from this place in what this fearful sin consists; the only one of all the evils which the sons of men commit which will not be forgiven. Those with whom the Lord was now remonstrating were in danger of committing it, because they said, He hath an unclean spirit, This was, in point of fact, almost equivalent to their calling the Lord an Incarnation of Satan.
II.
ONE EXCEPTION, Mar. 3:29.
In order to see something of the wickedness of this sin we must realize that all our Lords teaching was on the side of God and goodness, and all His miracles, especially that of the expulsion of evil spirits, were done to enforce such teaching, and to set forth the character of Godthe God Who sent Him, as at once a holy and benevolent God, desirous to free men from the yoke of all moral and spiritual as well as of all physical evil. To call the Spirit of such an One as our Lord an evil spirit was the extremest form of that wickedness denounced by the prophet when he said: Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness (Isa. 5:20). For a man to have a mind which could deliberately ascribe such a spirit to the Saviour is, as far as man can, to cut himself off from redemptionto make the acceptance of redemption impossible to him. This will be more clearly seen if we remember certain words said on this occasion by the Lord, which are only given in St. Matthew, Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him, but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, A man might, through prejudice, speak against the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah, He might not be the Messiah whom he expected. He might be led away by false hopes of an earthly temporal Messiah, to reject the true one. Such an one might continue in infidelity, but the door of repentance and faith would be open to him, because, as Saul of Tarsus, what he did in rejecting Christ he did ignorantly and in unbelief. But if such an one had an opportunity of observing the Spirit of Christthe Spirit of goodness and love displayed in all His character and discourses, and enforced by His mighty deeds, all on the side of benevolence and holiness, and yet deliberately called such a Spirit the Spirit of Evil, then there was nothing left in him for Redemption to take hold of. He was reprobate in the deepest sense of the word. He had first given himself over, and then he was given over by God, to a reprobate mindthat is, to his own evil, absolutely evil, self. But if a person thus ascribed the works of Christ to the power of evil, would that not be blaspheming against the Son of Mannot against the Holy Spirit? No, we are told that both the teaching and the mighty works of Christ were done by the Spirit (Act. 1:2; Mat. 12:28). Christ taught very emphatically that He did nothing of Himself. He must, consequently, act by some spiritual power not His own. Was that power Divine or diabolical? Of God, or of Gods enemy? If a man deliberately said it was from Gods enemy he displayed an intensity of perverse and malicious wickedness almost incredible.
III.
THE CAUSE OF SUCH A SEVERE WARNING, Mar. 3:30.
Some of the most acute observations on this difficult subject are to be found in Calvins Commentary on the Synoptics. Shall any unbeliever curse God? It is as if a blind man were dashing against a wall. But no man curses the Spirit, who is not enlightened by Him, and conscious of ungodly rebellion against Him; for it is not a superfluous distinction, that all other blasphemies shall be forgiven, except that one blasphemy which is directed against the Spirit. If a man shall simply blaspheme against God, he is not declared to be beyond the hope of pardon, but of those who have offered outrage to the Spirit it is said that God will never forgive them. Why is this but because those only are blasphemers against the Spirit, who slander His gifts and power contrary to the conviction of their own mind?
Two observations on all this may not be out of place:
1. It is clear that no one can have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost who desires the influence of the Holy Ghost to deliver him from sin, and make him love God, for such an one must believe that the power exhibited in Christ was on the side of God and goodness. He must believe that Christ was actuated and impelled by a holy and good spirit, which must be from God.
2. Looked at in the light of this one exception to the forgiving power of God, how exceedingly broad and large is the promise implied in the 28th verse, Verily, I say unto you, ALL sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men. The one exception proves the universality of the rule. If any sinner has a mind to lay hold on the Divine mercy, no memory of past sin need deter him; and the state of mind which he has towards sin, and his desire of deliverance, forbids the idea that he has committed the one unpardonable sin. (M. F. Sadler).
FACT QUESTIONS 3:28-30
176.
What was meant by saying of the Lord, He hath an unclean spirit?
177.
What helps us to realize something of the wickedness of this sin?
178.
Show how the man who would attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan is reprobate in the deepest sense of the word.
179.
Would not speaking against the works of Christ be speaking against the Son of Man instead of against the Holy Spirit? Explain.
180.
What did Calvins comments add to your understanding of this subject?
181.
When can one know he has not committed this sin? Could the sinner know he had committed this sin? Explain.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
“Truly I affirm to you, to the sons of men all their sins shall be forgiven, and their blasphemies in whatever way they shall blaspheme, but whoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” Because they said “He has an unclean spirit”.
There is no more dread statement than this. They have seen the Holy Spirit at work in undeniable power, and because of their closed minds and their prejudice they impute it to an unholy, an unclean spirit. And yet they claimed to be teachers and responsible for the beliefs of others. Thus by their hypocrisy they were leading others astray. They must therefore beware. This put them in danger of having closed hearts and minds for ever. And should that happen there would then be no way back, there would be no way of forgiveness, the Spirit would never act in their hearts. Their sin would have eternal consequences.
All other sins could be forgiven. All blasphemies of whatever kind against God can be forgiven (what an assurance is this), but not this. To face the testimony of the Spirit of God, revealed in a revelation of His power, and to deliberately twist it so as not to have to face up to it is to put oneself in danger. To impute to Satan the clear work of the Holy Spirit, and to go on doing so against testimony of mind and conscience, and to teach others so is the greatest of follies. For at length such a mind would become hardened, such a conscience would cease to work, and such a man would then become unreachable by God – through his own ill doing.
‘Truly I affirm.’ (Amen lego). A solemn guarantee of the words that follow, sworn in His own name.
‘To the sons of men all their sins shall be forgiven, and their blasphemies in whatever way they shall blaspheme.’ Forgiveness is available to all, if, of course, they repent and believe. But what an amazing assurance this is on the honour of Jesus Himself. He is confirming that there is no sin so evil or so blasphemous that it cannot be forgiven through the blood of Christ. That no one can have sinned so badly that he cannot be forgiven. Unless, that is, he has finally hardened his heart against God to such an extent that he is unable to repent. But then he will never know of his sin until the judgment. He will walk unconscious of it because his heart is hardened and unreachable. (It is not those who fear that they have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit who have done so. Those who are in danger of it are those who laugh at the very idea). So Jesus was seeking to jolt the Scribes into reconsidering their position before it was too late.
‘An eternal sin.’ That is, one from which there is no recovery and which will result therefore in eternal punishment.
Because they said “He has an unclean spirit”. This connecting word irrevocably connects the final statements with what has gone before. (Mark is short on connecting links therefore this is the more significant here). Their crowning sin is that they call the Spirit of God Himself ‘unclean’, and say that His power over Satan is imputed to one cut off from God by uncleanness. By this they deny the holiness of Jesus and of the Spirit Who is at work through Him. If we sometimes feel the Scribes and Pharisees hard done by we need to remember what it was that they saw and rejected. They saw the holy power of God and dismissed it as of the Devil.
Note that it is the Teachers from Jerusalem who are primarily seen as being in danger of this situation. Jerusalem in its religious piety is already revealing itself as the enemy of Jesus and of the truth. We are already being prepared for what will later follow in Jerusalem, even though at present it is a distant menace.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
A warning against the unforgivable sin:
v. 28. Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme;
v. 29. but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation:
v. 30. because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. With solemn emphasis Jesus gives the Pharisees this warning. Jesus knew that the scribes did not believe their own theory as to His ability to cast out devils. “You are not merely mistaken theorists, you are men in a very perilous moral condition. Beware!” God’s mercy is as wide as heaven and earth; His forgiveness actually embraces all sins, even the ordinary blasphemies, wherewith so many people continually offend against Him. But there is one great exception, namely, when the blasphemy is directed against the Holy Ghost. This sin is unpardonable, its guilt lasts forever, it has no forgiveness forever. He that commits it is guilty of a transgression whose consequences will last throughout eternity. This solemn and complete declaration was called forth by the charge of the Jews that Jesus had an unclean spirit. Thus the blasphemy was directed against the Spirit of God that lived in Christ, and hence His warning. If the scribes had been ignorant, or if they had misunderstood the Lord and had been seeking some explanation of His strange power over demons, that would have been a sin against the Son of Man, and therefore pardonable. But they spoke against better knowledge; their charge was a deliberate, malicious blasphemy, and therefore their charge cast mockery upon the Holy Ghost.
The Sin Against The Holy Ghost
It is a solemn and impressive warning which Jesus gave to the Pharisees upon the occasion of their blasphemy and one well worth heeding even in our days, perhaps with greater force than ever. There is so much levity, so much frivolity at the present time that people refuse to give heed to the seriousness of their eternal welfare and foolishly squander the time of grace.
It must be remembered, first of all, that God wants all men to be saved, 1Ti 2:4. The whole world is included in His plan of redemption, Joh 3:16. And God makes an effort to have people, all men, to come to the knowledge of the truth, Mat 28:20. But what is the result?
Some there are that trifle away frivolously the time of grace given them in this world, Mat 24:37-38. Some there are that refuse to give heed to the invitation of the Gospel, Mat 23:37. Some there are that hear the Gospel, perhaps even grow up in the midst of the Christian Church, but never let the knowledge of Christ the Savior enter into their hearts. To them the Gospel is the savor of death unto death, 2Co 2:16. Others go farther than that, stubbornly resisting every effort of the Spirit to enter into their hearts and begin the work of regeneration, consistently following their own evil will, not permitting the good and gracious will of God to be carried into effect in their case. They harden their hearts, as Scripture says, I Samuel 6:6; Eze 2:4; Hos 13:8; Mat 13:15; Rom 2:5. And here the judgment of God may come upon them. Since they have hardened their hearts against His good and gracious will, He now proceeds to continue the judgment which they have begun upon themselves, Joh 12:40; Rom 9:18; Heb 3:8-13.
This hardening of the hearts is closely related to the sin against the Holy Ghost. It may be called a species of that sin. This sin is spoken of plainly in several passages of the Bible, Mat 12:30-32; Mar 3:28-30; Luk 12:10; 1Jn 5:16; Heb 6:4-8. From these passages the following description may be deduced. The sin is committed, not against the person, but against the work of the Holy Ghost, which consists in calling sinners to Christ and giving them the assurance of their salvation. Not the mere blasphemous thoughts, but the actual speaking, the open mockery of the work of the Holy Ghost, is condemned in these passages. If the work of the Holy Ghost is believed to be, and is openly declared to be, the work of Satan, then the blasphemy is directed against the Spirit. Such blasphemy is uttered in full consciousness and with the most perfect comprehension of the import of the blasphemy; the blasphemer glories in his blasphemy. People that are guilty of this sin were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come, Heb 6:4-5. By the very nature of the sin, repentance is excluded. Man having gotten into this condition of continual blasphemy by his own fault, repudiates all attempts of God to influence Him for good. The soil of his heart has become cursed, and will bear nothing but thorns. The sin against the Holy Ghost is therefore one which cannot be acknowledged; a confession of sin and a desire for forgiveness is excluded by its nature.
The following points, therefore, should be kept in mind always. The person that commits the sin against the Holy Ghost must either have been converted, or must at least have had the opportunity of feeling the influence of the Holy Ghost upon his heart. It is essential that the truth be rejected, whose soundness and sacredness the sinner cannot deny. The person living in this sin will continue in his stubborn resistance, with blasphemous, outspoken mockery of the work of the Holy Ghost, until the end. The sin is not unpardonable on account of its greatness, but on account of its nature of rejecting all pardon. No one has committed the sin that still seeks repentance. And finally, we cannot be sure until after a person’s death whether he has committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and even then it is best to keep the judgment in abeyance.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Mar 3:28. Blasphemiesblaspheme Or revilingsrevile. Mar 3:29. Is in danger of] Is liable to.
Inferences.There is something peculiarly beautiful in the account which St. Mark gives us of our Lord’s indignation in Mar 3:5. Even his anger was compassionate; he was angry, and yet grieved; angry at the sin, grieved for the sinner. Even when we, through our fatal obstinacy and hardness of heart, give him the justest cause for anger, yet at the same time is he afflicted for us; more pitiful and compassionate towards us, more anxious and earnest for our welfare and recovery, than the shepherd for his lost and wandering sheep; than the father for his prodigal and abandoned son. Our hardness of heart very justly excites his anger; our condemnation and destruction consequent upon this perverseness, raise in his heart the tenderest concern.
How much should this caution us, not to abuse his compassion and mercy, lest he be at length angry indeed, and utterly turn away his face in wrathful indignation from us! how much, on the contrary, should it prevent despair, and incline us to hasten to his feet, when we know that we have given him just cause of anger!To our comfort recollecting, that though he be angry, yet he is also grieved at our offences, and willing to receive us, when, humbled in heart, we return unto him.
Our Lord’s example also in this respect shews us, how our zeal in his cause should be moderated; teaching us to be angry at, and express our resentment solely against the sin, while we grieve for the sinner; truly sorry for that hardness of heart, which must involve those in destruction who resist all the motions of grace, all the offers of Christ; and who, like the Pharisees, when fully convinced, will yet contradict the evidence of their senses; will yet deny the Lord that bought them, and through base and malevolent principles oppose the Gospel of light and love. Therefore, worthy of all our observance is that resolution of Bishop Beveridge quoted in the note on the verse now under our notice: “For oh, what a sedate and contented spirit, says the good man, will this resolution breathe in me! how easy and quiet shall I be under all circumstances! Whilst others are peevish and fretful, and torment themselves with every petty trifle which doth but cross their inclinations, or seem to be injurious to them, or fall into the other extreme of a Stoical insensibility, I shall, by this resolution, maintain a medium betwixt both; and possess my soul in peace and patience.”
When we consider how much the church in all ages has been indebted to the labours of the Apostles, and how much we ourselves owe to them, we shall see great reason for thankfulness to our wise and gracious Master, who was pleased to assign this work to his servants, and so eminently to qualify them for it. It is observable, that before he sent them forth, he chose them to be with him, in a more constant attendance on his person and ministry. May all who succeed them as preachers of the Gospel, be such as have intimately known Christ themselves, and have been accustomed to spiritual converse with him! that so they may with the greater ability recommend him to others.
All ecclesiastical functions are denoted by preaching, because this is a principal function of bishops and pastors; and because it is by means of the word, and of instruction, that the kingdom of God is spread and established. How then shall they presume to call themselves ministers of Christ, who either wholly omit, or perform in the most neglectful manner, this important duty!
How terrible, yet adorable is the judgment of God, who sometimes calls to the ministry one, who, he fore-knows, will make it an occasion of his damnation! Mar 3:19. One of the advantages which God draws from the perfidiousness of one of the twelve Apostles is, to prevent the scandal of wicked ministers in the church, at which the weak are apt to be troubled.
REFLECTIONS.1st, We see Christ dispensing his miraculous cures.
1. In the synagogue, on the sabbath-day, he healed a man who had a withered hand. He knew the malignity of his enemies, and that from such a deed of mercy they would seek to raise an accusation against him as a sabbath-breaker. He therefore first put a question to them for their determination, whether it was lawful on the sabbath day to do an act of mercy, or to do evil by neglecting it? to contribute to man’s health and ease, or to let him languish, perhaps die, for want of assistance? The question answered itself; but they resolved not to admit the conviction, and in sullen silence held their peace. With indignation looking round upon them, grieved and displeased at their wilful obstinacy and hardness of heart, Jesus will not suffer their malevolence to prevent his works of grace; therefore in the face of the congregation he bids the lame man stretch out his hand, and instantly it was restored to perfect strength and soundness. Note; (1.) Deeds of mercy and charity are ever pleasing to God, and no day unseasonable for them. (2.) They who are obstinate in error and unbelief, will be convinced by no arguments. (3.) Jesus looks still with indignation upon the hard-hearted sinner; and if he do not now tremble under his frowns, he must quickly be consumed under his wrath. (4.) It is a grief to the Saviour, and all who are his people, when they behold men wilfully sinning against their own mercies. (5.) If people will be offended at our well-doing, we must not be concerned about their censures.
2. By the sea-side, whither he withdrew to shelter himself from the malice of his exasperated foes, who were now consulting about his destruction, he liberally dispensed his cures to the multitudes who resorted to him for healing from all the regions round about; till at last he was constrained to go into a boat, and put off a little from the shore, such crowds of diseased persons thronging upon him, in the confidence that could they but touch him, it would be sufficient to heal them of the most inveterate plagues. Even the devils, who dwelt in many whose bodies they had possessed, no sooner saw him, than they were forced to prostrate themselves before him, confess his divine power and Godhead, and own him as the Messiah. But to avoid the least appearance of receiving a testimony from them of his mission and character, lest his enemies should suggest that there was a confederacy between him and them, he sealed up their lips in silence, and left his own works to speak his glory, enjoining the same silence on all whom he had healed. Note; (1.) It is grievous to think, that men should ever deny that Divinity of our Lord, which even devils confessed. (2.) We never should seek the applause of men; it is enough that our works testify for us.
2nd, We have,
1. The ordination of the twelve Apostles. Going up into a mountain, he called to him whom he would from among his professed disciples, and they immediately came to him. Twelve of them he selected to be his constant attendants, to be witnesses of his doctrine, life, and miracles, and to preach his Gospel. Their names we have had before; but St. Mark particularly mentions the title given to the sons of Zebedee: they were called Boanerges, sons of thunder; either from the loudness of their voice, the vehemence of their address, or the powerful energy which should accompany their preaching. St. John, whose epistles breathe nothing but love, was one of them; and it would seem thereby to be intimated, that nothing acts so powerfully and forcibly upon the sinner’s heart, as the doctrines of the rich love and free grace of God in Jesus Christ. These twelve the Lord was pleased to invest with miraculous powers to heal sicknesses, and cast out devils, in confirmation of the doctrines that they were to teach. And having thus appointed them their office, Christ retired with them into a house for refreshment; and they henceforward attended him as his peculiar family, and continued in the greatest intimacy with him during his abode upon earth.
2. No sooner was he known to be in the house at Capernaum, than the multitude assembled, eager to hear him; and though he and his disciples had scarcely time for necessary refreshment, yet he is ready to instruct them. Such incessant labours, without respite, excited the concern of some of his friends, who could not help thinking his zeal carried him too far, and that he would faint with fatigue and want of repose. They came therefore to persuade him to desist for a while, lest he should impair his health by such uninterrupted toils. Perhaps some might think his intellects disturbed, and would fain constrain him to come in and rest himself. Note; (1.) Faithful ministers will sometimes find as great trials from the mistaken affection of their friends, as from the avowed opposition of their enemies. (2.) Fervent zeal is often branded with madness by those who never felt the love of immortal souls; but if we be beside ourselves, it is to God, 2Co 5:13.
3rdly, That he did cast out devils from them that were possessed, was evident. To evade the force of the miracles therefore, we have,
1. The cavil raised by the scribes and Pharisees who came down from Jerusalem. They pretended that he was in compact with Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, and derived this power from him.
2. Christ confutes their suggestion. It was as absurd and self-contradictory to suppose, that Satan would cast out Satan, to confirm doctrines directly tending to destroy his power over the souls of men, as to suppose that a kingdom, or a house, divided against itself, can stand, or be established by intestine factions and civil wars. The power which Jesus exerted over the fiends of darkness was like that, which the conqueror exercises over the vanquished, when he enters the fortress, binds the prisoner, and spoils his substance: Satan never would quit his hold, unless compelled. Evident therefore it was, that Christ came not as his associate, but as his destroyer. See this subject fully considered in the critical notes on this chapter, and on Mat 12:31-32.
4thly, While he was thus employed in instructing the simple-hearted in the ways of salvation, and in reproving the self-righteous Pharisees, those greatest enemies of Christ and vital religion,his mother and kinsmen drew near to the congregation: and though the crowd sat so thick around him that they could have no immediate access to him, they conveyed to him, by some of the multitude, their desire to speak with him: but he was too well employed to be diverted from his sacred function; and therefore, instead of paying any regard to his mother or brethren in this case, he turned to those around him, professing for them a regard like that due to a mother or brethren, and declaring those to be his nearest and dearest relations who truly believed, and heartily obeyed the revealed will of God. Note; (1.) How great is the folly, as well as idolatry of the Romish church in worshipping the virgin, as if she could command her Son now that he is in heaven, when even in the days of his flesh she was judged so unfit to advise him, though he certainly omitted no acts of filial duty towards her! (2.) When we are engaged in the work of Jesus, and in the way of duty, nothing must divert us from the service.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
(28) Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: (29) But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: (30) Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.
I beg the Reader’s most earnest attention to this scripture, And yet more earnestly beg that GOD the HOLY GHOST, will be both his teacher and mine. Would you wish to know, in what the particular blasphemy against the HOLY GHOST consisted? it should most evidently seem to have been in ascribing the merciful works of GOD the SPRIT, to the agency of the devil. The Scribes and Pharisees, did not deny, but that CHRIST had cast out devils. And they could not but know, that no power but the power of GOD, could accomplish such acts. And yet, in the face of this very conviction, they blasphemously ascribed the gracious deeds, which so palpably proved the finger of GOD, to the agency of the devil. Here was blasphemy in the extreme. And what made it wholly unpardonable was this that as a recovery from so malicious and obdurate a state, could never be accomplished but by the HOLY GHOST’s awakening true repentance in the soul; and there could be no hopes of such mercy; the sin continuing unlamented, must remain forever unpardoned: and hence, eternal damnation could not but follow. The LORD pardon me if I err, but I humbly conceive that this is the sin of blasphemy, against the HOLY GHOST, which is the SON of GOD, whose name is Mercy, (Luk 1:72 .) declared to be without forgiveness, both in this world, and in the world to come. Mat 12:32
But as many a child of GOD, partly from the unbelief of his own heart, and partly from the temptations of Satan; hath been much distressed on this subject, lest he should have committed this unpardonable sin: and very many of the LORD’s tried ones have I seen, sharply exercised on this account, during my poor feeble ministry; I hope the Reader will indulge me, if I enlarge somewhat more particularly on the subject. Perhaps the LORD may give me grace to write, and some poor buffeted soul to read, what I shall offer, and commission it to his or her comfort, and the LORD’s glory.
I begin with observing, that I humbly conceive, this blasphemy against GOD the HOLY GHOST, which the men of his generation in the days of CHRIST’s flesh committed, was peculiarly and personally chargeable on them. Not that I would be understood as supposing, or in the least intimating as if I supposed, that the sin itself, was so peculiar to that age only, as not capable of being committed in any other. Indeed, I rather think the contrary. When we meet with men in the present day, as well as hear of numbers in the intermediate time from CHRIST’s days to ours, who from the same cause as those Scribes and Pharisees, in the presumptuous reasonings of their own hearts, have dared to contemn the most sacred truths of our holy faith; I cannot hesitate to conclude, that there is the same capability of committing this unpardonable sin now, as much as then. But while I say this, in order to guard against all unwarrantable misapprehensions on this point, I am inclined to think, that the sin itself, is peculiar, and that men of their complexion only, are liable to fall into it. And I beg to state the grounds, on which I have been led to form this conclusion.
The LORD JESUS, hath exempted no other species of blasphemy from forgiveness. He hath mercifully said, that all manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto men. Yea, as if to denote, in yet more endearing characters, the love of his heart to his people, Jesus hath added, that whosoever speaketh a word, against the SON of man it shall be forgiven him. Not, that it is to be supposed, that the LORD intended thereby to intimate in the least, as if GOD the HOLY GHOST , was greater than GOD the SON: or that blasphemy against one person in the GODHEAD, was less sinful, than against the per son of another. Not so. But to shew, that, multitudes of sins, and blasphemies, against his person, had been, and should be, pardoned, while this one of blasphemy against the HOLY GHOST was forever excluded from the possibility of pardon.
And the special nature of this blasphemy, which is declared to be unpardonable, will appear in yet more striking characters, if we consider, how every other hath been pardoned, and is uniformly represented, as pardonable through the whole word of GOD. Against the person of GOD the FATHER, in how many scriptures are his people said to have blasphemed his name, and yet mercy proclaimed to them. Eze 20 . throughout, and Eze 36 . throughout. Against the person of GOD the SON, what blasphemies were uttered by numbers, who, like Paul, when in ignorance, were persecutors and blasphemers, and yet whose hearts were pricked at the day of Pentecost, and obtained mercy? And no less against the person, work, and glory, of GOD the HOLY GHOST; what proofs are there of multitudes, having long opposed, and resisted, the ministry of his holy word, and slighted the means of grace, and yet, have at length, been overcome by the LORD, in the day of his power? Hence it should seem, that the blasphemy against the HOLY GHOST, to which our LORD referred, and which he declared to be unpardonable, was a blasphemy, peculiar and personal: and had a special reference, to the Scribes, and Pharisees, with whom our LORD was conversing: and indeed the words imply as much: Because they said, he hath an unclean spirit.
And I cannot but venture to believe, that the thing itself, receives yet a further, and more decisive conclusion, to this point, when we consider the character of those, by whom this sin was committed. The LORD JESUS calls them, a generation of vipers, in the parallel passage, Mat 12:24-34 , and intimates that it is impossible for them being evil to speak good things. And elsewhere, the LORD ex presseth it more strongly: ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your fattier ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it. Joh 8:44-45 . Now from hence, the conclusion is undeniable; that the generation and seed of the serpent, are in their very nature, not only liable to this sin, but ordained to this condemnation. Whereas John was commissioned by the HOLY GHOST to tell the Church; that Whoever is born of GOD doth not commit sin (unpardonable sin); for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of GOD. In this the children of GOD are manifest, and the children of the devil. 1Jn 3:9-10 .
Now after all this statement, I cannot for my own part hesitate to conclude, that the unpardonable sin, in this peculiar species of blasphemy, here spoken of against the person and glory of GOD the HOLY GHOST, consists, in ascribing to the LORD JESUS, the being under the influence of an unclean spirit, when working miracles by the spirit of GOD. And though I do not presume to speak at all decidedly upon a point of such infinite importance, but would rather humbly ask, to be informed, than determine for others, yet I would, venture to believe, that none of the children of GOD are permitted to fall into it, but are kept from it by the power of GOD, through faith, unto salvation. And in proof of it, we find those fearful, timid souls, who tremble, lest, in the days of their unregeneracy, they should have fallen into it, are the most unlikely persons in the world to have committed it. Your fears more than half testify you have not. Those Scribes and Pharisees who had committed it, were hardened in the commission of it, and neither felt, nor regarded their sin and danger. Whereas your apprehensions flow from the humblings of grace, and manifest the truth of that scripture; He keepeth the feet of his saints. The LORD bless, as far as his truth is in it, what is here said, to every child of GOD.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:
Ver. 28. See Trapp on “ Mat 12:31 “ See Trapp on “ Mat 12:32 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
28. ] The putting of first, and separating it from its noun by the intervening words, gives it a prominent emphasis.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mar 3:28-29 . Jesus now changes His tone . Thus far He has reasoned with the scribes, now He solemnly warns to this effect. “You do not believe your own theory; you know as well as I how absurd it is, and that I must be casting out devils by a very different spirit from Beelzebub. You are therefore not merely mistaken theorists , you are men in a very perilous moral condition. Beware!”
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mar 3:28 . : solemn word, introducing a solemn speech uttered in a tone not to be forgotten. , all things shall be forgiven; magnificently broad proclamation of the wideness of God’s mercy. The saying as reproduced in Luk 12:10 limits the reference to sins of speech. The original form, Weiss thinks (in Meyer), but this is very doubtful. It seems fitting that when an exception is being made to the pardonableness of sin, a broad declaration of the extent of pardon should be uttered. . ., to the sons of men; this expression not in Mt., but in its place a reference to blasphemy against the Son of Man . To suspect a literary connection between the two is natural. Which is the original form? Mk.’s? (Holtz., H. C., after Pfleiderer.) Mt.’s? (Weiss in Meyer.) The latter the more probable. Vide on Mar 3:30 . .: either in apposition with and explicative of , or ., the subject which qualifies. The former construction yields this sense: all things shall be forgiven to, etc., the sins and the blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme. The last clause qualifying ( .) which takes the place of in relation to . is in favour of the latter rendering = all sins shall be forgiven, etc., and the blasphemies, etc.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mar 3:28-30
28″Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” 30because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
Mar 3:28 “Truly” This is literally “amen.” Jesus’ initial use of “truly” is unique. It usually precedes a significant statement.
SPECIAL TOPIC: AMEN
“all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter” This showed the scope of God’s grace in Christ. The phrase “the sons of men” is the normal Semitic idiom referring to human beings (cf. Psa 8:4; Eze 2:1).
Mar 3:29 “but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit” This must be understood in its pre-Pentecostal historical setting. It was used in the sense of God’s truth being rejected. The teaching of this verse has commonly been called “the unpardonable sin.” It must be interpreted in light of the following criteria:
1. the distinction in the OT between “intentional” and “unintentional sins,” (cf. Num 15:27-31)
2. the unbelief of Jesus’ own family contrasted with the unbelief of the Pharisees in this context
3. the statements of forgiveness in Mar 3:28
4. the differences between the Gospel parallels, particularly the change of “son of man,” (cf. Mat 12:32; Luk 12:10) to “sons of men,” (cf. Mat 12:31; Mar 3:28).
In light of the above, this sin is committed by those who, in the presence of great light and understanding, still reject Jesus as God’s means of revelation and salvation. They turn the light of the gospel into the darkness of Satan (cf. Mar 3:30). They reject the Spirit’s drawing and conviction (cf. Joh 6:44; Joh 6:65). The unpardonable sin is not a rejection by God because of some single act or word, but the continual, ongoing rejection of God in Christ by willful unbelief (i.e., the scribes and Pharisees).
This sin can only be committed by those who have been exposed to the gospel. Those who have heard the message about Jesus clearly are the most responsible for its rejection. This is especially true of modern cultures that have continual access to the gospel, but reject Jesus (i.e., America, western culture).
For the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity see Special Topic following.
SPECIAL TOPIC: THE PERSONHOOD OF THE SPIRIT
“never has forgiveness” This statement must be interpreted in light of Mar 3:28.
“but is guilty of an eternal sin” This was a willful rejection of the gospel (i.e., the person and works of Jesus) in the presence of great light!
There are many variants related to the phrase “an eternal sin.” Some ancient Greek manuscripts
1. changed it to a genitive phrase (i.e., hamartias) C*, D, W
2. added “judgment” (i.e., krises) A and C2 (cf. KJV)
3. added “torment” (i.e., kolases), minuscule 1234
It was shocking to the early scribes to talk about an “eternal sin.”
The UBS4 gives “an eternal sin” a B rating (almost certain).
SPECIAL TOPIC: ETERNAL
SPECIAL TOPIC: Exegetical Procedures for Interpreting “The Unpardonable Sin”
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Verily. See note on Mat 5:18.
sins. See App-128., and note on Mat 12:31.
the sons of men. See note on Mar 3:17.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
28.] The putting of first, and separating it from its noun by the intervening words, gives it a prominent emphasis.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mar 3:28. , to the sons of men) Ordinary sins are the sins of man; but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the sin of Satan.- ) The omission of the article in some editions gives great force to the language.[28]
[28] D and Rec. Text, which Griesbach and Scholz follow, omit the . But ABC are against the omission.-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Mar 3:28-30
10. SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT
Mar 3:28-30
28 Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men,–This embraces all responsible sons and daughters of men. All sins committed by the different members of the human race will be forgiven, upon proper repentance and obedience, except the one mentioned in next verse.
and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:–Blasphemy is any kind of injurious speech about another. The scribes blasphemed when they attributed Christ’s power to work miracles to the power of the devil. The statement that all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men is not an affirmation of universal pardon. But that all manner of sin and blasphemy, with the exception stated in the text, will be forgiven through the blood of Christ, some to one man and some to another, every conceivable sin will be forgiven except the one in question.
[Sin is to violate the law or rule given by God to men. Violation of law is sin, and brings the penalty of sin. Intentional and conscious sin intensifies the guilt of sin. Paul sinned and obtained forgiveness because he did it ignorantly in unbelief (1Ti 1:13), thinking he was doing God’s service. To violate the law, thinking he did God’s service, was a sin. To violate it, knowing it was God’s law, would have been a greater sin. Blaspheme is to rail upon, to speak evil of. This verse intimates that speaking evil of all other beings, including God and Jesus Christ, should be forgiven men–on their repentance, of course, is meant. In this distinction drawn, to violate the law given by God is to sin against God, to violate a law given by Jesus is to sin against him, to violate a law given by the Holy Spirit is to sin against the Spirit.]
29 but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit –There seems to be three grades or degrees of blasphemy. (1) That against the Holy Spirit. This seems to be the greatest and the most dangerous. (2) That against the Son. (Mat 12:32.) (3) That against God, the Father.
hath never forgiveness,–I take it that Jesus did not charge the scribes had committed the unpardonable sin. He was warning them not to go this far. They had almost reached it when they accused him of casting out demons by the power of the devil, and he warns them not to take the next step of blaspheming the Holy Spirit for this would be the fatal step. [Rath never forgiveness because they cannot repent. So long as man can repent he can find forgiveness. This and corresponding passages in Mat 12:31 and Luk 12:10 have been the occasion of much controversy and of much trouble and anxiety to despondent minds. Many think they have committed the sin for which there is no forgiveness, and give themselves much trouble over it. Matthew says (Mat 12:31-32) “Therefore I say unto you, Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him;but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come.” From this we see that the speaking against the Son of man may be forgiven, but speaking against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven. Blasphemy, speaking against, and all manner of sin, are placed on an equality. What is the sin, then, against the Holy Spirit? Many think these people committed that sin. But did they speak against Christ or against the Holy Spirit? Clearly against Christ; Jesus, as we understand it, told them, in this you speak against me. For this there is chance for forgiveness. But when the Holy Spirit is come, if you speak against him, if you reject him, as you now reject me, there will then be no forgiveness. It was a warning given on the occasion of their speaking against him that they cannot so treat the Holy Spirit when he shall come, and find forgiveness. The reason is, they speak against Christ during his life, and when the Holy Spirit shall come he will give additional evidence that Jesus is the Son of God, and opportunities to hear God and turn. But when the Spirit shall have come and given his testimonies and revelations, the testimony will be complete, and he who rejects that will have nothing more to move him to repentance.]
but is guilty of an eternal sin:–That is, a sin never to be forgiven and will be punished eternally. Both the sin and punishment are eternal. The penalty is eternal because the sin is eternal. This is one of the most fearful sentences ever spoken. With sin, penalty and punishment must ever go; and to be cut off forever from moral remedy, to have no hope of reformation, every one who is capable of thought knows what that means. The terror of an evil life is its final choice, its fixedness of character. There is nothing more sure than that there is an unpardonable sin–a sin for which there is no space for repentance. It is possible to go beyond the reach of God’s mercy–bounds beyond which forgiveness never reclaims. “There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request.” (1Jn 5:16.) Then let us heed the wisdom of the stage driver, who, in speaking of a dangerous precipice by the roadside, said: “Instead of seeing how close to its edge I can drive without going over, I try to see how far from it I can get.” So instead of trying to see how close we can get to the unpardonable sin without committing it, let us see how far away from it we can stay. This is wisdom.
30 because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.– [He gave them this warning because they thus spoke of him;they must not so treat the Holy Spirit.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
sins
Sin. (See Scofield “Rom 3:23”)
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
An Eternal Sin
Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin: because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.Mar 3:28-30.
I shall never forget, says Dr. Samuel Cox,1 [Note: Expositor, 2nd Ser., iii. 321.] the chill that struck into my childish heart so often as I heard of this mysterious sin which carried men, and for ought I knew might have carried even me, beyond all reach of pardon; or the wonder and perplexity with which I used to ask myself why, if this sin was possible,if, as the words of our Lord seem to imply, it was probable even and by no means infrequent,it was not clearly defined, so that we might at least know, and know beyond all doubt, whether it had been committed or had not. And, since then, I have again and again met with men and women of tender conscience and devout spirit who, by long brooding over these terrible words, had convinced themselves that they had fallen, inadvertently for the most part, into this fatal sin, and whose reason had been disbalanced and unhinged by a fearful anticipation of the doom they held themselves to have provoked. The religious monomaniac is to be found in well-nigh every madhouse in the kingdom; and in the large majority of cases, as there is only too much ground to believe, he has been driven mad by the fear that he has committed the unpardonable sin: although the man who honestly fears that he has committed this sin is just the one man who has the witness in himself that he cannot possibly have committed it.
I was as silent as my friends; after a little time we retired to our separate places of rest. About midnight I was awakened by a noise; I started up and listened; it appeared to me that I heard voices and groans. In a moment I had issued from my tentall was silentbut the next moment I again heard groans and voices; they proceeded from the tilted cart whore Peter and his wife lay; I drew near, again there was a pause, and then I heard the voice of Peter, in an accent of extreme anguish, exclaim, Pechod Ysprydd GlanO pechod Ysprydd Glan! and then he uttered a deep groan. Anon, I heard the voice of Winifred, and never shall I forget the sweetness and gentleness of the tones of her voice in the stillness of that night. I felt I had no right to pry into their afflictions, and retired. Now pechod Ysprydd Glan, interpreted, is the sin against the Holy Ghost.1 [Note: G. Borrow, Lavengro, chap. lxxiii.]
I
The Occasion of this Warning
It was a time of spiritual decisions, when the thoughts of many hearts were being revealed. For nearly two years the Gospel had been proclaimed in the land, and for nearly a year Christ had been teaching in Galilee. All eyes were upon the new Prophet. His words were with authority, His deeds were of amazing power, though as yet no dazzling sign from heaven had appeared. Public opinion was divided. The multitudes were heard saying, Can it be that this is the Son of David? We fear not! Why is no great deed done for the nations deliverance? This Messiah, if He be the Messiah, forgives sins and heals the sick, but that will not drive out Herod from Tiberias nor the Romans from Jerusalem. Our Lords own brothers, hearing the reports brought to them, made up their mind that He was deranged. On the other hand there were many, though but few compared with the great majority, who could already say with Nathanael and Peter: Thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. But in high ecclesiastical circles another theory was heard which had its part in shaping public sentiment: He is a false prophet, possessed by Satan.
The immediate occasion of the discourse was the healing of a peculiarly afflicted demoniac. It was in the house at Capernaum, soon after Christ had returned from an extended evangelistic tour, accompanied by the Twelve and many other disciples. A sad picturethis man brought before Him in the midst of the pressing crowddumb, blind, and possessed by an evil spirit; a soul imprisoned in silence, shut away into hopeless darkness, reached by no ray of earths light and beauty, and, what was still more terrible, subject to that mysterious oppression of the devil by which an evil presence from the unseen world was housed within him, and rendered his inner life a hideous and discordant anomaly. With what unutterable joy must this man have gone forth from the Saviours presence, with unsealed lips, with eyes looking out upon the world, and in his right mind.
Every such miracle must of necessity have raised afresh the question of the hour, Who is this Son of Man? Jesus must be accounted for. The scribes are ready with their theoryplausible, clear, and conveniently capable of being put into a nutshell. Jesus is Himself a demoniac, but differs from all other demoniacs in this respect, that it is no ordinary demon, but the prince of all the evil spirits, that has taken possession of Him; hence His control over all inferior demons: by the prince of the devils casteth he out the devils.
I was greatly perplexed about the second lesson I should read in the conducting of a Sabbath morning service. It seemed an utter impossibility to fix my mind upon any chapter. In this uncertain state I remained until the singing of the last verse of the hymn preceding the lesson. I prayed for direction. A voice said, Read what is before you. It was the twelfth chapter of St. Luke. At the tenth verse (similar to Mar 3:28-29) I paused, read again the verse, Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him, but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven. Then I asked: What is this sin against the Holy Ghost? I explained it as attributing the works and words of Christ, His influence, spirit, and power to Satanic agency. Just then I turned to my right, and noticing a beautiful bouquet which some one had placed on my table, I took the bouquet in my hand, saying, There are bad men in this district, but I do not think there is one so depraved as to say that the growth, the beauty, and the fragrance of these flowers are the work of the devil. In the lower sense that would be sinning against the Holy Ghost. Then I continued my reading. The result was that the following Tuesday the gardeners daughter called to thank me, saying her father had found the Saviour the preceding Sabbath. She said he had long thought he had sinned against the Holy Ghost, but that illustration about the flowers set him at liberty. Going down the garden, standing before a rose bush in full bloom, he said, Bad as I have been, I have never said these flowers were the creation of the devil. No, my Father made them all.1 [Note: C. G. Holt.]
II
The Language
1. Verily I say unto you. This is the earliest occurrence of the phrase in St. Mark, and therefore in the Gospels.
2. All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men. As if He shrank from the saying that is to follow, He prefaces it with a fresh and loving proclamation of the wideness of Gods mercy. There is no shortcoming in the bestowal of the Divine mercy, there is no reluctance to pardon sin. Equal, abundantly equal, to the human need is the Divine provision. For as the heaven is high above the earthand we have no line to measure that distanceso great is his mercy toward them that fear him. All their sinsnot one of them shall be put down as unforgivable; they may all be taken away, though they be red like crimson. The very thief upon the Cross, the vilest at whom the world hisses, may appeal in his last desperate hour for mercy, and receive the assurance of it from the lips of Christ. It is a very tender proof of the love and longing of Christ for mens souls that He speaks thus ere He lets fall the most solemn warning that ever came from His lips. All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men. What more do we want to hear? Is not this enough? He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities; the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. But there is more.
3. And their blasphemies. What is meant by blasphemy? It is hardly necessary to explain that the word blasphemy means primarily injurious speech, and, as applied to God, speech derogatory to His Divine majesty. When our Lord said to the palsied man, Thy sins are forgiven, the bystanders complained that the words were blasphemous, for no one but God had the right to say them. To blaspheme is by contemptuous speech intentionally to come short of the reverence due to God or to sacred things; and this, according to Jesus, was the offence of the Scribes and Pharisees. What He says is occasioned by their charge that He had an evil spirit, that is, that the power acting in Him was not good but bad. Their offence lay in their failure to value the moral element in the work of Jesus. They saw what was being done; in their hearts they felt the power of Christ; they knew His words were true, and that His works were good works. Rather than acknowledge this, and own Christ for what He was, they chose to say that the spirit in Him was not Gods Spirit but the spirit of the devil, involving a complete upsetting of all moral values, and revealing in themselves a stupendous and well-nigh irrecoverable moral blindness.
4. But whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost. From this the sin is often and properly described as Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, though the popular title, taken from what follows, is The Unpardonable Sin.
5. Hath never forgiveness. Literally hath not forgiveness unto the age ( ). The phrase is used in the Septuagint for the Hebrew leolam, which means in perpetuity (Exo 21:6; Exo 40:15), or with a negative, never more (2Sa 12:10; Pro 6:33). But in the New Testament it gains a wider meaning in view of the eternal relations which the Gospel reveals. It signifies this present world in Mar 4:19, the future life being distinguished from it as the world to come ( ) in Mar 10:30. In the passage in Matthew about the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, corresponding to the present passage in Mark, the two words are neither in this world, nor in that which is to come (Mat 12:32).
6. But is guilty of an eternal sin. The passage is in no case easy to understand, but it is made much harder in the Authorized translation than it is in the original. The Greek word (), which in the reading adopted by the Authorized Version, ends the 29th verse of the chapter, is not damnation or even condemnation, but simply judgment. It is now, however, universally allowed that the word in the original manuscripts is here not judgment at all, but sinis guilty of (or liable to) an eternal sin. Some early commentators, not understanding the expression, inserted judgment, as more intelligible, in the margin, from which it crept into the text.
The word here translated eternal () is the adjective formed from the word age or world () of the previous phrase. In a great many places where this adjective may be rendered everlasting, it is impossible not to feel that this does not give the whole or the exact meaning. This is very noticeable in such profound sayings of our Lord as Whoso eateth my flesh hath eternal life, This is life eternal, that they might know thee; He that hath my word, hath eternal life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into life; Thou hast the words of eternal life. All such expressions rather convey a thought somewhat like that of St. Pauls Hidden with Christ in God, life not of the world, but above and beyond temporal and worldly things; not so much the endlessness of eternity, as its apartness from time. Something in the same way, an eternal sin can hardly mean an everlasting sin, but rather a sin which has in it a living power of evil, the bounds of which cannot be prescribed.
We regard the argument against endless punishment drawn from and as a purely verbal one, which does not touch the heart of the question at issue. We append several utterances of its advocates. The Christian Union: Eternal punishment is punishment in eternity, not throughout eternity; as temporal punishment is punishment in time, not throughout time. Westcott: Eternal life is not an endless duration of being in time, but being of which time is not a measure. We have indeed no powers to grasp the idea except through forms and images of sense. These must be used, but we must not transfer them to realities of another order.
Farrar holds that , everlasting, which occurs but twice in the New Testament (Rom 1:20 and Jud 1:6), is not a synonym of , eternal, but the direct antithesis of it; the former being the unrealisable conception of endless time, and the latter referring to a state from which our imperfect human conception of time is absolutely excluded. Whiton, Gloria Patri, 145, claims that the perpetual immanence of God in conscience makes recovery possible after death; yet he speaks of the possibility that in the incorrigible sinner conscience may become extinct. To all these views we may reply with Schaff, Church History, ii. 66 After the general judgment we have nothing revealed but the boundless prospect of onian life and onian death.1 [Note: A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, iii. 1046.]
III
The Meaning
1. How is it that sin against the Son of Man may be forgiven, while blasphemy against the Holy Ghost may not? The Son of Man, says Dalman,2 [Note: The Words of Jesus, 254.] here refers to the Messiah in His estate of humiliation. The primary form of the utterance is seen in Mark, who merely contrasts blasphemy in general with blasphemy against the Spirit which inspired Jesus (Mar 3:28 f.). Luk 12:10 speaks of blasphemy of the Son of man and of the Spirit; Mat 12:32 is similar, but the statement to this effect is annexed to another, which corresponds to the form found in Mark. It is impossible that Matthew and Luke should here intend to make a distinction between two Persons of the Godhead, as if it were a venial sin to blaspheme the Son. The distinction is between Jesus as man and the Divine Spirit working through Him. Invective against the man Jesus may be forgiven; blasphemy against the Divine power inherent in Him is unpardonable, because it is blasphemy against God.
2. How then may one be guilty of this unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost? The conditions of obtaining pardon are three, namelyConfession, i.e. acknowledgment of sin; Repentance, or hearty sorrow for sin; and Faith, or trust in the sinners Saviour. Now, how can these conditions be fulfilled? How are we brought into a state in which we can realise the willingness to acknowledge our transgressions, the hearty sorrow which breaks us down on account of our sin, and the trust which helps us to believe that Jesus can forgive? We can be brought into this condition only by one Power, through the agency of one Person, the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit of God must teach our consciences, the Holy Spirit of God must gain control over our wills; and only through the teaching of the Holy Spirit in our souls are we made able or willing to acknowledge our sin, repent of our sin, and believe in our Saviour. This Holy Scripture teaches us. But it is possible for us to reject and blaspheme the whole testimony of the Spirit of God; it is possible for us, not only to reject what the Holy Spirit teaches us, but even to say, in the wilfulness of our depraved nature, that what the Holy Spirit says is truth is untruth, and what the Holy Spirit says is light is darkness. Progression along this awful pathway is marked in Bible language by three words. First, there is Grieving the Spirit of God. The second stage is Resisting the Holy Spirit. Then, thirdly, there comes the awful state in which the Spirit of God is quenched. Grieve, resist, quench! These three sad words mark the progress along this path of evil, this path of sin, which ultimately brings men into a state where their sin is unpardonable. When that is done, and not until that is done, the unpardonable sin has been committed. Here, then, we see the nature of this sin. It is a stubborn and conscious unwillingness to fulfil the conditions of pardon. If a man brings himself into a state in which he at first will not, but which ultimately becomes a state in which he cannot, fulfil the conditions of pardon, how can he be pardoned? It is not that God is unwilling to pardon him; it is not that Gods forgiving grace is incapable of bringing him forgiveness; it is that he has brought his own soul into such a state that it is impossible for him to fulfil those conditions upon the fulfilment of which alone God can grant forgiveness.1 [Note: W. A. Challacombe.]
3. The Freedom of the Will.Those who hold that the will of man is absolutely free, should remember that unlimited freedom is unlimited freedom to sin, as well as unlimited freedom to turn to God. If restoration is possible, endless persistence in evil is possible also; and this last the Scripture predicts. Whittier:
What if thine eye refuse to see,
Thine ear of Heavens free welcome fail,
And thou a willing captive be,
Thyself thy own dark jail?
Swedenborg says that the man who obstinately refuses the inheritance of the sons of God is allowed the pleasures of the beast, and enjoys in his own low way the hell to which he has confined himself. Every occupant of hell prefers it to heaven. Dante, Hell, iv.:
All here together come from every clime,
And to oerpass the river are not loth,
For so heavens justice goads them on, that fear
Is turned into desire. Hence never passed good spirit.
The lost are Heautontimoroumenoi, or self-tormentors, to adopt the title of Terences play.
The very conception of human freedom involves the possibility of its permanent misuse, or of what our Lord Himself calls eternal sin.1 [Note: Denney, Studies in Theology, 255.]
Origens Restorationism grew naturally out of his view of human libertythe liberty of indifferencean endless alternation of falls and recoveries, of hells and heavens; so that practically he taught nothing but a hell.2 [Note: Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, ii. 669.]
It is lame logic to maintain the inviolable freedom of the will, and at the same time insist that God can, through His ample power, through protracted punishment, bring the soul into a disposition which it does not wish to feel. There is no compulsory holiness possible. In our Civil War there was some talk of compelling men to volunteer, but the idea was soon seen to involve a self-contradiction.3 [Note: J. C. Adams, The Leisure of God.]
A gentleman once went to a doctor in London to consult him about his health. The doctor told him that, unless he made up his mind to give up a certain sin, he would be blind in three months. The gentleman turned for a moment to the window, and looked out. Clasping his hands together, he exclaimed, Then farewell, sweet light; farewell, sweet light! And turning to the doctor, he said, I cant give up my sin. He was blind in three months.4 [Note: Henry Drummond.]
4. The Irrevocable.How easy it is after a time to lose the sense of sin in this world; to substitute for it outward propriety of conduct, to transgress which is immorality; to substitute the opinion of the world, good or bad, to go against which is bad taste; to look at the world around us as affecting duty, benevolence, and the like; and to make our relationships towards this the test of character, whereby we may be known as good or bad.
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy beings height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly, with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!1 [Note: Wordsworth.]
Taught in the school of propriety, reared on utility, and pointed to success, by degrees the sense of sin may become faint and dim to him, until out of the ruins of respectability and the desolation of his inner life, he is brought face to face with an eternal sin. The figures of existence have deceived him; he has made the addition of life, omitting the top line, and not allowing for deductionshe is face to face with an utter loss, an eternal sin.2 [Note: W. C. E. Newbolt.]
The laws of Gods universe are closing in upon the impenitent sinner, as the iron walls of the medival prison closed in, night by night, upon the victim,each morning there was one window less, and the dungeon came to be a coffin. In Jean Ingelows poem Divided, two friends, parted by a little rivulet across which they could clasp hands, walk on in the direction in which the stream is flowing, till the rivulet becomes a brook, and the brook a river, and the river an arm of the sea, across which no voice can be heard and there is no passing. By constant neglect to use our opportunity, we lose the power to cross from sin to righteousness, until between the soul and God there is a great gulf fixed (Luk 16:26).
Whittier wrote within a twelvemonth of his death: I do believe that we take with us into the next world the same freedom of will as we have here, and that there, as here, he that turns to the Lord will find mercy; that God never ceases to follow His creatures with love, and is always ready to hear the prayer of the penitent. But I also believe that now is the accepted time, and that he who dallies with sin may find the chains of evil habit too strong to break in this world or the other. And the following is the Quaker poets verse:
Though God be good and free be Heaven,
No force divine can love compel;
And, though the song of sins forgiven
May sound through lowest hell,
The sweet persuasion of His voice
Respects thy sanctity of will.
He giveth day: thou hast thy choice
To walk in darkness still.
As soon as any organ falls into disuse, it degenerates, and finally is lost altogether. In parasites the organs of sense degenerate. Marconis wireless telegraphy requires an attuned receiver. The transmitter sends out countless rays into space: only one capable of corresponding vibrations can understand them. The sinner may so destroy his receptivity, that the whole universe may be uttering Gods truth, yet he be unable to hear a word of it. The Outlook: If a man should put out his eyes, he could not seenothing could make him see. So if a man should by obstinate wickedness destroy his power to believe in Gods forgiveness, he would be in a hopeless state. Though God would still be gracious, the man could not see it, and so could not take Gods forgiveness to himself.
Lowells warning to the nation at the beginning of the Mexican War was only an echo of a profounder fact in the individual life of the soul:
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, Gods new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light.1 [Note: Lowell, The Present Crisis.]
Throughout the physical world you may cure fevers, dropsies, fractures, derangements of vital organs; you may violate all the multiplied economies that go to constitute the individual physical man, and rebound will bring forgiveness; but there is a point beyond which if you go it will not, either in youth, in middle life, or in old age. Many a young man who spends himself until he has drained the fountain of vitality dry in youth is an old man at thirty; he creeps and crawls at forty; and at fifty, if he is alive, he is a wreck. Nature says: I forgive all manner of iniquity and transgression and sin to a man who does not commit the unpardonable sin,for there is an unpardonable sin, physically speaking, that is possible to every man. If a thousand pound weight fall upon a man so that it grinds the bones of his leg to powder, like flour, I should like to know the surgeon that could restore it to him. He may give him a substitute in the form of wood or cork, but he cannot give him his leg again. There is an unpardonable sin that may be committed in connection with the lungs, with the heart, or with the head. They are strung with nerves as thick as beads on a string; and up to a certain point of excess, or abuse of the nervous system, if you rebound there will be remission, and you will be put back, or nearly back, where you were before you transgressed natures laws; but beyond that pointit differs in different men, and in different parts of the same manif you go on transgressing, and persist in transgressing, you will never get over the effect of it as long as you live. So men may go so far in sinning that there can be no salvation for them, their case being hopeless just in proportion to the degree in which they become moral imbeciles.1 [Note: Henry Ward Beecher.]
IV
The Use
1. There are three ways in which this sin may be regarded at the present day.
(1) As a Great Mistake.It is part of that almost automatic punishment of sin (automatic, i.e. unless checked) in which God, who can release, unbind, and forgive, stands on one side, and allows the sin to work itself out. Surely we are face to face with the possibility of a great mistake, where a man gets so entirely out of sympathy with God that, where there is God, he can see only an evil spirit; where there is goodness, he can see only malignity; where there is mercy, he can see only cruel tyranny. The great mistake! It begins, perhaps, in the will. Life is presented with all its fascinating material; there is the deadly bias of disposition, while there is the make-weight of grace; and the will gives in, appetite after appetite is pressed into the service, present enjoyment, present gratification, are everything; the world is one great terrestrial paradise of enjoyment, indiscriminated, unchecked. And the dishonoured will now seeks to justify its degradation by an appeal to the intellect. Sin is decried as an ecclesiastical bogey. It is easy to get rid of grace by saying that it has been dangerously patronised by an enslaving priestcraft. Enjoyment must be scientifically sought, and that means sometimes at our neighbours expense by acts of unkindness, malignity, or incredible meanness. And then from the intellect it goes to the heart. My people love to have it so. This is looked upon as a sufficient account of life. Nothing more is desired, nothing more is looked for. I will pull down my barns, and build greater. This is the extent of the hearts ambition. See how the great mistake has spread! Self has deflected all the relations of life until the man has become denaturalised. What can the Holy Spirit do for him? The claims of religion are a tiresome impertinence; the duties to society are a wearisome toil. The thought of death is a terror, and the other world a blank. He has made a great mistakehis relations to the world, to God, to self, are inverted unless God interferes, i.e. unless the man allows God to interfere; he is guilty of an eternal sin, in the sense of having made an irreparable mistake, and missed the object for which he was created, the purpose for which he was endowed.
(2) As a Great Catastrophe.Whereas the lower animals are almost mechanically kept in bounds by instinct, man owes this to the sovereignty of his will, that in every action he does, he must command and be obeyed as a free man, or submit and be controlled like a conscious slave. And from the early days of his history there has been a tendency to dissolution and catastrophe in the injury known as sin. Sin means a defeat; it means that the man has been beaten somewhere, that the enemy has swept over the barrier, and laid siege to the soul; it means a revolution, that the lower powers have risen up and shaken off control; and this in the end means injury; if persisted in, an eternal prostration of the soul. It is an awful moment for a man when he feels he cannot stop, when the will utters a feeble voice, and the passions only mock; when habit winds its coils tighter and tighter round him like a python, and he feels his life contracting in its cruel folds. What a terrible consciousness to wake up to the thought that the position which God has given us, the talents, the intellect, the skill have been abused by a real perversion of life, and that we have been doing only harm when we were meant to be centres of good! See how an eternal sin may mean an eternal catastrophe, where the forces of life have become mutinous and disobedient; where self-control has gone for ever, and anarchy or misrule riot across lifewhere there is the perversion of blessings, which reaches its climax in the fact that man is the great exception in the order of Nature; that while every other living thing is striving for its own good, man alone is found choosing what he knows to be for his hurt. There is no ruin to compare to it, no depravity so utterly depraved as that which comes from a disordered and shattered human nature. There it floats down the tide of life, a derelict menacing the commerce of the world, an active source of evil as it drifts along, burning itself slowly away down to the waters edge, once a gallant ship, now a wreck; once steered in the path of active life, now drifting in the ways of deathan eternal sin.
(3) As a Great Loss.I do not wonder at what people suffer; but I wonder often at what they lose. You see a blind man gazing with vacant stare at the glorious beauty of a sunrise or sunset, when the changing light displays ever a fresh vesture for the majesty of God. It is all blank to him, and you say, Poor man, ah, what he has lost! You see one impassive and unmoved at the sound of splendid music, where the notes ebb and flow in waves of melody about his ears; one who can hear no voice of birds, no voice of man, in the mystery of deafness; and you say again, Poor man, what he has lost! But there is a loss of which these are but faint shadows. The loss of God out of life, which begins, it may be, with a deprivation, and is a disquieting pang; which, if it is not arrested, becomes death; which, if persisted in, becomes eternal, becomes utter and complete separation from God; which becomes what we know as hellthe condition of an eternal sin. A mortal sin as it passes over the soul is a fearful phenomenon. And yet it has been pointed out that the little sins play a more terrible part than we know in the souls tragedy. A great sin often brings its own visible punishment, its own results; we see its loathsomeness; but the little sins are so little we hardly notice them. They are like the drizzling rain which wets us through before we think of taking shelter. The trifling acts of pride or sloth, the unchecked love of self, the evil thought, the word of shame, the neglect of prayerwe never thought that these could kill down the soul and separate from God, and suddenly we wake up to find that God has, as it were, dropped out of our lives. To measure the cost of sin, little or great, we have but to look at two scenes. Let us reverently gaze at the form of our blessed Lord in His agony in the Garden, bent beneath the insupportable weight of the sins of the world, and see in the sweat of blood and the voice of shrinking dread the anguish of the weight of sin which could extort a groan which the pangs of the Cross failed to evoke. Or listen again to that word of mystery which echoed out of the darkness of the Cross into the darkness of our understandingMy God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?1 [Note: Canon Newbolt.]
Without forming any theory about sin, Jesus treats it as a blindness of the soul. If only the eye were in a healthy statethat is, if the organ of spiritual sense were normal, the light of God would stream into the soul as it did with Him. But here lies the mischief. The centre of lifethe heartis wrong. In vain the light from without solicits entrance; it plays on blind eyeballs. The light within is darkness. The goodness which passes muster among the Pharisees, or the religious philosophy of the Scribes, is no better than the blundering of those who know not the law. When the blind leads the blind, leader and led fall into the ditch.2 [Note: R. F. Horton.]
2. There are two applications of Christs words that we may make for our own instruction.
(1) First of all, we may put away from ourselves the thought that the blasphemy here spoken of has anything in common with those unhappy wanderings of thought and affection which morbid introspection broods upon until it pleads guilty to the unpardonable sin. It is no sin of the flesh, of impulse or frailty or passion, no spiritual lapse of an unguarded hour, of erring or misled opinion, that shuts us out from the Divine forgiveness. There is nothing here to alarm any mourner for sin whose contrition proves that it has actually been possible to renew him unto repentance. Whoever is troubled with the thought that he may have committed the unpardonable sin proves, by his very grief and self-accusation, that he has not committed it; for he who is really guilty will be secure against all such self-reproaches. The perilous state is theirs, who have no qualms and no doubts, but are blinded by their pride and self-complacency.
(2) Secondly, the narrative illustrates this other great truththat with what measure men judge of Christ and His work it shall be measured to them again. The Scribes thought they had given an answer sufficient in its contemptuousness when they referred Christ and His miracles to the devil. They little knew all they were doing; they were revealing their own character and writing their own condemnation. Their judgment was in reality the most complete betrayal of themselves. What they thought of Christ was the key to open up their own miserable souls.1 [Note: D. Fairweather.]
There is an Eastern story, not unknown,
Doubtless, to thee, of one whose magic skill
Called demons up his water-jars to fill;
Deftly and silently they did his will,
But, when the task was done, kept pouring still.
In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought,
Faster and faster were the buckets brought,
Higher and higher rose the flood around,
Till the fiends clapped their hands above their master drowned!2 [Note: Whittier.]
An Eternal Sin
Literature
Abbey (C. J.), Divine Love, 44.
Alexander (W.), Primary Convictions, 133.
Almond (H. H.), Christ the Protestant, 30.
Bonar (H.), Family Sermons, 330.
Candlish (J. S.), The Work of the Holy Spirit, 65.
Challacombe (W. A.), Bond and Free, 59.
Critchley (G.), When the Angels have gone away, 45.
Fairweather (D.), Bound in the Spirit, 93.
Grane (W. L.), Hard Sayings of Jesus Christ, 133.
Hammond (J.), Forgiveness of Sins, 109.
Horton (R. F.), The Teaching of Jesus, 67.
Morison (J.), Sheaves of Ministry, 260.
Moule (H. C. G.), Veni Creator, 19.
Moulton (J. H.), Visions of Sin, 116.
Newbolt (W. C. E.), Words of Exhortation, 230.
Nicoll (W. Robertson), Ten-minute Sermons, 95.
Robson (J.), The Holy Spirit, 198.
Shutter (M. D.), Justice and Mercy, 187.
Weeks (G. E.), Fettered Lives, 91.
Wilberforce (B.), Sermons in Westminster Abbey, 84.
Expositor, 2nd Ser., iii. 321 (Cox); 7th Ser., ii. 81.
Expository Times, iii. 50, 76, 215, 217; xi. 2.
Homiletic Review, v. 104 (Lawrie); xxxi. 155 (Stevens).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
Mat 12:31, Mat 12:32, Luk 12:10, Heb 6:4-8, Heb 10:26-31, 1Jo 5:16
Reciprocal: Lev 24:16 – blasphemeth Mat 5:18 – verily Mar 14:18 – Verily Act 26:11 – compelled
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST
All sins shall be forgiven unto men but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness.
Mar 3:28-29
There is probably no text of Scripture of which the full meaning is more uncertain, and yet, in spite of its obscurity, probably no text in which there lies a more solemn warning. Why should speaking against the Holy Spirit be less pardonable than blasphemy against the Son of God? The sin of one who has received the Spirit is more conscious; it is a deadlier sin, because the sinner who commits it stands higher in the Christian life. The greater unpardonableness, whatever it be, however it be extended or limited, consists not in the nature of Him against Whom it is committed, but in the state of heart of him who has been guilty of it. No one can pretend on earth to say what this sin is. We simply do not know. There is no known sin of which we can dare to say, without awful presumption, that God can never forgive it. Ignorant and morbid brooding on this matter has often been an instrument in the hands of Satan to craze weak brains. Suffice it for us that all sin is exceedingly sinful, and that until it be forsaken no sin can be forgiven. But even when we have said this the text continues to be a word of solemn and even of awful warning.
It deeply behoves us to consider what sins are sins against the Holy Spirit of God.
I. Disbelief in the Holy Ghost.You begin the Creed by saying that you believe in an Almighty Father. Well, you may entirely lose the sense of that Fatherhood and yet be forgiven. You go on to say that you believe in a Saviour Son; you may entirely lose the sense of that Sonship and yet be forgiven. But the third articleI believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of lifedisbelieve that if you dare; disbelieve that, and your own being is degraded into the state of dust driven by the wind, and the element of dissolution has entered into your very heart and soul. And why? Briefly and summarily, because the Spirit is the source of life, of all true life, and all nature with one voice and with one glory is set to teach you reverence for the life communicated to you by the Father of Spirits.
II. A sin of the life.But the sin is not in mere words. It is a sin of the life. It is a sin of the whole being. Wherever any man, whether he calls himself an atheist or a Christian, gives himself over to vile affections, there breathes a leprosy of decay through every word and action. There have been such men; and can any man, in any way, approach to this condition without a sin against the Spirit of God? The gift of the artist, the writer, the orator, the poet, the musician, the man of science, the philosopher, are all the manifold gifts of the one Spirit of God. But when art, sinking into degradation, deals only with what is foul and horrible; and when music becomes petty, vulgar, meretricious, effeminate; and when literature becomes unclean and polluting; and when poetry cares only to paint the gates of hell; and when science bends all her energies to dispeople heaven and earth of God; and when philosophy grovels downwards into a base pessimismsurely every man who in these ways prostitutes the gift of God, is guilty of a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. But it does not require any genius to sin against the Spirit of God; the sin can be sinned in the humblest position by the most common man. Every one who sins against light and knowledge commits this sin.
III. The ground of hope.But walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of the Lord of life, and a witness to our hearts that there is a Holy Catholic Church of which every one of us is a member; a communion of saints, to which we may belong; and a forgiveness of sins, of which we may all partake; and a resurrection of the body and a life everlasting, which, even to the worst, and the most abandoned, and most habitual sinner, here may still bebecause the offer of Christs pardon is still open to himmay still be an immortality full of joy unspeakable. These blessings are meant for every one of us.
Dean Farrar.
Illustration
Although it is difficult to define what the unpardonable sin is, it is far less difficult to point out what it is not. A few words on this point may possibly help to relieve tender consciences. We may lay it down as nearly certain, that those who are troubled with fears that they have sinned the unpardonable sin are the very people who have not sinned it. The very fact that they are afraid and anxious about it is the strongest possible evidence in their favour. A troubled consciencean anxiety about salvation, and a dread of being cast away, a concern about the next world, and a desire to escape from the wrath of Godwill probably never be found in the heart of that person who has sinned the sin for which there is no forgiveness. It is far more probable that the general marks of such a person will be utter hardness of consciencea seared heartan absence of any feelinga thorough insensibility to spiritual concern. The subject may safely be left here. There is such a thing as a sin which is never forgiven. But those who are troubled about it are most unlikely to have committed it.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Chapter 23.
The Eternal Sin
“Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.”-Mar 3:28-30.
It behoves one to walk warily and softly in discussing so solemn a passage as this; and yet perhaps there is in the whole of the New Testament no passage upon which we so imperatively need clear ideas, for mistaken interpretations of it have caused needless pain to thousands.
The Peril of the Scribes.
Obviously it was addressed to those “scribes which came down from Jerusalem” (Mar 3:22). And the reason why it was addressed to them is plainly stated, “because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.” There was something in that slander of theirs that told our Lord they were in peril of this eternal sin of “blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.” Can we find what that something was? A glance at the terms of the warning will perhaps help us to our answer.
A Distinction Drawn.
Our Lord draws a distinction between all other blasphemies and the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In Matthew’s account (Mat 12:31-32)
He says, for instance, that blasphemy against the Son of Man is forgivable, but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is unforgivable. Why this distinction? Well, Jesus was so different from all the ideas of Messiah they had ever cherished that evil speech against Him need not indicate a “hopelessly evil nature,” and so could be forgiven. But the ministry of the Holy Spirit is inward. It is the voice of God in a man’s own soul. It is, as the Friends would say, “the inner light.” A man might conceivably reject and denounce Christ in all good conscience, as Saul did. But when a man sins against the Holy Spirit, he sins against his own conscience, against the light that is in him, and the man who enters upon such a course is in danger of “eternal sin.”
The Sin of the Scribes.
Now that is exactly what these scribes had done. There was some excuse for their doubt about the Messiahship of Jesus. There was absolutely none for their wicked and monstrous charge that by “Beelzebub the prince of devils casteth He out devils.” They knew that gracious miracle which they had witnessed was no Satanic deed; they knew it was a work of God. But they hardened their hearts, and deliberately put out the light that was in them, and declared it was a work of the devil. And a person who does that, says our Lord, is,-not “in danger of eternal damnation” (as the Authorised Version has it), nor even “is guilty of an eternal sin” (as the Revised Version has it), but rather “is in the grip of, is liable to, is involved in, eternal sin.”
The Stifling of Conscience and its Results.
This is not a threat; this is simply the working out of one of the great and austere laws of the spiritual world. No man can afford to stifle his conscience. A neglected conscience becomes a seared conscience. If a man ignores the light that is in him, the light itself becomes darkness. That is to say, this sin against the inward light tends to beget a permanent sinful state, an eternal sin. And these scribes were in danger of it. They were busy putting out the light-because they kept saying, “He hath an unclean spirit.”
And so it brings a solemn warning to us as to the peril of persistent neglect of conscience and the testimony of the voice within.
Unwarranted Inferences.
Candour, however, compels me to add that multitudes have tormented and still torment themselves needlessly on account of this verse. They torture themselves with the thought that they have committed some act of sin that has placed them beyond the reach of the Divine forgiveness. This passage, however, solemn though it is, warrants no such thought. It does not speak of any act of sin as unpardonable. It does not speak of unpardonable sin at all. What it speaks of is eternal sin. And that is the sin which cannot be pardoned, the sin which is eternal. It cannot be pardoned, just because it is eternal. A man may so harden himself in sin as to become incapable of repenting, and because he cannot repent he cannot be forgiven. This is not so much a case of unpardonable as of indomitable sin. It is not the grace of God that fails even here, but the man cannot be renewed unto repentance.
Does a man ever get into this awful state? I cannot tell; but at any rate those who go mourning because they think they have committed this sin, prove by their very broken-heartedness that they have not committed it. When a man gets into the grip of “eternal sin” he does not care-he is past feeling. The fact that men feel, is proof they are not in it. As Bishop Chadwick says, “No penitent has ever been rejected for this guilt, for no penitent has ever been thus guilty.”
Fuente: The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Devotional Commentary
8
This verse takes in every manner of sin that could be named except the one that will be designated in the next verse.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
3:28 {5} Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:
(5) Only those who know Christ and maliciously attack him are without hope of salvation.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jesus followed up His refutation with a solemn warning. The words "truly I say to you" or "I tell you the truth" occur 13 times in this Gospel, always on Jesus’ lips. This phrase occurs 30 times in Matthew, six times in Luke, and 25 times in John where the "truly" is always double. It denotes that Jesus was speaking out of His own authority. A comparable expression in the Old Testament is, "As I live, says the Lord."
"His use of ’Amen’ to introduce and endorse his own words is without analogy in the whole of Jewish literature and in the remainder of the NT. . . . ’Amen’ denotes that his words are reliable and true because he is totally committed to do and speak the will of God. As such, the Amen-formulation is not only a highly significant characteristic of Jesus’ speech, but a Christological affirmation: Jesus is the true witness of God." [Note: Lane, p. 144.]
"In light of the context this [sin] refers to an attitude (not an isolated act or utterance) of defiant hostility toward God that rejects His saving power toward man, expressed in the spirit-empowered person and work of Jesus. It is one’s preference for darkness even though he has been exposed to light (cf. Joh 3:19). Such a persistent attitude of willful unbelief can harden into a condition in which repentance and forgiveness, both mediated by God’s Spirit, become impossible. This person is guilty (enochos, ’liable to, in the grasp’) of an eternal sin (sing., the ultimate sin because it remains forever unforgiven; cf. Mat 12:32). Judas Iscariot (cf. Mar 3:29; Mar 14:43-46) proved the reality of these words." [Note: Grassmick, p. 117.]
We should not focus so exclusively on the exception to forgiveness that we fail to appreciate the breadth of forgiveness that Jesus offered here. "All sins" means all classes and types of sins, not all sins without exception. Jesus was not teaching universalism, the theory that everyone will go to heaven. Blasphemy is a type of sin, namely, speech that is hostile, malicious, injurious, and derogatory of God. This was the type of sin the scribes were committing.
The scribes came perilously close to committing an unpardonable sin because they attributed the power of Jesus’ exorcisms to Satan rather than to the Holy Spirit (cf. Mar 1:11-12).
"Having rejected the testimony of the Father, the Son, and now the Spirit’s miraculous authentication, nothing more could be done for the salvation of those religious leaders." [Note: Bailey, p. 74.]
"Those who most particularly should heed the warning of this verse today are the theological teachers and the official leaders of the churches." [Note: Cranfield, p. 148.]
This saying of Jesus has caused many people great anxiety throughout the history of the church. Many have wondered if they have committed the unpardonable sin. Concern that one may have committed it is a good indication that one probably has not. The way to avoid committing the unpardonable sin is to believe the testimony that the Holy Spirit has given about Jesus in Scripture, namely, that He is the Christ (i.e., the divine Messiah, cf. 1Jn 5:1).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER 3:28-30 (Mar 3:28-30)
“ETERNAL SIN”
“Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” Mar 3:28-29 (R.V.)
HAVING first shown that His works cannot be ascribed to Satan, Jesus proceeds to utter the most terrible of warnings, because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.
“All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme, but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”
What is the nature of this terrible offense? It is plain that their slanderous attack lay in the direction of it, since they needed warning; and probable that they had not yet fallen into the abyss, because they could still be warned against it. At least, if the guilt of some had reached that depth, there must have been others involved in their offense who were still within reach of Christ’s solemn admonition. It would seem therefore that in saying, “He casteth out devils by Beelzebub…He hath an unclean spirit,” they approached the confines and doubtful boundaries between that blasphemy against the Son of man which shall be forgiven, and the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which hath never forgiveness.
It is evident also that any crime declared by Scripture elsewhere to be incurable, must be identical with this, however different its guise, since Jesus plainly and indisputably announces that all other sins but this shall be forgiven.
Now there are several other passages of the kind. St. John bade his disciples to pray, when any saw a brother sinning a sin not unto death, “and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request” (1Jn 5:16). It is idle to suppose that, in the case of this sin unto death, the Apostle only meant to leave his disciples free to pray or not to pray. If death were not certain, it would be their duty, in common charity, to pray. But the sin is so vaguely and even mysteriously referred to, that we learn little more from that passage than that it was an overt public act, of which other men could so distinctly judge the flagrancy that from it they should withhold their prayers. It has nothing in common with those unhappy wanderings of thought or affection which morbid introspection broods upon, until it pleads guilty to the unpardonable sin, for lapses of which no other could take cognizance. And in Christ’s words, the very epithet, blasphemy, involves the same public, open revolt against good. [6] And let it be remembered that every other sin shall be forgiven.
There are also two solemn passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 6:4-6; Heb 10:26-31). The first of these declares that it is impossible for men who once experience all the enlightening and sweet influences of God, “and then fell away,” to be renewed again unto repentance. But falling upon the road is very different from thus falling away, or how could Peter have been recovered? Their fall is total apostasy, “they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.” They are not fruitful land in which tares are mingled; they bear only thorns and thistles, and are utterly rejected. And so in the tenth chapter, they who sin willfully are men who tread under foot the Son of God, and count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and do despite (insult) unto the Spirit of grace.
Again we read that in the last time there will arise an enemy of God so unparalleled that his movement will outstrip all others, and be “the falling away,” and he himself will be “the man of sin” and “the son of perdition,” which latter title he only shares with Iscariot. Now the essence of his portentous guilt is that “he opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped”: it is a monstrous egotism, “setting himself forth as God,” and such a hatred of restraint as makes him “the lawless one” (2Th 2:3-10).
So far as these passages are at all definite in their descriptions, they are entirely harmonious. They describe no sin of the flesh, of impulse, frailty or passion, nor yet a spiritual lapse of an unguarded hour, of rash speculation of erring or misled opinion. They speak not of sincere failure to accept Christ’s doctrine or to recognize His commission, even though it breathes out threats and slaughters. They do not even apply to the dreadful sin of denying Christ in terror, though one should curse and swear, saying, I know not the man. They speak of a deliberate and conscious rejection of good and choice of evil, of the willful aversion of the soul from sacred influences, the public denial and trampling under foot of Christ, the opposing of all that is called God.
And a comparison of these passages enables us to understand why this sin never can be pardoned. It is because good itself has become the food and fuel of its wickedness, stirring up its opposition, calling out its rage, that the apostate cannot be renewed again unto repentance. The sin is rather indomitable than unpardonable: it has become part of the sinner’s personality; it is incurable, an eternal sin.
Here is nothing to alarm any mourner whose contrition proves that it has actually been possible to renew him unto repentance. No penitent has ever yet been rejected for this guilt, for no penitent has ever been thus guilty.
And this being so, here is the strongest possible encouragement for all who desire mercy. Every other sin, every other blasphemy shall be forgiven. Heaven does not reject the vilest whom the world hisses at, the most desperate and bloodstained whose life the world exacts in vengeance for his outrages. None is lost but the hard and impenitent heart which treasures up for itself wrath against the day of wrath.
[6] “Theology would have been spared much trouble concerning this passage, and anxious timid souls unspeakable anguish, if men had adhered strictly to Christ’s own expression. For it is not a sin against the Holy Ghost which is here spoken of, but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.”–Lange “Life of Christ,” vol. 2 pg 269.