Why Is the “Unpardonable Sin” Unpardonable?

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“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.”  (Matthew 12:31, NKJV.)

One of the difficult sayings of Jesus Christ is that quoted above, concerning the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, sin that will not be forgiven.  Mark 3:29 puts Jesus’ saying a bit differently:  “…but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation…”

Many Bible students have called this the “unpardonable sin.”  In light of such Scripture passages as Psalm 103:8 [“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.”] and Psalm 106:1 [“Praise the LORD!  Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!  For His mercy endures forever.”],  some Bible readers wonder how an ever-gracious and ever-merciful God could run out of mercy and forgiveness.

Luke 12:10 and Matthew 12:32 both add that speaking a word against the Son of Man (Jesus Christ) will be forgiven; but blaspheming against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, “in this age or in the age to come.”

So, why is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unpardonable?

Why He said so

Matthew 12:22-30 explains what precipitated Jesus’ speaking about the “unpardonable sin.”  Jesus had healed a man “who was demon-possessed, blind and mute….so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw” (Verse 22).

The Pharisees, who witnessed this miracle of healing, spoke among themselves of Jesus:  “This fellow [notice their lack of respect for Jesus!] does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons” (Verse 24).  [See also Mark 3:22.]  Mark 3:30 explains that the Pharisees said that Jesus “…[had] an unclean spirit.”

Knowing their thoughts, Jesus then spoke to the Pharisees about how His casting out demons could not have been by the power of the devil [or an unclean spirit], but by the power of God’s Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:25-30).

How blaspheme the Holy Spirit?

As Jesus implied, attributing God’s power to that of the devil is to blaspheme God’s Spirit.  What makes this such a serious offense that it cannot, and will not, be forgiven?

Jesus and the Holy Spirit

By saying that speaking a word against [or blaspheming] the Son of Man [Jesus] will be forgiven, but not blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, Jesus thus made a distinction between His person and His power.

In 2 Corinthians 3:17, the apostle Paul writes that “…the Lord [Jesus Christ] is the Spirit.”  Here Paul equates the Spirit with the Person of Jesus Christ.  It is in this sense that Paul also wrote, in 1 Timothy 4:1, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith…”

In a similar manner, Revelation 2:7, 11, 17 29; 3:6, 13, 22 speaks about the “Spirit” as Jesus Christ Himself saying, “He who has an ear,  let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Revelation 22:17 also refers to Jesus, the Church’s “bridegroom,” as “the Spirit.”

However, in other Scripture passages, we read that the Spirit is — in another sense — the Power of God and of Jesus Christ, apart from His Person.  For example, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul ascribed the transformation of Christians in the same glorious image of God to or “by the Spirit of the Lord” — by the power of the Lord.

For a more thorough discussion of this Bible teaching on the subject, see: The Trinity Doctrine Reconsidered.

What does God’s and Jesus Christ’s Spirit do?

The Bible speaks about what God’s Spirit is able to accomplish, especially for man.  The Holy Spirit is God’s powerful instrument to bring man to salvation in Jesus Christ.  Here are the main things God’s Spirit is able to do:

  • 1 Corinthians 1:9-14.  God’s Spirit enables a human being to understand “the deep things of God.”  Man’s natural spirit alone — man’s God-given natural power of intellect and understanding by itself — can only comprehend “the things of man” but not the things of God.  Using His divine prerogative, God decides whom to give His Spirit to in order that the person can begin to truly comprehend the “things of God” — especially His Word.  For mankind to be able to do that, God has to heal man’s spiritual blindness which Satan (the “god of this world”) has caused to come upon all of mankind (2 Corinthians 4:3-6).  [See:  The Divine Prerogatives, Predestination, “Your Eyes Will Be Opened!” and The Flaming Sword East of Eden.] God’s Spirit enables a person to “see” the goodness of God and leads him to repentance (Romans 2:4).
  • Romans 15:16.  The Holy Spirit sanctifies or sets apart a person whom God has appointed to receive the “firstfruits” of His Spirit (Romans 8:23) — to be a part of the first “batch” of mankind to be granted the gift of God’s Spirit.  [See: Predestination, This Is Not the Only Day of Salvation, and God’s Feasts and the Jews — Part 2, the section on “The Feast of Weeks/ Day of Pentecost and the Jews.”]  This begins with God opening a person’s Satan-blinded eyes to a right understanding of God’s Word; convicting him of sin; bringing him to repentance, baptism, and cleansing of his sins through Christ’s sacrifice, after which — through the laying on of the hands by the true ministers of Christ — he receives the gift of God’s Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; 8:17-19, etc.).

God’s Spirit dwelling in a person makes him an “adopted” and also a “begotten” son or daughter of God (Romans 8:15, 16).  [See: Are We All God’s Children?]  God’s Spirit “seals” a true child of God, by which Jesus is able to “know” the person and calls him His own (Ephesians 1:13; 4:30; Romans 8:9).  As a proof of  this, he bears the “fruit of the Spirit” (as enumerated in Galatians 5:22-23).  God’s Spirit helps him to overcome sin.  [See:  The Higher Law of the Spirit.]  The true children of God, through Christ, will receive everlasting life at Jesus’ return (1 Corinthians 15:51-55).  [See:  “I Never Knew You!”]

Blaspheming the Holy Spirit therefore blocks — even reverses — the processes which God has put in place for a person to begin to understand God’s Word, to repent of one’s sin, to receive forgiveness and God’s Spirit of begettal as a child of God, to help one overcome sin and live a righteous life in Christ, and eventually to receive everlasting life at a time God has chosen for everyone.  That is why it is an extremely serious matter to blaspheme God’s Spirit!

Judgment now upon God’s elect

The apostle Peter declared that “…the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God…” (1 Peter 4:17) — those now called and “elected” or “appointed” to be saved in this age as God’s “firstfruits” or “firstborn.”  [See:  Predestination and This Is Not the Only Day of Salvation.]

Thus, the apostle Paul [see:  Who Wrote the Letter to the Hebrews?] wrote to the Hebrew Christians — those elect among the children of Israel:  “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins [in other words, no forgiveness will be given to such a willful sinner — one who knowingly sins], but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:26-27).

Paul says that such a willful sin tramples the Son of God (Jesus) underfoot, demeans Jesus’ sacrifice, and insults the Spirit of God (Verse 29).  God’s Spirit it is that illumines a person’s spirit and mind about God’s Word for those whom God has elected to be saved in this age (Verse 32).

Paul had earlier warned Christians who sin willfully:  “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted he heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:4-6).

God’s Spirit and God’s Word

Jesus declared the direct relationship between God’s Spirit and God’s Word:  “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).

It was through God’s Spirit and God’s Word that God created all things through Jesus Christ (Genesis 1:1-3, etc.; Psalm 148:4-5; Hebrews 1:1-2; Colossians 1:15-17; John 1:1-3, 10).  [See:  The True Christ.]

It is thus significant that one can blaspheme God’s Spirit as one can blaspheme God’s Word.  Paul gave Titus instruction concerning women in God’s Church:  “…to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed” (Titus 2:5).  2 Peter 2:2 also says that “the way of truth” can be blasphemed or “evil spoken of” (KJV).  Jesus said that God’s word is truth (John 17:17).

God’s Word is so weighty that the psalmist was inspired to declare:  “For You have magnified Your word above all Your name” (Psalm 138:2).  One can blaspheme God’s name (Psalm 74:10), but it is the more serious sin to blaspheme God’s Word!

Quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, Jesus said that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).  Jesus also said, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him — the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).  [See:  The Law of Christ.]

Trembling at God’s Word

Isaiah 66:2 shows what kind of person God will regard or esteem:  “But on this one will I look:  on him who is poor [lowly or humble] and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.”

One who has a proper relationship with God will not take God’s Word lightly, but rather seriously, soberly, reverently and with Godly fear.  Both in Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:22 and in Revelation  22:18-19 God warns all not to add to or subtract from God’s law and prophecy, in such a way as to distort God’s intent in every word of the Holy Scriptures.

Those who do this had better heed Christ’s judgment:  “For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book:  if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book.  And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from The Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

The apostle James warns teachers and would-be teachers of God’s Word that they will be judged more strictly and more rigorously than other people (James 3:1). Paul also instructs:  “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).  [See: Beware of False Prophets  and When One Who Preaches Christ Plants Corn.]

Losing a proper and healthy fear of God can easily lead one to committing the unpardonable sin.  [See:  Can We Fear and Love God at the Same Time?]  It has been said that if a person fears and worries that he may have committed the unpardonable sin, he most probably hasn’t, and he can still repent of the sin and be forgiven.  One who has committed the unpardonable sin has had his conscience seared, as Paul prophesied of some Christians in these our end-times (1 Timothy 4:1-2).  Such a one won’t even feel any pangs of guilt or remorse.

The “incorrigibly wicked”

Persons with such  seared consciences have set their minds and hearts to willfully, willingly, and knowingly reject God’s truth and law (Psalm 119:142).  As Paul made it clear, the unpardonable sin is committed by one who had already had his Satan-blinded eyes and mind opened to a right knowledge of God, and had already tasted the gift of God’s Spirit.  In other words, one who had already been a Christian in the true sense of the word.

By the exercise of one’s personal choice and will, such a person can decide to turn his back on God’s way and truth already revealed to him.  As Peter described it:  “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are entangled in them [by their choice!] and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.  For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn [again, by their personal choice!] from the holy commandment delivered to them.  But it has happened to them according to the true proverb:  ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire'” (2 Peter 2:20–22).

As Paul said in Hebrews 4:6, it would be impossible for such a person to be “renewed again to repentance.”  They will have proven themselves incorrigible — cannot be “corrected” or made right again.  They will have willfully chosen the path of wickedness.  They will not acknowledge their sin, they will not repent, and thus they will not be forgiven.  That is the judgment that Christ has pronounced on those who have committed the unpardonable sin — they will not be forgiven “in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:32).  [See:  What’s All the Fuss About  “Aion?”]

What about the Pharisees in Christ’s day?

Some have wondered if the Pharisees whom Jesus confronted may have committed the unpardonable sin, because they had attributed Jesus’ miracles to Satan’s power.  Did they understand that the miracles Jesus did were in fact done through God’s power?  While it is God’s prerogative to judge the hearts of men [see: The Divine Prerogatives], it seems probable from Jesus’ statements, that the Pharisees perhaps did not understand this at all.

Jesus repeatedly described the scribes and Pharisees as “blind” and “blind guides” (Matthew 23:16, 17, 19, 24, 26).  They had been blinded by Satan and therefore could not accept the gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4).  The apostle Peter told his Jewish audience:  “Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it [killing their Messiah] in ignorance, as did also your rulers” (Acts 3:17) — the scribes and Pharisees, as well as the priests.  Acts 6:7 says that, as they heard the word of God through the apostles of Jesus, “a great company of the priests were [or became] obedient to the [Christian] faith.”

The Pharisee Saul, before he was transformed by Christ and his name changed to Paul, described himself as a “Pharisee” (Philippians 3:5) who “advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (Galatians 1:4).  Paul admitted that he blasphemed and persecuted Jesus out of ignorance and unbelief (1 Timothy 1:13; Acts 9:5).   Despite his blind zeal for Jewish traditions, Paul had his spiritually blinded eyes (symbolized and impressed on him by his physical blindness that Jesus caused) opened to truly know Jesus and to understand and fulfill His will for him (Acts 9:1-23, etc.).

In God’s appointed time for them (Revelation 20:5), could the Pharisees of Jesus’ day be healed by Christ of their blindness, be able to accept their sin, repent of them and receive God’s forgiveness, and be saved just as Paul did and was?  We trust that they would — that is, if they would truly admit that they had been blind; otherwise, as Jesus told them, their sin would remain (John 9:41), and probably remain unforgiven as well.

All who have never had their eyes opened to understand God’s Word and plan for mankind will have their fair chance for this, at a time God has appointed for them. [See: Predestination and This Is Not the Only Day of Salvation.]  After this, those (hopefully only a very small minority of mankind) who still will willfully choose to not believe and obey God will be cast into a lake of fire, which is the second death (Revelation 20:13-14; 21:8), from which there is no hope of ever having life again.  As Jesus said, they will receive “eternal condemnation” (Mark 3:29).  They will be as lifeless as so much “ashes under the soles” of the feet of the righteous (Malachi 4:3).

Man’s free moral agency

Some have been promoting the belief that there is no such thing as the free will of man.  [Notice how this flies against the face of such Scripture passages as Leviticus 19:5; 22:18, 21, 23, 28; 23:23, 38, which speak about the Israelites offering their freewill offerings.  See also Deuteronomy 12:6, 17; 16:10; Numbers 15:3; 29:39; 2 Chronicles 31:14; Ezra 1:4; 3:5; 7:13, 16: 8:28; Psalm 119:108, etc.   The apostle Paul wrote about Christians being “willing of themselves” (2 Corinthians 8:3), being of a “willing mind” (2 Corinthians 8:12), “willing to live honestly” (Hebrews 13:18), etc.]  The belief is that God’s sovereign will will prevail, regardless of what man decides — if at all he could — for himself.  [See:  What Is This Thing Called Will?”] And with this belief goes the idea of there being no such thing as an “unpardonable sin” as well.

Much of this belief revolves around 1 Timothy 2:4, where Paul says of God our Savior, that He is One “…who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.”  Based solely on the grammatical meaning of “all,” some have concluded that because this is God’s desire, all — including every single human being who has ever lived on earth — will somehow eventually be saved, regardless of what each person — exercising his or her will — does or may want to do or not do.  After all, according to this erroneous belief, man does not have a free will or the freedom of choice.

Others have even gone so far as to suggest that Satan himself, and his demons, will somehow come to repentance and be saved!  [See:  Two Goats Together, especially the section on “Satan’s fate” and Where Did the Devil Come From?]

This is the danger of  taking the word “all” in 1 Timothy 2:4 without confirming God’s intent in using the word in light of God’s other testimonies in the Bible — especially the plain ones.  [See:  The Whole Counsel of God.]

Using this logic, one can come to this absurd conclusion about Paul’s use of the word “all” in Philippians 4:13 — “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  Would “all things” then mean that, along with doing good, we can also kill, steal, lie, and do all manner of sin, with Christ strengthening us?  As Paul would say, “God forbid!” or “Certainly not!”

In Galatians 2:17 Paul clearly declares that Christ is not a “minister of sin.”  Jesus, in fact, commands us — after we have been forgiven of our sin — to “sin no more” (John 8:11).

Jesus’ teaching about the “unpardonable sin” carries with it the assumption that man indeed has freedom to choose whether to repent and be forgiven — or not repent and not be forgiven.  God will not “repent” for the sinner.  While God gives all the stimuli for a sinner to repent (Romans 2:4), the sinner has to exercise his own will to repent.

It is ironic that those who believe that man does not have free will or free choice (or “free moral agency”) have, in fact, chosen and willed themselves to believe they way they do, as against the testimony of the Scriptures!  Isn’t this a case of “they say, but they do not do?”  Jesus had stern words about people like that (Matthew 23:3), whom He called “hypocrites” (Verses 13, 15, 23, 25, 27).  Jesus tells us where such people will go (Matthew 24:51), unless they repent — if they could still choose that.

The “lake of fire”

Revelation 20:13-15; 21:8 and Malachi 4:1, 3 are some plain Bible passages that tell us that — after every single person will have had their chance to be offered God’s way of salvation — there will be some (hopefully only a very few) who will choose to remain unbelieving and will willfully continue in sin.  They will have their part in the “lake of fire” that, like a super-heated oven,  will burn them so that it “will leave them neither root nor branch” (Malachi 4:1) — no more hope of being made alive ever again.

These are those who will prove or will have proven themselves incorrigibly wicked and whose names will be or will have been stricken off  The Book of Life (Revelation 20:15; 21:11, 19; compare with 3:5; 2:11).  They will end up, ultimately, as lifeless “ashes under the soles of your [the righteous persons’] feet” (Malachi 4:3).

The wicked will not be allowed to enter the “holy city” (New Jerusalem) because they have or will have defiled and caused an abomination or lie, and their names are not or will not be written or retained in “the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Revelation 21:27).  Having died the “second death” in the “lake of fire” (Verse 8), these will suffer “eternal condemnation” (Mark 3:29).  Not that they will have eternal life in sin — because there is no life in death!  They will be debarred from ever partaking of “the tree of life” (Revelation 22:14-15).  They will be “outside” — not as wicked people still alive and looking in on those in the holy city — but as incorrigible sinners forever excluded from that city and from everlasting life.  The promise in Revelation 21:4 of “no more death” does not apply to them but rather only to the righteous who will receive everlasting life in Christ.

There are some who believe and teach that wicked people will “burn forever in hell,”  with all its torment and pain — but without being consumed because they will be sent “into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41), “into everlasting punishment” (Verse 46).

The belief is that these wicked people will have to be given some kind of everlasting life so they will be tormented forever and ever in that ever-burning hell-fire.  However, Matthew 25:46 plainly says that “the righteous” [as opposed to the wicked — those who did not truly serve Jesus in their lifetime, as the parable demonstrates] will go away “into eternal life.”  That cannot be the same reward of the wicked!

Nor is God some kind of Sadist or monster who will delight in seeing wicked human beings forever alive and being tortured and tormented forever and ever. Jude 7 says that the wicked people of Sodom and Gomorrah (story in Genesis 18 and 19) suffered “the vengeance of eternal fire” as an example of how God judges — and will judge — people who do not, and ultimately will not, believe (and obey) Him.

Today the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah have been found, and nowhere is some “eternal fire” still burning there after God had rained down “fire and brimstone” on the wicked people there (Genesis 19:24).  In fact, when Abraham came to the scene the next day, all he saw was “the smoke of the land” (Verses 27-28).  The fire had died down. The wicked people were burned up by the fire and turned to ashes, the same end of the wicked who, as Malachi 4:3 plainly declares, “…shall be ashes under the soles of your feet” [referring to the feet those who fear God’s name (Verse 2, as also 3:16) and are “righteous” and serve God (3:18)].

In Mark 9:43-46 Jesus spoke about “the fire that shall never be quenched” to destroy those who offend.  Such fire to consume the wicked will not be quenched (put out) and will be allowed to burn until everything combustible is consumed.  God calls Himself a “consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 44; Hebrews 12:29).  The result of such consumption: lifeless ashes!

Bowing the knee to Jesus and calling Him “Lord”

Some have referred to Philippians 2:9-11 as Bible proof that “all” will be saved regardless of whatever else the Bible plainly testifies to the contrary.  This passage says, “Therefore God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Likewise, 1 Corinthians 12:3 — “Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”

The argument is that since every knee and every tongue will eventually acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, and since they cannot do that except by and through the Holy Spirit, everyone must have the Holy Spirit and, therefore, must be saved.

Under God’s inspiration, the apostle Peter and his companions told the Jews:  “And we are witnesses of these things [concerning Jesus Christ], and so also is the Holy Spirit whom [or that] God has given to those who obey Him.”  It is those who truly obey Jesus Christ [see: The Law of Christ and God’s Spirit and Obedience]  who have their obedience as proof of the Holy Spirit dwelling in them.

Jesus said that, at His return, there will be many who will say to Him, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?”  And Jesus will tell them:  “I Never Knew You!, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness [Greek, anomian]” (Matthew 7:22-23).  In fact, Jesus told the Jews who may have acknowledged Him as “Lord”:  “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say” (Luke 6:46)?  [See:  Is Jesus Your Lord — Really?]

Jesus plainly tells us that those who practice lawlessness will be cast “into the furnace of fire” (Matthew 13:41-42; see also Verses 47-50) — ultimately into the “lake of fire” (Revelation 21:8, etc.).

It does not follow that bending the knee and acknowledging Christ as the Sovereign Lord of all means that the person who does this has to be saved.  The sons of Zedekiah must have bowed before King Nebuchadnezzar and acknowledged him as sovereign before they were killed just the same (2 Kings 25:6-7).

Not a failure of God’s pardoning grace and mercy

God’s decision to not forgive one who has committed the unpardonable sin is not a show of the failure of God’s grace and mercy to pardon sin.  God has ruled that a person who (after all the chances He has given him to know God’s truth, repent, receive God’s Spirit and live a righteous life) willingly, willfully and knowingly turns his back on God’s way will not receive forgiveness “in this age nor in the age to come” (Matthew 12:32).

It is God’s choice, and prerogative, to pardon or not pardon — according to His terms.  God cannot forever co-exist with sin and wickedness — the transgression of His holy laws and commandments.  So serious a matter is sin to God the Father that, because He loves us so much, He had to give up — forsake — His very own Son (Jesus Christ) in order that we sinners can be forgiven of our sin, through Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection, and not perish or die (John 3:16).

Twice Jesus said that it is those who truly believe in Him who will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:15, 16).  Those who, sadly, ultimately choose to not believe in Jesus are the “fearful” (Revelation 21:8, KJV) or “cowardly” (NKJV) — those who fear the opinion of men instead of God and who thus commit all manner of things abominable to God — who will “have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

“But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him” (Psalm 103:17; see also Verses 11 and 13; 118:4; 1147:11).  [See: Can We Fear and Love God at the Same Time?]  Those who do not have fear, or have lost their fear, of God will not receive God’s mercy.  Lacking that fear, those who go to the deep end of willful sinning will find themselves unable to repent.  It will be such an irreversible way of thinking and living that it would be impossible “to renew them again to repentance, since they  crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:4-6).  They will have “trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 19:29).  Hebrews 10:26-27 adds:  “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth (God’s Word, John 17:17!), there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation [the lake of fire!] which will devour the adversaries.”

The apostle John called the unpardonable sin “sin leading to death” (1 John 5:16).  No amount of praying for the person who has committed such a sin will avail (same Verse)!

May God give us His Spirit (Luke 11:13) in abundance, and may we always have a Godly and healthy fear of God so that we will not commit the unpardonable sin.  Jesus said assuredly that there is such a thing as the unpardonable sin.  If He is truly our Lord, we will believe and obey what He says!  [See:  Is Jesus Your Lord — Really? and Spiritual Dyslexia.]

For more enlightenment on the subject, click on this link:  http://www.herbert-armstrong.org, click ENTER HERE , select “Books & Booklets” and scroll down to the booklet entitled,  “What Do You Mean — ‘The Unpardonable Sin’?”  For more of the Bible on “hell fire” stay on this same link, and scroll down to the booklet titled, “Is There a Real Hell?”

 

Pedro R. Meléndez, Jr.
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