In Matthew 12, Jesus first mentions and then refuses to clarify just what the unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is. Yesterday we learned that this deliberate omission means we’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking what the sin is, we should consider what the Holy Spirit does.
The major work of the Holy Spirit in our salvation is to convince us of our sin and lead us to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible talks about some people receiving the Holy Spirit in this way and others rejecting Him. But if the Holy Spirit is God, then the only proper label for refusing to listen to Him is blasphemy, since our rejection so clearly implies He isn’t really God.
At this point in the book of Matthew, the Pharisees are encountering Jesus and His miracles firsthand. And since we know that the miracles were performed to testify to them about Jesus’s authenticity, this was the mechanism by which the Holy Spirit was reaching out to them. But they refused.
It’s not that they did some particular thing wrong, it’s that they did everything wrong by this one act of blasphemous resistance. They rejected the gentle, loving, divine hand of the Holy Spirit, and this is the one and only thing which we must all not do.
To the man who receives the Holy Spirit, any sin may be forgiven. But to the man who rejects Him (and His God-sent-ness), no sin can. That’s why blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the one unforgivable sin that makes all others equally unforgivable, whereas hallowing the Holy Spirit leads to the expunging of any other violations.
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