Real Unpardonable Sin: A Prophetic Think Tank

Real Unpardonable sin.

Matthew 12:23-24: “And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.”

Mark 3:28-29 (KJV) 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:

Luke 12:8-10 (KJV) Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. And 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.

It’s in three of the four gospel accounts. The sin that can’t be forgiven. Wow. What could it be?

What’s the context of the passage in question? No matter what difficulties there are in figuring this out, ironically, that has been the most difficult for some reason. Not just what is the context, but mostly what is in the context the sin of ultimate concern to Christ.

First things first. What is sin, and what in the world is a sin that can’t be forgiven?

Oh boy, this is a real hornet’s nest. Is sin congenital or behavioral? Is it Original or incidental? Is it against God, the Holy Spirit, your fellow man, a truth, or is it a general attitude, a corrupt love, a force of will, conscious or unconscious?

We are not going to find anyone taking on all of these in an attempt to resolve this unique passage. Mostly what we will get is something like this:

“But what of blasphemy against the Spirit? To understand this difficult saying, we need to see that it came in the context of Jesus’ opponents charging Him with doing His work by the power of the Devil rather than by the power of the Holy Spirit. However, they were not slandering the Spirit—not quite. Their statements were directed against Jesus. So, He said to them: “You can blaspheme Me and be forgiven, but when you question the work of the Spirit, you are coming perilously close to the unforgivable sin. You are right at the line. You are looking down into the abyss of hell. One more step and there will be no hope for you.” He was warning them to be very careful not to insult or mock the Spirit.”¹

I really think that’s not a bad take, in one way at least. It does bring out that Jesus is issuing a warning. Jesus did not condemn anyone, he came to tell them what is in store if they take certain beliefs into eternity ( John 3:17 and 12:47). So to the extent that we are in pursuit of a certain kind of sin, we have to remember that it’s not so much CHrist’s call to look back in your life to see if you have committed this sin but to carry it with you as a guide make sure you are not going to take a certain you into eternity. It’s not like “at 8:46 on August 23, 1984, you committed this sin and I am afraid now you are damned.” It’s more like, “because your heart is this way, turned toward your own authority instead of Christ, Christ can’t save you, and since you cant save yourself you are condemned.”

But that does not answer what is the heart of this “authority” of yours, and what is it of Christ. In what, about what? I think if we knew that we would know what is the unforgivable sin since sin is essentially being for one presumed saving authority which is not just you but in an unrevealed source of information and against another saving authority which is revealed information and divine.

I didn’t want to shake the hornet’s nest and take this on. But sometimes maybe we should if there is a chance to get close to something vexing that can be more instructive than a threat.

Sin. What it is?

Romans 5:18-19 (KJV) Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Romans 3:22-26 (KJV) Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Romans 6:16-17 (KJV) Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

Thisis is not all on the subject, but our preoccupation with the lines in question have been as obsessive as has our exegesis been rather unrevelaing, in my opinion. Im not going to take the bait that we have in the past. We need to see if we can do an end-run around all of them.

It think in the end-run we can ground it on a premise to which we can all agree, that the only sin we have to be concerned about is the fundamental sin of being willfully numb, ignorant, misinformed, apathetic or hostile toward the importance bearing on everyone of the great questions of life, not incidental, behavioral sin. If sin here is congenital or not, that is the one that influences any sin. Not the sin that you do that can be forgiven, but the sin that no matter what you do remains sin, which also has to be forgiven. If you believe there is no such thing as sin which is original and in our DNA, it’s ok, but everyone believes that there is something in our nature that influences us to certain actions and not necessarily evident by action. We have to talk about both, allowing me to speak of Orignal Sin at least in some sense even if you don’t believe it theologically.

If you steal your grandmother’s bingo money or kill your landlord, these are easy to identify as sins. We all know that they can be identified easily are easily addressed. Not, however, the heart attitude or feeling about it. Because you’re socially expected to confess your sin and act contrite, and because you can get some good will out of it, you very well may be doing this because it’s the expedient thing to do, not because you have real guilt.

So, this kind of sin, which from Augustine is “original,” meaning from the Garden of Eden, is the kind we want to talk about: whatever kind of transgression feeds all the others.

Here is our working definition of original sin: Original sin in an unchallenged propensity for a kind of corrupt love that is common to all people that would remain unchanged if something did not come in from Transcendence and give a reason for another kind of love, impossible to have otherwise, as an alternative for free will.

But what do the divines have to say about Original sin?

Augustine, as a reaction to Pelagianism, was the first to say that sin transmitted biologically, essentially through intercourse. Also, that unbaptized infants got to Hell.
Aquinas: rejects the biological form of original sin. Original sin is the absence of original justice
Luther: “men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God.”²
Calvin: In Book I of the Institutes: “hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature diffused into all parts of the soul . . . wherefore those who have defined original sin as the lack of the original righteousness with which we should have been endowed.”
Barth: Called by many a revolutionary take, “Man’s sin is unbelief in the God who was ‘in Christ reconciling the world to himself,’ who in Him elected and loved man from all eternity, who in Him created him, whose word to man from and to all eternity was and will be Jesus Christ… In Him God Himself is revealed as the One who commands in goodness.” At least he takes the stance that we know sin not from an abstract concept, but by knowing Christ and sin’s antithesis.³
Pannenberg: Adam was the first sinner. Pauls in Romans 5:18 “one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men” and in v. 5:12 “all men sinned” means that “In him began the temptation by the power of sin that still seduces us all today. All of us sin because we think we can attain a full and true life thereby.”⁴

It sounds like the divines have as much trouble with original sin as we do for the unpardonable sin. In virtually every one, if original sin is identified it is a general idea: “corruption, “unbelief,” “think we can attain a full and true life,” “lack original righteousness,” “original justice.” The question still screams out: corruption against what, exactly? Righteousness because of what? Unbelief of what? Lust and inclinations of what as opposed to their opposite what? Original justice of what?

If the answer is forthcoming, it’s like this: “Corruption against God,” “lack of original righteousness for believing in God.” “Original justice because of the innocent state.” Unbelief in God.” You’re going to get exactly the same general conception of the theological notion that drove their original formulation. You never will get what connects a special scriptural thing in the Garden of Eden with a special scriptural thing about Christ because a special scriptural thing in the Garden of Eden was never broached.

Welcome to Original sin.

Since this is a certain kind of sin, which is the only choice for one which is unpardonable, we need to identify a certain context for it if we are to know what it is. If the context is a general theological one, then its easy that the sin is a general one. Can this sin be a general sin of “blasphemy” within a context that is also a general moral/theological one of Jesus’s confrontation with the Pharisees? Is there a general, unspecified sin of denying the power of the Holy Spirit within a general context of disbelief that this Spirit was working within Christ? Perhaps it’s not even a sin that can be committed today, because, unlike the 1st century there are no miracles such as the healing of the blind man? If you want to know what is this sin specifically you have to start out determined to specifically set on a particular context that is around the right subject of concern in these passages of Scripture, and all Scripture for that matter. The problem is that it is not only an intellectual decision it’s an emotional one, because the context of apostasy and blasphemy is as much about the context of your fundamental hatred as it is of your fundamental and specific love. You don’t have to know what “blasphemy” means in the original Greek (βλασφημία, speaking evil) to know this unless you first want to know against what God considers essentially, ultimately a blasphemy against Him.

Jesus healed a man possessed by a demon who was blind and mute. Just before this, he healed a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees said that this is not a sign of the Messiah, but a sign of Satan. What is the special context? Within this article lets set on what is essentially a sign of Messiah, and what is essentially a sign of Satan that cant be forgiven according to Jesus.

Our Fathers?

I was researching this subject in the Fathers and came across a dissertation that pretty much was the wheel that I had been trying to reinvent. It can be found here. I only wanted a good run-down of what the Church Fathers thought about this without all the leg-work.

Although I have done a lot of research myself, I am not a researcher and I don’t really enjoy it. I find that the reading of people’s opinions is pretty much a let-down and a distraction. I’m a “big picture” guy seen through a little picture, and the little picture is not “little” in respect generally to detail, but “little” in respect to one, indispensable and certain thing that is thought small within a big thing.

The little picture is a little like saying that if you want to be an entomologist you have to know what distinguishes one species of arthropod from another first. You cant skip right to being an entomologist and work your way into its qualification. The qualification comes through your knowing essentials and then the big picture over your subject. You cant have a degree in Synthetic Chemistry without first learning as a student, and you have to learn the periodic table and the fundamentals of the interactions of those elements first.

The danger is that in this learning the biblical big-picture by becoming acquainted with the essential spiritual process it’s different than learning what makes a biological process. Being declared an Entomologist is not being given an eternal, existential title. But in faith, we play a lot of games on our way to self-fulfillment so that we will get our degree in the end regardless of whether we have learned anything basic that validates it.

Background information on this subject from the Fathers is very useful. It shows where theology evolved, its beginnings close to the period of Christ. When we look at it this subject, however, we find that there was no evolution, but it has been frozen in suspended animation for over 1900 years. That’s what I mean. The “Fathers” are the fathers of something, but if they are our Church fathers we have to consider the extent to which they skipped the final exam and went right to the graduation ceremony.

The Unpardonable Sin is implied in the Didache and commented on by Iraneus in the 2nd century as “a denial of the gift of prophecy, ” or, any heretical teaching on the Holy Spirit.
Cyprian, Novatian: “Denying the Christian Faith.”
Origen: Not spoken of except as a sin committed after salvation.
Cyril of Jerusalem: something said improper about the Holy Spirit
Jerome: Blasphemy
Athanasius: Blasphemy against Christ’s deity
Augustine: “An unwillingness to confess one’s sins and turn to Jesus alone for salvation.”
And today? Kyle Butt, M.Div.: Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

That last one is the all-time standard. You see, nothing has changed.

If we were to reduce all this, according to our scholars the Unpardonable Sin pertains to some kind of sin of disbelief or false belief. They never put it that way or deal with it like that, but what else is disbelief, or lack of faith, but an essential sin? So we established that. But it remains to be answered, unbelief in or against what exactly, not generally? “Well, Jesus.” And sure, that is an exactly and not a generally, but are we ever instructed that Christ is only a divine person and not a Word, not a person but a revelation as exacting as his Person? Is that “Word” a “general” Revelation? I don’t think so.

Speech as Moral Indicator

All kinds of sins of physical performance (the woman caught in adultery) can be forgiven because all sins of performance are only possible indications of a sin of the spirit, and those spiritual sins that we entertain hidden deep within our hearts are expressed more perfectly though thought, and then speech, than action. Physical actions are very simple things, just as the Personal object in relation to his spirit. They don’t contain too much information, and they are certainly not proof of a person’s heart condition. It is our minds that contain the proof of one’s moral state, where we find the most profound and pure forms of dishonesty, corrupt belief motivation, corrupt loves, mishandling of evidence, and the indifference, relegation, and defilement of the most important things. Words, since language, not an action, are an internal thing as well as an external one, are the purest external indication of a bad heart or a good one. What things we say are most important, what we say are least important, will be the best external means of judgment on our own inner integrity when we see God.

God looks of course on the heart, but to give the minimal outer indicator that is public, Jesus said that, in the day of judgment in Mat 12:37, “for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words, thou shalt be condemned.” It’s very easy by interrogation what one really loves and God can see that directly. We cant. But physical activity is not very good for genuinely signing it. Words are better for us. It comes out by them easiest.

So far so good? The stuff about speech being a better moral indicator than physical action is one thing. What is most important though is that the sin of belief, or faith (no, faith is not only righteous but unrighteous), which is entirely spiritual and causative. It’s then about all our spiritual actions around the specific object of faith motivators that are the most important kinds of faith expression.

But, we ask, sin, or righteousness for that matter, in a belief or disbelief in what motivating faith object? From what does it come? This is a crucial question. That will determine our overarching context of the Unpardonable Sin.

Well, with any category or Family of sins of unbelief we group of all kinds of possible belief sins (or belief righteousness’s) within that category equally. In doing this we imitate science. Its a lot like placing all species of Mosquito, like Anopheles, correctly within the Order Diptera. It’s legal and rational to do this. But, with the Unpardonable sin, we are not talking about one member of a category of others or one superior member of that category. It’s about one unique member of one higher category.

This is then not like science, like biology. Our question is not where all the sin members fit or which is the superior representative sin member. This is important since we speak of sin as the same. They are all the same in that they are all species, but there are species in a Family and species that are in a higher Order of that Family, a Class, which are not a part of that Order or Family, but it’s own. It’s a sin which is the only member of the Family of its Order and of its Class. It is in the same taxonomic Kingdom as those taxonomic Orders and Families under it and all the species in them, but it’s in its own place.

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