The Pharisees challenged Jesus personally on his healing ministry and said He was possessed by Satan. This accusation revealed the Unpardonable Sin. Rather than admitting that His supernatural power was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in Him, they ascribed it to hell. The fatal sin is the denial of the Holy Spirit's testimony to Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

Matthew 12:31-32 "Even blasphemy against me or any other sin can be forgiven-all except one speaking against the Holy Spirit shall never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come."
Mark 3:20-30 "I solemnly declare that any sin of man can be forgiven, even blasphemy against me; but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven. It is an eternal sin."
Luke 12:10 "Yet those who speak against me may be forgiven - while those who speak against the Holy Spirit shall never be forgiven."

Jesus Christ was erroneously accused of being possessed by demons, and casting out of demons by demonic power. Jesus rejected these charges.

The Truth was that Jesus cast out demons by The Spirit of God. His entire life was lived by The Power of The Holy Spirit. Far from being in league with Satan, Jesus Christ was Satan's Conqueror.

Jesus said that those who attributed His miracles, which were done in the power of The Holy Spirit, to Beelzebub, the prince of demons, had committed The Unpardonable Sin and that there was no forgiveness for their sin either in that age or the age to come.

To blaspheme means to speak impiously or irreverently of God, making any remark or action against His sacredness. Blasphemy against The Holy Spirit, The Third Person of The Godhead, is the denial of His action in the ministry of Jesus Christ and is denying The Holy Spirit's work and giving the credit of accomplishment done by The Holy Spirit to the devil.

This Unpardonable Sin is the knowledgeable and wilful outwardly verbal expression and impenitent continuous slander against The Holy Spirit. It is subjecting Christ to public disgrace and in doing so blaspheming The Holy Spirit. This is the finality of rejecting the testimony of The Holy Spirit regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ, The Son of God, The Second Person of The Godhead.

Slander of The Holy Spirit reveals spiritual blindness and is a perversion of moral nature, that a person puts themselves beyond repentance and forgiveness. Those who call The Holy Spirit Satan, rejects God's offer of salvation.

People who deliberately call good evil and evil good are so warped they will not want forgiveness, which is a prerequisite for being forgiven. Any sin can be dealt with by the Atonement blood of Christ and there is gracious assurance of the pardon and forgiveness against all kinds of sin, but this particular sin has no forgiveness.

The Holy Spirit convicts a person of the fact that Jesus was God-man, more than a mere mortal, and if a person rejects and refuses to accept the ministry of The Holy Spirit, there would be no forgiveness for a stubborn refusal at the time of conviction, to accept the forgiveness Christ died for.

Jesus proclaimed that The Holy Spirit was God's Agent and to give glory for His work to the devil was to blaspheme against The Holy Spirit which was an eternal sin of defiant hostility.

Anyone who blasphemes in such a way places themselves totally outside the redeeming grace of God. It is an act of impudent behaviour and a continued state of opposition entered into willingly but irrevocably.

The Words and Works of Christ were spoken and performed by The Holy Spirit and to attribute them to Satan is to attribute the things of God and heaven, to hell. To persist that Christ's works were motivated by Satan rather than The Holy Spirit is in no doubt dangerously at the point non-regenerative hope.

Those who speak against Jesus can be forgiven if they repent and believe who He is.

Those who have performed The Unpardonable Sin have no qualms about insulting The Holy Spirit, showing neither remorse or repentance, like the Pharisees who plotted the death of Christ.

These verses have been made the ground of a great deal of unnecessary fright for oversensitive Christians whose supposed ‘unforgivable sin’ bore no resemblance to the deliberate attitude adopted by these Pharisees. Ultimately only God can know when an individual’s opposition to his work has reached this stage of irreversible rejection. The Pharisees’ abuse of Jesus could not for that reason be treated as a thoughtless passing statement.

People who worry about committing this misdeed have not done so, and are not guilty of blaspheming against The Holy Spirit. The very fact that a person is concerned is the evidence that the unpardonable sin has not been executed by them.

This sin cannot be perpetrated by a true believer of God, for they show a tender sensitivity towards transgressing before God . Many are tormented by fears that they have committed the unpardonable sin by backsliding. Backsliding is not the unpardonable sin. A backslider can be restored to fellowship with Christ.

The Unpardonable Sin is not the same as rejecting the gospel, nor the rejection of Christ by an unbeliever is the unforgivable sin. A person might repeatedly reject Christ and later turn to Christ and be forgiven.

It is possible for some who have received the full knowledge of the truth to keep on deliberately sinning to reach an established state of becoming hardened in their attitude against all that they have been taught. They see no redeeming value in Christ's death, treating the blood of the covenant that sanctified them as common and not sacred, making therefore no more sacrifice for sin. This action insults The Spirit of Grace by treating the blood of The Son of God as unholy and is intentional sin by those who were called God's people, those who had been sanctified by the blood of Christ.

The Spirit of God had enlightened them concerning Christ and convicted them of sin, yet they chose to despise the Truth, therefore God will sit in judgement on all who are guilty of it.

Last updated August 2017