What is Blasphemy Against The Holy Spirit

… if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth — you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

Romans 2:19-24

In Romans 2, Paul as a Jew, was speaking to his own Jewish people, at a time when they were facing the big controversy of acceptance or rejection of Christ Jesus, as the God Almighty they knew. In present times, however, Romans 2:23 in particular had often been misinterpreted to refer to people who preach in favor of righteousness and obedience to the Law. It became a tool, an excuse instead, to nullify the need to continually uphold the commandments of God as the means of following Christ or obeying His will.

However, in the context of their times, Paul wasn’t calling out against those who favored righteousness. But he was trying to reason with Jewish culture, whose people refused to open up to the truth that the Word had already become flesh and was among them. Paul was actually trying to make sense with them and calling out those who claim they are teachers of the Law, but yet they themselves are offenders of the Law.

In short, Paul was dealing with hypocrites and blasphemers. And because they were as such, they couldn’t recognize the real righteousness of God when it came and became flesh. 2 Corinthians 5:21 And the reason for their blindness is due to the fact that they never knew righteousness at all despite what they claim they know and by virtue of the fact that they themselves were the lawbreakers.

Therefore, if we in our times were to take Romans 2:23 and to teach the notion that because Jesus is now our new righteousness, so we are no longer required to put on the belt of righteousness (Ephesians 6:14), what we will be doing is then no better than to take the stupidity of our forefathers to the next level and making it even more presumptuous and ludicrous. If we do this, we are in practice embracing the mistakes made by the Jews, amplifying them and adding more blasphemy to it – by proclaiming what is righteous as valid no more, calling what is unrighteous as righteous, and horrendously doing these in the Name of God.

Already it is bad enough, because of what they did, the Jews caused God’s name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles (Romans 2:24). As such, calling for the nullification of God’s Law as the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ is nothing less than deliberate attempts to bolster furtherance of this big lie and blasphemy, propounded against God’s categorical righteousness since medieval times. In the past, the Jews rejected Christ as the truthful righteousness. But the majority of Christians, today, rejects righteousness altogether. That’s how foolish we are.

Those Who Speaks Against The Son Of Man Will Be Forgiven

In Matthew 12:32, Jesus maintained that those speaking in tongue and in words against Him, the Son of Man, will be forgiven. Take note of the surety of what Jesus stated, “WILL BE FORGIVEN”. Franklin Morias, in his sermon last Sunday in Rawang, demonstrated to us that many people will be forgiven because if we look around us, many people have spoken, and are still speaking against Him in various cultures, forms, religions and communities. The speaking against the Son of Man has been known to exist since the day He declared Himself “I AM”.

Now, the interesting thing is this; those who spoke or speak against the Son of Man are not by default Christians themselves. This is simple common sense, no believer who goes to church in the Sundays, would do the unthinkable of speaking against the Name of Christ, whom they worship and believe is God in the flesh. Likewise, what Jesus is telling is this truth; many non-Christians are going to be forgiven. Do you see what I’m seeing here?

But Anyone Who Speaks Against The Holy Spirit Will Not Be Forgiven

Look again, what Jesus said prior to Him indirectly implied that “many unbelievers” will be forgiven. In Matthew 12:30-31, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. And so I tell you, every kind of SIN and SLANDER can be forgiven, but BLASPHEMY against the Spirit will not be forgiven.”

In the modern English dictionary, blasphemy is simply defined as the “impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things”. Whereas in olden Greek, the word blasphemy is described as profane speech or abusive or scurrilous language or vilification against God.

And note how Jesus made it clear and associated blasphemy together with sin and slander. By these accounts, it is therefore not possible to mistaken blasphemy for anything else, other than sinful, slanderous words coming from or uttered by the tongue that is profane and abusive in nature, derogatory sentences spoken to vilify against God and His good character. Simply put, blasphemy is no different from lies spoken with the intent to hurt and to corrupt the truth. And in our world presently, this is legally known today as defamation.

What Exactly Will Not Be Forgiven?

Before you continue, read and reread the context of Matthew 12:22-37. This is the incident in history, where Jesus was healing a demon-possessed, blind and mute man and after doing so, He was accused by the Pharisees of driving out demons by the powers of other demons.

After they accused Him, Jesus reasoned with them, saying it is not possible for any kingdom who is divided to stand strong. And He went further to say demons cannot drive demons out because of the simple logic; if they do that, their domain or dominion will fall apart.

And He did not leave out the details either, by exposing further what’s in the hearts of the Pharisees, “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.” The corrupt reasoning given by the Pharisees could only have come from their own state of affairs; that unless the “strong man” in them has been subdued, the plunder in their hearts resulting in spoken corruption, could not have had happened.

Literally, what Jesus is saying is unless the Holy Spirit in us, the God in Spirit who dwells in the hearts of men, HAS BEEN SUBDUED, the thief (the Devil) could not have plundered (the heart) and neither the corruption of the mind could have happened, resulting in spoken blasphemy.

And then Jesus gave the ultimate caution to all believers, including you and me; that blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

What we learn from the words of our Lord is the fact that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, are not sudden sprouts of spoken words that accidentally gets emitted out from the mouth. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is premeditated, it has been seeded and left to grow within the heart over long periods of time. And the Holy Spirit has been so offended and subdued that only a heart no longer having His presence could have been capable of speaking things against God’s holiness, and calling what is good as evil and what is evil as good.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is no small weed in the blasphemer’s garden. To become capable of committing the sin and vilifying God’s goodness and righteousness, only a heart that is so overwhelmingly overgrown with weeds could have been able to say such things to defame God and His character. And likewise, we cannot become guilty of the unpardonable sin by unintentionally saying something that we think might offend God.

The unpardonable sin could only be committed by someone who had repeatedly sidelined the Holy Spirit, overruled His authority and someone who no longer walks in the Spirit and in truth but by his own ways and self-righteousness methods. By definition, this is the man still living in sin.

And yes, a trueborn again believer could not have possibly been capable of committing the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit would have been in him and the Holy Spirit could not have been responsible to have spoken against holiness, righteousness or any aspect of Godly characteristics. That is, unless that person was never truly born again, but he thought all along he had already been born again and continually deceiving himself it is so.

Hence, what Jesus is telling us is this; it would have been better for one to be an unbeliever who speaks against His Name but yet be forgiven and make it to heaven THAN to call ourselves believers but yet do foolish things against the Holy Spirit and to be eternally condemned by our own spoken words and what comes straight from the heart. Matthew 12:37