Well done Jason! I have seen writings that take ‘this age’ and ‘the age to come’ as being the age of the Old covenant and the age of the New Covenant’. Also it would seem odd for Jesus to ask for forgiveness from the cross for people who he knew had trumped the sin of their condemning him to death with an un-blot-outable sin against the holy spirit - what would be the point?
Right; even though externally they were blaspheming Him even more brutally than accusing Him of working with Satan, they didn’t really know they were doing something wrong. Whereas the people He actually threw down that condemnation on, knew perfectly well they were cheating in order to hate Him without a cause.
Justin,
I agree that I ought to send a courtesy alert to Matt to let him know the article exists. And I wouldn’t hold a lack of reply against him in any way, for various reasons. 
I’ll try to get that done today sometime.
I couldn’t leave without rebutting Jason’s error. I had to weed through all the unecessary rhetoric ( Which are typical in Jason’s responses, long information overload novels ) to find this kath blunder. Jesus does not say in Mark 3:28-29 " All the sins and blasphamies, however great those blasphemies might be including the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit shall be forgiven to the sons of men either now or in the age to come. That is Jason Pratt adding to the text what it doesn’t say.
Jesus actually says in Mark 3:28-29 "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. Notice Jesus distinctively separates the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit from all other sins and blasphemies and tells significant consequences of this sin( Eternal Damnation)… unlike Jason Pratt who includes the sin which Jesus said has no forgiveness and puts it together with all the other sins and blasphemies and says they will be forgiven by God’s grace. That is a misrepresentation of the grace of God. That is Jason Pratt’s version of the unforgivable sin. Jesus said to blaspheme the Holy Spirit is irremediable.
So when Jesus says in Mark 3:28, “All sins will be forgiven the sons of men and whatever blasphemies they utter,” he means, all sins and blasphemies from which you can genuinely repent. How can one repent of a sin that Jesus said does not have forgiveness? You can’t. Why? Because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven because it puts you beyond repentance – you won’t be able to repent of it. If a sin makes it impossible for you to repent, then that is an unforgivable sin. How? Because we shut ourselves off from the only one ( The Holy Spirit) who could ever bring us to repentance. And so we shut ourselves off from forgiveness.
The unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an act of resistance which belittles the Holy Spirit so grievously that he withdraws for ever with his convicting power so that we are never able to repent and be forgiven.
The grace of God is extended to everyone, but cannot be appropriated by unbelief. Believers also can renounce Jesus to the point of no return ( Hebrews 6:1-6; 10:26-29; 1John 5:16) Two sides of the same coin.
Again, how can one repent of a sin that Jesus said was unforgivable to be repented of? You can’t, but Jason Pratt and this board want you to believe that you can. UR is wrong in all its forms, not because I say so, but because Jesus has declared to blaspheme the Holy Spirit is irremediable…therefore exposing the lie of UR. This is not my opinion, guys, but what has been established in the word of God.
Jason, your long commentary was entertaining for the people of this board, but for those who truly understand the unforgivable sin and take Jesus at his word…it was just another desperate attempt to hold on to your pet doctrine of UR. 
May the Grace and Peace of God be with you all!
Reference: JP ( I do not endorse any of JP’s theological doctrines, but used a few lines that described the unforgivable sin which I believe to be correct.)
How was their blasphemy worse? In whose opinion? Are you referring to the claim that he wasn’t king of the jews?
Awesome. 
So the Holy Spirit has been beaten? He’s so grieved he just can’t deal with it anymore? I thought God was omnipotent…
You MUST know that what you’re saying is dishonest. C’mon! You have to force the text to read what you think it says instead of just taking the plain, literal version.
The sin which does not appropriate the grace of God is unbelief. How can you repent of a sin that Jesus said was unforgivable? In order for to partake what Jesus did for you on the cross …you must appropriate it by faith, Jeff, or you don’t receive it, my friend. The point is God does not violate your will and will not force you to have a relationship with him through his Son. Not all people want a relationship with God through Jesus on God’s terms, including yourself, so…you must come by your own will and respond by faith. That is the point.
[EDITED TO ADD: please see new correction at the end of this comment, in regard to the first couple of remarks below.]
Wow, talk about epically overkilling yourself in the foot. Do you really want me to start listing all the theological doctrines I believe so that you can re-affirm that you don’t endorse any of them?
(I mean, I often say that I typically find non-universalists sooner or later tacitly or even explicitly denying orthodox trinitarian theism to be true, in order to keep their non-universalism; but I’ve never seen it quite so amusingly as this way… )
What’s especially sad about this, is that I quoted practically all of Matt Slick’s article while discussing it in detail, and I don’t think I left out commenting on any portion I didn’t explicitly quote (if so, I didn’t mean to). And yet you think it’s right to do this, after I treated him, his article, and even your request for commentary on his article, with that much respect. (Not that I’m surprised; this has been standard operating procedure for you almost the whole time you’ve been here.)
It’s always easier, of course, to skip those boring and important rationales so that you can complain about the result supposedly being in error. But that’s also cheating.
Especially when you complain about me “adding to the text what it doesn’t say”, and then go on yourself to add a bunch of things to the text that it (strictly speaking, and sometimes very importantly) also doesn’t say.
Samples from your post:
“he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness” – except the text, strictly speaking, doesn’t say never. That’s an interpretative translation angling for a stronger use of {ouk} or “not” than the text necessarily requires.
“but is in danger of eternal damnation” – except the text doesn’t even remotely say “is in danger of”. Heck, whenever I actually translated the verse, I was actually stronger than that!–the sinner sins an eonish sin (or a sin of an age, which is what the text actually says), period. He isn’t in danger of it, he’s doing it. You actually quoted someone trying to read in a softening of the statement.
Nor does the text even remotely say “damnation” there. That’s a creative interpretation again, rightly or wrongly.
“Jesus said to blaspheme the Holy Spirit is irremediable.” – except the text absolutely does not say this. Nowhere. Not in any of the Synoptics; not in any of the immediate contexts in any of the Synoptics; not even in late-copy compilations like the Textus Receptus. Heck, not even in the creative translation you yourself quoted–which actually softens it down to the mere possibility of a result!
“he means, all sins and blasphemies from which you can genuinely repent.” – which as you yourself very well know is not what the text actually says. That’s your interpretation (not even a translation), be it right or wrong.
“blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven because it puts you beyond repentance” – totally not there in the text, in other Synoptics, in close contexts, in late copies, or even in the particular translation/interpretation you quoted. (If anything, the translation you quoted actually ADDS IN A QUALIFICATION IN FAVOR OF POSSIBLE REPENTANCE! Which of course you didn’t bother to notice.)
“you won’t be able to repent of it” – not remotely said by the text.
“we shut ourselves off from the only one ( The Holy Spirit) who could ever bring us to repentance” – not remotely said by the text.
“The unforgivable sin of blasphemy” – the text doesn’t say “unforgiveable”; it says the sinner does not have forgiveness. A subtle but very important difference.
“an act of resistance which belittles the Holy Spirit so grievously that he withdraws for ever with his convicting power so that we are never able to repent and be forgiven” – about the only thing in this whole set of clauses actually said (more or less) in the text is that the BHS belittles the Holy Spirit. Everything else, absolutely not there.
“The grace of God is extended to everyone, but cannot be appropriated by unbelief” – not that I disagree with this, but also not there in the text.
“sin that Jesus said was unforgivable to be repented of” – that would be more of a problem if the text said it could not be repented of (or was even unforgivable), but it totally doesn’t.
“Jesus has declared to blaspheme the Holy Spirit is irremediable” – doesn’t say that either.
“This is not my opinion, guys, but what has been established in the word of God.” – except everything mentioned above is not, in fact, in that text.
You may have good rationales for saying so anyway–that’s a whole other issue. But to totally avoid dealing with my rationales while accusing me of simply adding words to the text, and then to do this?
That is quite literally contradicting your own principles of judgment for your own convenience, in order to reject someone without good reason.
Which Jesus had some pretty stiff things to say about.
Yep, did notice the distinction, commented on it at length. It’s ridiculous for you to refuse to notice the commentary where such things were noted and then to try to call our notice to details as if the details were not discussed–in detail even. (Standard operating procedure for you, too.)
You conveniently skipped over where I did talk (more than once if I recall) about the significant consequences, which as I even agreed was continuing punishment of the impenitent.
A purely circular argument. (As I also noted in the boring important parts you conveniently skipped over.)
Well, someone here was making a pretty desperate attempt to hold onto his pet doctrine throughout most of his post.
This, on the other hand (setting aside the purely circular justification attempt toward the beginning), would be worth discussing with someone who doesn’t think God disapproves of believers debating or even discussing doctrine. Obviously, it cannot even possibly be worth discussing with someone who does think that. Nor worth discussing with someone who prefers to just ignore rationales so he can judge by an unfair double-standard.
However, if you ever decide to recant this post as seriously in error (or repent of it as uncharitably wrong); and if you ever decide to stop avoiding opposing rationales in order to protect your position, the notions in that quote up there would be worth discussing in another thread.
Uh huh. I think I’ll believe that you’re leaving when I don’t see it (so to speak).
[EDITED TO ADD: “Aaron37” was in fact talking about referencing John Piper, not the [u]other JP whom he more obviously quoted only a few sentences from on the topic of what A37 believes to be the “unforgivable” sin. He explains this correction in an entirely obscure way here. Which obviously means he still hasn’t left, by the way. Promises, promises… Fortunately, after someone else provides the actual reference and name, BAaron finally clarifies that, yep, that’s where he got a few sentences from. He also clarifies, with an amusing double negative emphasis reiteration, that it was John Piper whose theological doctrines he accepts none of. He probably meant to say, however, that he doesn’t accept “some” or maybe “a few” of that JP’s theological doctrines. So, tempting as it otherwise is, I will restrain myself from listing all of John Piper’s theological doctrines, either in total or only as exemplified in that paper, for A to affirm that he does not accept ANY of. ]
Jason
my JP reference is not you, sir. 
Why and how would I use your comments as a reference in my defense against your commentary about the unforgivable sin to balspheme the Holy Spirit? Your view is wrong. D’oh, Jason. Calling me baron is very disrespectful and immature ( your better than that, Jason…aren’t you?), but I guess it makes you feel justified. You might want to adjust your response, Jason. 
A37,
Perhaps you should list your sources in a way that’s intelligible and traceable. “JP” could mean anything, and by itself means nothing.
Sonia
I have no idea why Jason would think I would be using his comments about the unforgivable sin in my defense of his commentary. That makes no sense at all. Yes, JP can mean anything, anyone but the very person I"m refuting.
I’ll help you out …
Source: John Piper “BEYOND FORGIVENESS: BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE SPIRIT”
In addition to crediting your source, you should indicate what parts of your post belong to Piper, and what parts are your own.
I can see why you hesitate to give him credit–Piper being a Calvinist…
Here’s something that might be useful to you: Copyright and the Internet
Sonia
That is why I said I was not endorsing none of JP’s theological doctrines. I used abbreviations to prevent you taking the focus off the subject of the post and redirecting it that Piper is a Calvinist ( Which I failed to do) People like you, Sonia, will bring up that Piper is an Calvinist which has no bearing of his view of the unforgivable sin or my response to Jason’s commentary. Who cares if he is a Calvinist. Your a Universalist…both of you are wrong.
Thanks Sonia, it is useful, but I did not plagerise. I gave a reference. I may of made a mistake on how I gave and used the reference, but it certainly was not intentional plagerism.
It seems that Aaron is equating ‘not be forgiven’ with unrepentance. Repentance is turning from wrong behavior to right behavior, something the sinner should do. The forgiveness part involves the person who forgives the wrongdoer. A person can forgive someone without the person repenting. And conversely, a person can repent without having the other forgive them. But what Jesus teaches is that both factors need to be involved for reconciliation. Read the parable in Matthew 18 after Jesus tell peter to forgive seventy times seventy.
The sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit has to do with not believing God is involved in the miracles, shown in compassion, of Jesus’ miracles, instead attributing the power of Beelzebub. What is happening here is that if the Pharisees contribute all the miracles to Satan, then how are they going to discern the power of God via the Holy Spirit. It’s like not giving the benefit of the doubt to anything Jesus did or teach about. But it is the Spirit which gives life. As long as they held out the unbelief that the Spirit of God is involved, then they could not approach God for salvation. The unforgiveness is perpetual as long as they held their unbelief. But the passage says nothing about not being able to repent.
Actually, I personally don’t care whether Piper is Calvinist or whatever else… it only came to mind as a possible rationale for your obvious intentional masking of the identity of your source (I mean, since you’ve made it clear that you have personally repudiated Calvinism.)
In any case, I’m glad you find the link useful. Now that that’s straightened out, perhaps we should get back to the topic.
Sonia
Sorry, I thought you were trying to be wryly humorous. After all, since I was describing (in the few sentences you actually referred to from me) what you (but not in fact the scriptures at Mark 3 and parallels) call the “unforgivable” sin, it makes sense that you would affirm that description as properly reflecting what you believed to be true (over against what I was talking about, both in the few sentences you quoted from me and in the rest of the material you chose to ignore). Also, you never once obviously quoted anyone else but me (whom you continually called “Jason Pratt” in your reply), and then only a few lines. After making a big whoof at the start of your reply about how you didn’t think it was worth referring to anything other than the few lines you selected.
If it comes to that, even in your reply above you hadn’t actually proven yet that you weren’t rather sarcastically referring at the end to only thinking it was worth quoting a few lines from me in contrast with what you believe to be true instead about what I was describing in those few lines. Who is this OTHER “JP” from whom you quoted a few lines, and where did you quote him (or her?) from, and which lines were they? (It takes Sonia digging later to finally confirm you meant “John Piper”.)
This is aside from the salient points to my bringing up your ‘source’ reference at the end, which stand completely untouched even though you meant another “JP”.
I always thought “BAaron” sounded rather dignified, and even toughly badass, and that it respected your original pseudonym here as “Born Again” in continuity. Which was the explanation I gave for first trying it many months ago, too.
Admittedly, I know you don’t like it (for some completely inscrutable reason. What part of “baron” do you think is disrespectful and immature???) But it isn’t like you’ve given us your actual name to use in any case. (Unless “Aaron37” is your legal name, which you sure haven’t proven in any way.)
I could come up with some actually disrespectful and immature way to call you instead: [size=200]Mod edited, to remove a highly insulting vulgar version of “Aaron37”'s pseudonym, including an obscure but still extremely crude internet joke at the end.[/size] Temp-ban warning to Jason.]
But only someone who was insane would think that it would make me feel justified to do so. And God knows, you give me vastly enough reason to feel justified over you already anyway. 
At any rate: yes, I know you don’t like being called BAaron. And yes, that’s why I used it. But calling you by an alphanumerical pseudonym seems far more silly (if I’m going to do that, I’ll just go the distance and abbreviate, which is in fact what I typically do, A or A37); and I am certainly not going to call someone Aaron compared to an Aaron on the board who proves (from the outset) that that is his real name and is actually a competent opponent who takes the time to respect my work even when he disagrees with almost all of it. That Aaron is the one who has earned the right to be called by “Aaron” as a personal name around here, especially by me.
Relatedly, someone who is willing to ignore my rationales for his own convenience, and then accuse me of doing something that he then proceeds to exactly do himself while acting as though that’s perfectly all right (or even something different) when he does it–after having gone out of his way less than two weeks ago to denounce exactly what he’s busily doing at that moment–deserves exactly no consideration from me in regard to such trivialities as which mere internet pseudonym he prefers to be called by.
Yet I graciously called you a very respectable (and even rather awesome) one anyway. Wow, sucks to be you, someone called you a great nickname, waaaah. {cue world’s tiniest violin}
Yeah, I think I’ll just leave the awesome nickname (the “metal” one, as kids on the internet would say these days) in my response, thanks, rather than adjust it to the sheep bleat or some other less respectable pseudonym like some mere alphanumeric designation.
However, I am perfectly fine with adding parenthetical notes to my reply stating I was mistaken about thinking you were referencing me, while leaving my error in view (instead of trying to retroactively hide it like it didn’t exist) and linking to the relevant posts afterward for your corrections (including the one I’m replying to). Who knows?–maybe future readers will even be glad to see how you avoid the real problems. 
Well, you’re welcome to focus back on the subject of my posts any time you’re ready! (Instead of explicitly ignoring them, and/or haring off on complaints about being given a different pseudonym than the one you normally use.) Anytime once you’ve recanted or repented of that other post, I mean, where you deride discussion or debate of doctrine among believers as something God does not approve of. As long as you leave that dangling in the background, it’s going to be hard to pretend you’re actually trying to have a serious discussion about anything here instead of (at best) only pontificating about it. (While ignoring the actual serious discussion. As being, for example, “unnecessary rhetoric”.)
“You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit…”
“So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy”
Just read the literal words…
What’s sadder than fighting a losing battle is not even realizing it. Or in the case of knowing but not admitting it, just plain pathetic.
Forgiveness is accessible through repentance, unless you’re Calvinist.
Also, a bit of advice (though it seems you don’t read my posts whatsoever these days) anyone who’s even had a short college session can tell you that that citation was horrible to the point of at least borderline plagiarism. In such a setting you would be severely docked down a few grades and at least called in for a lecture on proper citations if not disciplined, because you can’t tell what’s original and what’s not. Granted, I imagine you couldn’t be as severely penalized in a court of law as someone who didn’t state that they were citing anyone at all, although you didn’t make it abundantly clear that you were in the first place.
I meant, that if merely stating that the Son of God Himself is actually working under orders from Satan is blasphemous, then handing over the Son of God Himself to ones’ own enemies to be torturously slain under the charge of being a blasphemer to God in a shamefully exposed way traditionally understood to be cursed by God, might in a superficial way seem to be rather more blasphemous. But Jesus is prepared to forgive that action, whereas the other action (which wouldn’t seem to go nearly as far) does not have forgiveness (in this age or the age to come).
Something more is in view than merely wrong action, or even a particular category of wrong action. (I don’t think it’s going to be feasible to try to make the attribution of Jesus’ power to Satan’s authority somehow come out crucially worse than slaying Jesus as a damned traitor to God in a way cursed by God. The beliefs involved run against the Holy Spirit very solidly either way.) And I think Jesus says enough, by report, for us to figure out why the wrath of God is coming in one case but not in the other. Which I discussed back in the commentary.
It has to do with setting one’s self against the Spirit of Truth, in a way far more fundamental than the particular way the Pharisees were going about it in that incident: attributing the power of Christ to Satan’s authority. Not doing this (or minor variations thereof), won’t inoculate a person from blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. As pretty much every non-universalist also admits, unless they’re claiming that only people who attribute the actions of Jesus Christ to Satan’s authority are hopelessly damned!–but few non-universalists restrict hopeless damnation to a result of doing only that particular thing.
Ohhhh. I see where the disconnect was. I always thought Jesus was asking for forgiveness for the soldiers who placed him between two common thieves since they had no idea who they were doing that to. Not sure if that’s an intense enough sin to be the one to call out forgiveness over, but the context just seemed right. Do we know then pretty reasonably well for sure which action or set of actions he was calling out forgiveness for?
I guess I didn’t totally see you covering that issue (let’s face it, you’re a mite abstract and even vague at points). I’ll have to comb back over it unless you wanna quote the part you were specifically referring to.
But no, I definitely agree with you about what was more blasphemous.
Which of course is a major point. But which might be extended to others in the area feasibly enough–the GosLuke says it happened as the soldiers were crucifying Him, but doesn’t specifically say He said it about the soldiers. Not everyone among the Sanhedrin or the Pharisee party (not the same groups, although naturally there was some overlap) had to be blinding themselves culpably to what the truth really was.
Indeed, the contexts of the informal trial indicate that there had to be a substantial number of at least partial supporters even among the Sanhedrin, trying to ensure Jesus was fairly questioned. They may have disappointedly decided He was guilty after all, but they couldn’t have been trying to cheat their way to victory. Unlike, for example, Caiaphas.
Technically, of course, if they didn’t really know and understand what they were doing, they didn’t need forgiveness per se, only pardon. (The term in Greek can go either way.) It’s still a gracious, as well as perfectly fair, action for Jesus to do so.