The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Spirit blasphemy - unpardonable sin

Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#22

Well… I would say that’s a very good thing! So much of it seems to be addressed to man universally, especially the teachings of the Anointed One. After Jesus gave his teaching as to how to live (in contrast to the Mosaic laws and those of other Hebrew teachers), He wrapped it up with these words, as are recorded in Matthew 7, ESV:

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

First He speaks of “that day”—some day future to that time. It seem to refer to a day of judgment, since some hope to escape judgment by appealing to the works that they did, such as prophesying in Jesus’ name, casting out demons in His name, and doing many mighty works in His name.
Then Jesus says EVERYONE who hears His words and DOES them will be like a wise man who builds his house on a rock—that will be able to withstand rain, floods, and winds. You and I, Chad, by reading Jesus’ teachings and DOING them fit into that category.

If Jesus had meant only those who were present at the time, standing their listening to Him, would He have not made it plain? He could have said, “All of you people who are listening to me right now and do as I say is like a wise man, etc.” But He said “EVERYONE.” Yes, that included those who were standing there hearing Him speak. But it also included EVERYONE who ever would become aware of His teachings.

Then there’s the passage in John 3 that contains the most well-known verse in the entire New Testament:

Who was Jesus addressing? He was addressing one man—Nicodemus. Do His words apply only to Nicodemus? He said “WHOEVER.” He spoke of God loving THE WORLD. Clearly His words applied to all people. To Nicodemus. To all who lived in the world at that time, and those who have lived in the world every century since that time, right up to and including the present.

#23

I asked about kai in relations to verse 31 and 32 in a language based facebook page that deals mostly in the Biblical languages and here is what he said about it:

George Gunn-It appears to have more of an epexegetical force, clarifying the statement in verse 31.

#24

No. Technically speaking, all sin and blasphemy are against the Holy Spirit. I tend to agree with what Davo is saying in his post. It is not just one particular sin per se. It is the sins of the many “piled high to the heavens”, or a build up of sin over time( ex. tower of Babel) until it finally comes to a head. When the “bubble bursts” the consequences of it affect many and can last for several generations before healing and restoration take place. This is Isaiah’s “punishment unto the third and fourth generations.”( Or something like that. I’m too lazy to look it up right now.)

Yes, I agree with Paidion. This does apply to all mankind. Such destructions occur and reoccur throughout history.

#25

Don said:

Thanks Don, but I actually said :

So let’s see the context of Christ’s own words and the words of the Gospel writers as to who Jesus was talking to. :smiley:

Mat 15:22 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.”
Mat 15:23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, “Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.”
Mat 15:24 But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

And:
Mat 10:1 Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
Mat 10:2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;
Mat 10:3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
Mat 10:4 Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.
Mat 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans;
Mat 10:6 but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Mat 10:7 "And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

And:
Mat 2:4 Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
Mat 2:5 They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written by the prophet:
Mat 2:6 ‘AND YOU, BETHLEHEM, LAND OF JUDAH, ARE BY NO MEANS LEAST AMONG THE LEADERS OF JUDAH; FOR OUT OF YOU SHALL COME FORTH A RULER WHO WILL SHEPHERD MY PEOPLE ISRAEL.’”

And:
Luk 1:67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:
Luk 1:68 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people,
Luk 1:69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant–
Luk 1:70 As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old–

Also:
Joh 1:47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and *said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”
Joh 1:48 Nathanael *said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
Joh 1:49 Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.”

I could go on but I think you catch my idea. Christ was sent specifically to the house of Israel: Though ‘mankind’ was also the recipient of the blessing that the Messiah brought to his people. :laughing:

The point is that from my perspective, the Pantelist view is that Jesus came for God’s people Israel, and through that ‘happening’ all of us were blessed. I am agreeing with the Pantelist view… I was merely commenting to qaz about his comment about the Pantelist view, much to the chagrin about Pantelism by certain folks here. :laughing:

#26

These are two typical questions your wrong-headed thinking naturally raises WHEN…

1) You ignore the scriptural answers already given, i.e., in light of the text above… what makes you think there is yet more sin to be dealt with beyond the grave that Jesus’ atoning work didn’t FULLY nullify and rectify way back at Calvary?
2) What does your take on Heb 9:27 do to your question above? Again, is such a scenario you suggest even possible? Given Jesus said… “the Scripture cannot be broken” — in light of the Hebrews passage, what does your suggestion make of Lazarus and those saints seen in Mt 27:52-53?

THAT indeed IS the problem your wrong-headed approach raises to which YOU need to supply the answer… from a pantelist perspective, such a loopy proposition does not exist.

Said ‘blasphemy’ was a generational sin, i.e., pertinent ONLY to those of Israel debasing as demonic Yahweh’s redemptive works in and through Christ ON BEHALF OF all Israel — no more, no less. As such, those committing this offence died or were deported, i.e., exiled (2Thess 1:9; Jer 23:39-40), which in biblical parlance = death; that which occurred under Titus in or subsequent to Jerusalem’s AD70 conflagrations. They did NOT experience IN LIFE the forgiveness that was theirs… thus fulfilling Jesus’ words in Jn 8:21, 24.

1 Like
Committing The Infinite Sin
#27

LLC said

Not sure what you are saying. All sin is sin… we either have to acknowledge that Jesus took care of the said sin or you are with the evangelicals saying that we have to do something to receive that said redemption from sin…

Good luck :smiley:

#28

Davo, The way I see it, Jesus’ death had nothing to do with life after we leave this earth, but had everything to do with this life ON EARTH.

MM, How did Jesus take care of the said sin?
In response to the OP, the verses in question state that any sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven in this age(that present age) or the age to come. What I’m saying is that this does not compute because ALL sin and blasphemy is against the Spirit. However, there is individual sin and collective sin. An ungodly kingdom(collective sin) does not grow overnight, and it doesn’t dissolve overnight either.

#29
  1. If Jesus atoning work nullified sin, then why is the daily (bad news) newspaper full of it everyday?

As for Romans 6:23, i’ve previously referred you & others to Jason Pratt’s commentary here:

  1. Is there a point being made amidst this flurry of queries?

AFAIK the BHS is never properly defined in Scripture, so the questions remain as to what it is & has anyone ever committed this sin. In any case it is limited in its penalty to two ages, beyond which there is at least one more age, so this sin tell us nothing about final destiny.

#30

HOW with any confidence can you claim this above WHEN you have already prefaced it with this below? You are being inconsistent!…

IF that be true then your “AFAIK the BHS” claim is false. Which I propose it is, as there is textual evidence to the contrary of your claim, as per…

There is your clearly and “properly defined” stated reason as to what constitutes ‘the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit’ — attributing Jesus’ works as being those of the master of demons. << there is your definition!

#31

Mk.3:28 Verily, I am saying to you that all shall be pardoned the sons of mankind, the penalties of the sins and the blasphemies, whatsoever they should be blaspheming, 29 yet whoever should be blaspheming against the holy spirit is having no pardon for the eon, but is liable to the eonian penalty for the sin-" 30 for they said, “An unclean spirit has he.” (CLV)

AFAIK, that’s your opinion, that v.30 refers to v.29 rather than v.28, not what the passage says.

As for the rest, there is a difference between the definition of a crime and its penalty.

#32

I gave NO “rather than” or even either/or, that’s your errant reading, there is NO difference… verse 30 is fully inclusive of 28 AND 29.

HOW with any confidence can you claim this above WHEN you have already prefaced it with this below? You are being inconsistent!…

IF that be true then your “AFAIK the BHS” claim is false. Which I propose it is, as there is textual evidence to the contrary of your claim, as per…

There is your clearly and “properly defined” stated reason as to what constitutes ‘the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit’ — attributing Jesus’ works as being those of the master of demons. << there is your definition!

#33

Davo, did you at least grasp the point that there is a difference between the definition of a crime and its penalty?

#34

There may well be a difference… as you full well know, I wasn’t answering to that. I was answering to your notion THAT… “AFAIK the BHS is never properly defined in Scripture,…” — I have provided textual evidence to the contrary. That you refuse to accept the bleeding obvious, as the text make plain, is fine… but trying to divert away from your error to elsewhere is plain for all to see. :unamused:

#35

Earlier you posted:

How is that the - definition - of BHS, as opposed to merely an ‘example’ (of one of billions of conceivable examples) of BHS? If even that.

#36

I started to read all this, but it gets very technical for me, and I’m not sure it needs to be technical.

Who?
Jesus (obviously) is speaking–but who is He and for what was He sent? He is the last prophet of Israel the Son of David/the Son of man/the Son of God, and He was sent to the children of Israel. Gabriel said, “…for He shall save His people from their sins.” Who were His people? When the woman of Cana asked help for her demon possessed daughter, He said, “I am not sent but to the House of Israel” (or something very like that). It was after Israel (as prophesied) turned away from Him that the torch was passed to the Gentiles–that we might also be saved, yes, but also that by our salvation we should make the sons of the kingdom jealous so that they would also turn to Christ.

To whom was He speaking? To the priests and Pharisees who accused Him of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul. He was saying, in essence, that the Jews (meaning the religious authorities, which is the way I believe the gospel writers usually used that term) were calling good evil (and the companion of this is to call evil good.) If not directly calling evil good, at the least they were calling Good (the Spirit) evil. We read in the Old Testament “Cursed are they who call good evil and evil good.” I think this is a kind of what we’d call Transference today. That sorry state in which the evil-doer accuses the victim of the evil that he himself is doing. Such a person is certainly cursed since he has deceived his own heart. He truly believes his own accusations. IOW, he’s nuts.

What?
According to Jason (and I think he’s right (you can look it up in his writings if you want his reasoning on this), the demoniac Jesus was performing deliverance on was the same He had earlier delivered from demons. He had left his “house” empty, swept and garnished. Thus the Jews held Jesus to be responsible for the man’s further degraded state. It “didn’t take” and the man ended up worse than at the start. So they said, “He casts out demons by the finger of Beelzebul.” Jesus said to them, “If I cast out demons by the finger of Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges.”

Where?
If I recall, this whole thing played out in Jerusalem–but it could have been anywhere in Israel and it doesn’t matter so I’m not going to check. The point is, it happened IN ISRAEL and His words were directed at the Jews. Some theologians insist that no one save the Jews to whom He was speaking even had/has the ability to commit the “unpardonable sin,” but I disagree. It IS important to note, though, that Jesus was not speaking directly to modern people today.

When?
Obviously–in ancient Israel of Jesus’ day. This was not said directly to the person who reads it today. It’s important to remember that–even though yes it does have applications to us today. We so often forget that, when we’re reading the Bible, we are reading someone else’s mail.

Why?
I think Jesus said this as a warning. Clearly the Jews (for the most part) didn’t heed the warning. They were not forgiven in that age (the age before His death and resurrection?) nor in the age to come (the church age?) They died in their sins. In truth, I believe they weren’t able to be forgiven because they had turned their backs on the agent of their reconciliation–the Holy Spirit. They regarded the Spirit as an agent of the devil. They saw themselves as good and Jesus (and the Spirit) as evil. Because of this, how could they possibly be forgiven while in that state?

We can do the same thing today. We can insist that evil is good and that good is evil. I think we see a lot of that in society at large (and no doubt occasionally, to whatever small degree, even in ourselves). To take the classic example, Hitler attributed everything that he saw as evil to the Jews and believed himself to be good and right in his attempted annihilation of not only them, but anyone who supported them and/or opposed him–and also any others who weren’t up to his standards of worthiness (the sick, mentally feeble, physically defective, etc.) Hitler called good evil and he believed that the evil things he did were in fact good. He ostensibly did these evil things (at least partly) in order to perfect the genetic pool of the human race. He was even so confused that he didn’t seem to recognize or somehow managed to overlook (or justify) the fact that he himself did not meet his own physical standards. He apparently truly believed these delusions of his, so how could he be saved in that state?

Some things are merely childish and petty. Things that can be overlooked because of our immaturity (which we will grow out of and in our maturing process, come to abhor) or our ignorance (which will be amended naturally as we grow.) Some things are so destructive that they cannot be overlooked but must be dealt with. Calling good evil and evil good is one of those things. I believe this is at least partly what Jesus was warning the Pharisees and priests (and anyone listening in, like us for a start) to beware of. We need to recognize the difference between evil and good. That is a really, really important thing. If we fail at it, that can’t be overlooked. It won’t get better until it is dealt with. Which may take some time and pain. Maybe a LOT of time and pain.

#37

Well I wouldn’t pedantically separate the two just for arguments’ sake. Jesus said…

Here Jesus both ‘defines’ love in words, and then by way of ‘example’ as we know, matches his actions to his words in doing that very thing, i.e., laying down his life. Thus the ‘example’ confirms the ‘definition’.

#38

A definition of the sin of BHS does not AFAIK appear anywhere in the Scriptures. Neither is it ever stated that anyone has ever committed this sin, or if it is possible for anyone to do so since Christ was resurrected and went to heaven.

Mk.3:28 Verily, I am saying to you that all shall be pardoned the sons of mankind, the penalties of the sins and the blasphemies, whatsoever they should be blaspheming, 29 yet whoever should be blaspheming against the holy spirit is having no pardon for the eon, but is liable to the eonian penalty for the sin-" 30 for they said, “An unclean spirit has he.” (CLV)

The NT translation of Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart says:

“But whoever blasphemes against the Spirit, the Holy one, has no excuse throughout the age*, but is answerable for a transgression in the Age**” (Mk.3:29)

  • Or “until the Age [to come]”
    ** An “aeonian transgression”: perhaps “answerable for an age-long transgression.”

(The New Testament: A Translation, 2017, Yale University Press, p.69)

“And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this AGE, neither in the AGE to come.” (Mt.12:32)

As per the Scripture passages above, the “penalty” for BHS is limited to “this age” & the “age to come”. Since there is at least one age beyond those (Eph.1:21; 2:7; Lk.1:33; Rev.22:5, etc), the passages tell us nothing about the final destiny of those who commit such a sin. [Or if anyone ever committed it]. It does, however, inform us as to the final destiny of all others who didn’t committ that sin, namely forgiveness, or pardon:

Mk.3:28 Verily, I am saying to you that all shall be pardoned the sons of mankind, the penalties of the sins and the blasphemies, whatsoever they should be blaspheming

BTW, David Burnfield makes an interesting point re Mt. 25:46:

“None of the sins listed in [the context of] Matt.25:46 can be considered blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.”

He quotes Mt.12:31:

“Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.” (NASB)

And emphasizes the words “any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people”.

He then says “If we can believe what Christ tells us, then the ‘only’ sin that is ‘not’ forgiven is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which obviously does not include the sins listed in Matt.25:34-44.”

Then he quotes from Jan Bonda’s book “The One Purpose of God…”:

“Verse…46, in particular, has always been cited as undeniable proof that Jesus taught eternal punishment. Yet it is clear that the sins Jesus listed in this passage do not constitute the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Assuming Jesus did not utter this word with the intention of contradicting what he said moments before [Matt 12:31], we must accept that the sins mentioned in this passage [Matt 25:46] will eventually be forgiven. This means, however strange it may sound to us, that this statement of Jesus about eternal punishment is not the final word for those who are condemned.”

(Patristic Universalism: An Alternative To The Traditional View of Divine Judgement, 2nd ed, 2016, by David Burnfield, p.220-1)

The aforementioned Bentley Hart translation does not use the words “eternal” or “everlasting” at Mt.25:46, but instead reads “chastening of that Age” & “life of that Age”. Many other versions do likewise, as listed here:

christianforums.com/threads … n.8039822/

christianforums.com/threads … r.8041512/

christianforums.com/threads … t.8041500/

#39

LLC said:

I would say that Jesus took care of sin in the sense that Adam caused sin. All were directly effected by Adams misdeed, and all were effected by Christ’s cross. But in my opinion, the story of Adam *fast forward *to Christ, was a historical one. You have said in the past that the gospel message is for the here and now and not the afterlife. I go a bit further and say the gospel message was about the there and then as in that specific time. :smiley:

As for the OP, I think that the BHS was a warning that was time and circumstance relative also. The very fact that there are so many really smart people on this forum and there are so many different opinions just solidifies to my mind that it was something happening at that time and place and has little or nothing to do with us.

#40

Chad, is there ANYTHING in Christianity that applies to people now? If so, what? If not, then in what sense do you profess to be a Christian? Or DO you?

#41

Actually that is a good question! I think that God continues to be with and work through people, I just feel that there is no more ‘specific’ scriptural basis. So as many of you will look at scripture (bible) to guide you in what you think God would want you to do or not do, I think that most the NT is time specific, and meant for a specific audience, though please don’t get me wrong, I think much of Jesus’ teachings were very special and we would be well served to heed, but we need to discern what is wisdom teaching and what is time appropriate… as in the apocalyptic verses. The savior of the Israel nation was set at the right hand of God. He put all things right between man and God. That works for me. It is Good News :smiley: