May 11, 2016

Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit???

There’s probably not a single person that is a follower of Christ that has not asked the question at some point, “What is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?”  Jesus clearly says that this is the unforgiveable sin, but what is it?  How do I know if I’ve committed it?  That’s the question that we’re going to answer, but in order to do that, we’re going to have to unwrap it layer by layer.  If you would like to listen to this message, you can find it here!!

Think about this topic like a piece of candy.  My favorite candy is Reese’s peanut butter cup.  I can bite right into that enjoy the chocolate and peanut butter at the same time.  For some of you, your favorite candy is something hard, like a butterscotch, jolly rancher or something like that.  You can’t just bite into that, you have to take it layer by layer.  That’s what we have this morning; a hard piece of candy that we need to work through layer by layer.

The first layer is forgiveness!!

The clear teaching from cover to cover is that God forgives sins.  Jesus said in Mark 3:28 says that God will forgive all sins.  That speaks of two things.  It doesn’t matter what sins you commit.  Many have tried to put a specific sin on what blasphemy of the Spirit is like murder, but verse 28 says that all sins will be forgiven.  Murder can be forgiven.  Rape, molestation, gluttony, adultery, homosexuality, idolatry.  There is not a sin you can commit that can’t be forgiven.

Also, it speaks to the multitude of your sins.  It doesn’t matter how many times you enter the realm of depravity and commit shameful acts in the eyes of God, it can be forgiven.  Even the murder of God’s Son as He hung on a cross giving His life could be forgiven.  In fact, He prayed that the Father would forgive them. 

But at this point, we ask, how are we forgiven?  The Bible makes it abundantly clear that without repentance, there is no forgiveness.  Mark 1:4, “John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  Jesus said in Mark 1:15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel.”  In the first sermon after the giving of the Spirit, Peter said in Acts 2:38, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins.”

To repent means that you turn away from your sins and turn to God.  You recognize that your sins are wrong in the eyes of God, and you turn away from them.

So, when Jesus says in Mark 3:28 that all sins will be forgiven, He is saying, “All sins that you repent of will be forgiven.”  If you do not repent of your sins, you have no forgiveness and the logical conclusion is that you have no salvation in Christ without repentance.

But, verse 29 says that whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.  Our second layer is the unforgiveable sin.  Why would God say that you can sin against the Father and the Son and be forgiven but if you sin against the Spirit you can’t be forgiven?

I’m very grateful for the work of Tim Keller and John Piper in this area.  Tim Keller (and he got it from someone else too) said that you have to think of this as external sins and internal sins.  Verse 28, “all sins committed externally can always be forgiven.  There is nothing that can’t be forgiven externally, but if you resist the work of the Holy Spirit internally, no sin is forgivable.”

Something that you have to grasp here is the role that the Holy Spirit plays in salvation.  The Bible is clear that no man comes to God unless the Spirit draws Him.  John 16:8 says that the Spirit will convict the world of sin.  The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to show you where you are wrong.

He does that in a number of ways.  He does that by your conscience.  Internally, He will eat your lunch and make you miserable because of your sin.  Secondly, He does it by His Word.  The Scripture is good for correction.  The Spirit will take the Word of God and say, “This area of your life is wrong.  I’ve warned you about this already in my Word.”  The Spirit will also use Godly men and women to show you faults in your life for the purpose of helping you become all that God wants you to be. 

But what happens when the Spirit shows you an area of your life that is wrong and you ignore Him?  What happens when the Spirit shows you this over and over and you still just ignore Him?  You have committed the unforgiveable sin because you have placed yourself beyond repentance.  Remember that there is no forgiveness where there is no repentance and when you ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit to repent, there is no hope for your forgiveness. 

Externally, any sin, big or small, can be forgiven if you repent, but if you deny the inward working of the Spirit to lead you to repentance, there is no hope for your forgiveness. 

Here’s how it plays out in our culture.  Think about a man that commits adultery on his wife.  The first time he does it, the Spirit convicts him and he knows it’s wrong but he doesn’t heed the Spirit’s warnings.  He continues in this adulterous affair and the longer he is involved, the quieter and softer the Spirit’s warnings become.  Eventually, the man begins to justify his actions.  “God wants me to be happy.  My marriage was doomed to fail anyway.  If my wife showed me affection, I wouldn’t be doing this.  God gave me these desires, so He must want me to act on them.”  And before long, the Spirit removes Himself from that man and he has no chance of forgiveness because he will not repent.  He considers his sin as a good thing. 

So, here would be how we would define this sin, “It is an act of resistance which belittles the Holy Spirit inwardly so grievously that he withdraws forever with his convicting power so that we are never able to repent and be forgiven.”

Layer 3: A Word to Religious People

One thing we miss in this text many times is the fact that Jesus was dealing with the Scribes and Pharisees here.  The religious elite.  The people that had grown up in church all their life.  In the parallel account in Matthew, Jesus has just healed a man and the people are starting to believe in wardly that He is the Messiah and along comes the church people and begin to attribute the work of the Spirit in Jesus to the work of Satan. 

It is in this context, that Jesus warns the moral, good people.  These long standing church members were dismissing the work of the Spirit in their midst.  Tim Keller called this the danger of goodness.  Good religious people have this mindset that if they live a good life before God, then God will reward them in the end. 

That is not what the gospel is.  The gospel is that I repent of my sins, God forgives me and gives me something that I don’t deserve. 

Religious people will look down on others instead of allowing the gospel to compel them to love others even those who disagree with them.

Religious people say their prayers with no love and intimacy but gospel centered people worship god in their prayer life.  There is as much love and adoration as there is requests.  Religious people have a hard time giving forgiveness and gospel centered people practice this well because they realize how much they have been forgiven. 

When Jesus came, he redefined the kingdom.  The Pharisees recognized that they had been bad and their mindset was that if they were good, went to church, said their prayers, then God would see that, send the Messiah and get Rome off their backs.  That was their understanding of the kingdom.

Yet, Jesus came and basically said Rome is not your problem, it is the sin and evil and in your hearts.  Therefore, it’s not the good people that are going to be in and the bad people out.  It’s going to be those who humbly repent that are in and the proud and arrogant who think they are good on their own who will be out.