Blasphemy and Forgiveness

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on October 29. 2023.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 12:22-37.

            One of the most awesome things about God is the forgiveness God offers us.  We know, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans Three, Verses Twenty-three, that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  That means we all need forgiveness.  And God offers that forgiveness, time after time after time.  Christians have said, many, many times, that there is nothing that God cannot forgive.

            But if we believe that, what do we do with the passage we read today?  Because Jesus quite clearly says there is a sin that will not be forgiven.  In verses thirty-one and thirty-two, Jesus says, “Every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.  Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come.”

            So, is our often-repeated Christian belief wrong?  Is there, in fact, something that God cannot forgive--that is, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?  Is God not, in fact, the all-forgiving God?

            Well first, let’s define what blasphemy is.  It’s kind of a churchy word, and it’s a word that kind of gets thrown around without actually saying what it means.  So here it is:  blasphemy is defined as speaking sacrilegiously.  And what does sacrilege mean?  It means to speak mockingly or profanely against something that is holy.  So, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit means to mock the Holy Spirit or to speak profanely against it.  That’s what Jesus is saying is the sin that will not be forgiven.

            Why would Jesus say that?  Well, because it’s true--Jesus would never say anything that was not true.  But why is it true?  Why would this be the one sin that will not be forgiven?

Well, let’s look at what’s going on in this passage.  A demon-possessed man is brought to Jesus.  He cannot see.  He cannot speak.  And Jesus heals him!  Jesus drives out the demons, the man can seem, the man can talk.  He is completely and totally healed.

            Now, you’d think people would be pretty happy about that, right?  And of course, some of them were.  Some of them, in fact, were completely astonished.

            But not the Pharisees.  Remember, the Pharisees were among the Jewish religious leaders.  Now, don’t you think the religious leaders would be the ones who were happiest about what Jesus did?  I mean, Jesus drove demons out of a man.  From a religious standpoint, what better thing could there be for Jesus to do?

            But of course, the Pharisees were not happy about it at all.  You see, they had already made up their minds that Jesus was a fraud and a blasphemer.  They had already decided that he could not possibly be who people claimed he was, the divine Son of God.  And of course, if your mind is closed, if you’ve already decided about something, you can always come up with reasons to justify the decision you’ve made.

            And that’s what the Pharisees did.  Instead of saying “Wow, look at that!  This Jesus actually drove demons out of someone and healed him!  Maybe he really is the divine Son of God!”  Instead of saying that, they said, well, this may look like it’s good, but there’s got to be something bad going on here somehow.  And so, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

            The Pharisees’ argument was completely nonsensical, when you think about it.  The devil is going to help someone drive out demons?  It’s the devil who controls the demons in the first place.  When demons possess someone, they’re acting on the devil’s behalf.  Why in the world would the devil help anyone, let alone Jesus, drive out demons?  

And yet, the Pharisees were somehow able to convince themselves that their argument made sense.  It just shows, again, how, once we’ve made up our minds about something, we can always find a way to justify to ourselves what we believe.  The justification may not make sense to anyone else, like this one did not, but we can convince ourselves to believe it.  A lot of times, it’s easier for us to believe nonsensical reasons for something than it is for us to change our minds.  That’s what happened to the Pharisees.  It was easier for them to tell themselves that the devil was driving out demons than it was for them to allow themselves to consider that Jesus might actually be the divine Son of God.

            Jesus immediately points out how silly the Pharisees’ argument is.  And that’s when he makes the statement that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.  And then, Jesus says these things:  “How can you who are evil say anything good?”  “An evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”  

            So, taking all this in context, it seems to me that what Jesus is saying is this:  You saw me drive demons out of this man.  You know that only the Holy Spirit can do that, and yet you claim it’s the work of the devil.  If you’re going to refer to the work of the Holy Spirit in that way, as the work of the devil, then it’s clear that your minds are closed to ever seeing the Holy Spirit in anything.  You’re not going to ask for forgiveness for what you’ve said, because you refuse to see anything wrong with it.  And so, since you’re not going to ask for forgiveness, you’re not going to be forgiven.

            In other words, I don’t think Jesus is saying that God cannot forgive blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  God, by definition, can do anything God chooses to do.  Jesus would never put limitations on God because God has no limitations.  God can forgive anything, even blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

            But the thing is, while God can forgive blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, God will not forgive it unless the person who commits it asks for it.  That’s true of all of our sins--God will forgive them, but only if we ask, and only if we ask sincerely and from the heart.  And unless the person who commits blasphemy against the Holy Spirit has some sort of incredible conversion, they will never ask.  And so they will never be forgiven.

            Jesus referred to the Pharisees as evil, and of course they were.  But you know, they did not intend to be evil.  They were not deliberately blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.  In fact, they’d have said they were defending the Holy Spirit.  They simply were so closed-minded about who God was and how God worked that they could not see what was right in front of them.  They were so convinced that this unknown carpenter from Nazareth could never be the Messiah that nothing he did and nothing he said could convince them otherwise.  They refused to hear, and they refused to see.  They were like the people described by the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah Five, Verse Twenty-one.  They had eyes, but saw not, and they had ears, but heard not.  It’s kind of sad, really, when you think about it.

            But here’s the thing.  Are there ways in which we’re like those Pharisees?  Are there things in our lives that we have never asked God to forgive us for, simply because we refuse to acknowledge those things as sins?  Are there things in our own lives that we are justifying to ourselves, rather than seeing them as they truly are?  Are we coming up with flimsy reasons or excuses to justify the decisions we’ve made, rather than seeing ourselves as we truly are?

            I suspect there are times when all of us do that.  I know I’ve done it.  Maybe I still am, and don’t even realize it.  Or, maybe I do realize it, deep down, but just refuse to admit it.  Many times, the biggest lies we ever tell are the lies we tell ourselves.  And we believe them, even though we know better, simply because we want to believe them, because believing our lies makes life easier.  It’s easier for us to believe our lies and stay as we are than to face the truth and accept that we need to make changes in our lives.

            I encourage all of us, most definitely including me, to examine ourselves.  Examine the things we do and the things we say.  Are there times we’ve refused to see what God was doing?  Are there times we’ve refused to acknowledge our sins?  Are we justifying ourselves to ourselves?  Are we flat-out lying to ourselves, simply because we don’t want to accept the truth?  Are we, in effect, blaspheming against God’s Holy Spirit, which Jesus said is a Spirit of truth?

            Think about it.  Pray about it.  Ask God to help you see yourself as you truly are.  And I’ll do that, too.  And then, we can all ask God to forgive us for those times when we’ve refused to see the truth, either about ourselves, or about others, or about God.

            The Pharisees could not do that.  And, we assume, they were not forgiven.  But we can do it.  And we can be forgiven.  Let’s not follow the example of the Pharisees.  Let’s go to God, ask for forgiveness, and live.