Jesus says that every sin will be forgiven, or can be forgiven, except one: blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. That is the sin which will never be forgiven.

Now, Jesus says this, I mean, our earlier source will be Mark chapter 3, speaking to the Pharisees. And the Pharisees accuse Jesus of being demonic.

They say that the reason he's able to cast out demons of people is because he is a demon himself, he is Satan, whatever it is.

And Jesus says, "How can this be the case? A house divided cannot stand." You know, if I'm a demon, I can't be casting out demons.

But then he goes on to say that all sins can be forgiven, but blasphemy of the Holy Spirit will not and cannot be forgiven.

I provide the context there because I'm told that it's quite important. This is enough to send a shiver down your spine, Jesus saying, "If you do this thing, you will not be forgiven." I've heard stories of Christians who sort of are up at night in cold sweat thinking, "Have I blasphemed the Holy Spirit when I made that joke at Christmas about bringing in the Holy Spirit?

Was that, oh my God, you know, what is blaspheming the Holy Spirit and why is it unforgivable?" Blaspheming the Holy Spirit, I would relate to Romans chapter 1, when Paul talks about how eventually God gave them over to their own desires.

So, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not, "I'm driving down the merit and all of a sudden I get into this incredible road rage and I curse at somebody or I curse at God and that those are the last words on my lips and I die in this road rage." So it's a sin I'm committing at the end of my life.

So, obviously it's going to send me to hell.

No, it has nothing to do with that. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is deciding on my own, my own volition—it's like Pharaoh, to be honest, that's another example of hardening my own heart—and then eventually God hardens my heart.

So it's, I'm going to live any old way I want to. Romans chapter 1, and then God gives me over to my own desires.

And so it's, it's not a specific act, it's instead it's grieving the Holy Spirit, living in line with the flesh, not the Spirit.

Because if you're living in line with the genuine Spirit, you're growing out the fruits of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

In a tyrannical kind of way, it's always shown as fruit. So you're supposed to be growing in these areas.

So blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is the only unforgivable sin, is back to your original question, can I just ask for forgiveness at the end of my life and God, you'll just grant me my wish to go into heaven?

Kira, live any old way you want. It's so easy for Christians because then at the end of their lives they can just say, 'God forgive me.

' No, Kira. I love Pirates of the Caribbean, but no, Kira, that's completely wrong. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is, 'God, I'm playing a dirty trick with you.

I, I think you'll forgive me no matter what, so I'm going to live any old kind of way that I want.

' And then eventually God gives you over to those desires. Now, the, the thing that really strikes me about this is unforgivable.

Like, forgiveness is something that is done retrospectively for something that's already been done and now regretted and apologized for.

So I understand the idea that like there are people who become so consumed with their own desires that their hearts are hardened, mhm, that maybe for some reason God then like reinforces that by extra hardening their heart or whatever.

But like locking it in somehow as if to say that, I mean, what does it mean for it to be unforgivable?

It means that if that person does that, they live that way. I mean, suppose I've been thinking to myself like, well, I'm not sure if I should really be living this way, but I'm sure that one day I'll have a religious experience and I can know, I'm sure God will forgive me and it'll be okay.

I'm starting to do that. And then one day I, what was I thinking? This is this is this is terrible.

I I I should never have done that. I'm really sorry about it. Well, tough luck. You can't be forgiven. You don't have to worry about that.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit means I have played so many games with God that I've reached the point where my heart is so hard, I never hear the voice of God.

I am not sorry for the wrong that I've done.

Therefore, the only people who blaspheme the Holy Spirit are those who couldn't give a rip. They're totally unconcerned because they're totally dead towards God in their spirit.

Pharaoh six times hardened his heart, then we read the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. Well, you take the first six times out and you're thinking, what?

The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. What does that mean? No, Pharaoh hardened his heart, and I can do that.

We all can do that. But if a person has any desire at all to say, "Lord, forgive me," of course the Lord forgives them.

It's only those who have no desire to ask for forgiveness who have possibly committed that sin. So, so why does God then harden the Pharaoh's heart, right? His heart.

He's already hardening his heart. Why is it that God does this extra thing? I'm now going to harden your heart as if like the imagery I'm getting there, if this is indeed what something like blaspheming the Holy Spirit is and becomes the unforgivable sin, it's almost like God himself is like locking that in.

It's like, well, Pharaoh's been hardening his heart, he's been, you know, rejecting God's advances, and so God says, "Okay, I'm going to grab you by a hold of the heart and I'm going to sort of switch off this possibility for you," as if God is like doing that to Pharaoh, right?

No, he's not doing that to Pharaoh. It's it's more a statement that, Pharaoh, you have hardened your heart so much that you are now shutting yourself off from me.

No, the offer of Christ, the offer of God for forgiveness is always open to every single human being, and there are countless illustrations of the grace of God working with some of the biggest wretches on Earth.

So we don't have to worry about that. But is it impossible in principle for somebody to have once blasphemed the Holy Spirit and then regret it?

Yeah, that's that's not going to happen because when you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you don't have the ability to repent, you don't have the ability to be sensitive towards God because you are so hardened, so separated from God, there's no hope for you.

That that sort of seems to make it worse to me. It's like, oh, whatever I may have done, because this, the thing is that you might say, well, look, you hardened your heart, you did this, you turned yourself away from Christ, and so now you're in a state where you can't even possibly come to repentance.

And I would say, but that seems a little unfair.

You know, so, well, it's your fault, you did it. But the whole point of Christianity is that like, well, yeah, you did this, yeah, you did that, you did that for years, but I'm still going to forgive you as long as you regret it.

But you're telling me that there's something a person can do that makes it such that it is literally impossible for them even to want to repent, you know, let alone being forgiven for it.

That that seems like really difficult to square with the with the sort of eternally forgiving God, you know, like we're talking about something that's unforgivable.

When you say, well, if somebody dies in a state where their where their heart is hardened to God, that's true of any sin.

If you die in sin without repentance, you know, you're not going to be entered into the you're not going to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

To say that this is unforgivable, and you're you're telling me now something like, well, they've done something to the extent that now it does not matter what they do, they will never be able to repent.

though just like in Matthew 25, when Jesus is talking about the sheep and the goats, he's saying, "I never knew you.

Depart from me." Uh, "I never knew you, depart from me." The Pharisees, shiny on the outside with the cup, but completely rotten on the inside. "Their father's the devil." Okay, that's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, where it's a hypocritical, hypocritical lifestyle all life long.

But there's no way that those Pharisees could ever have snapped out of it and been like, "I don't know what I was thinking.

I was wrong. I regret it. I'm sorry, Lord." No, Jesus wouldn't forgive them. We may disagree on this point, but Pharaoh, I think God judges Pharaoh. I think it was Pharaoh's free will at first, but then I think judgment came, and thank heaven it came.

Pharaoh is a nasty, brutish guy, was he not?

So, so Judgment Day, I'm looking forward to because I think I think judgment needs to happen.

Um, at the same time, I'm not looking forward to it because I realize I've done wrong. But so, so for me, it's yes, God eventually judges, but I I think you keep taking blaspheming as the Holy Spirit as like a one-time thing because you you started off this way, you started off making it sound like you're at a Christmas party and all of a sudden you said the wrong thing against the Holy Spirit, you're going to hell.

Well, that's radically different from what we're talking about. We know it's not that, right?

But but I think there are things that you can do. I mean, all kinds of you could be in a in an adulterous affair.

for 10 years, it's something you do over 10 years, and then on, you know, the very next day, you could suddenly realize it was wrong, suddenly repent of it, and if as long as you're genuine, you're forgiven.

Mhm. You're telling me that there's something people can do, not asking for forgiveness, but like that's, I mean, yeah, you don't if if I steal your wallet and you say, Cliff, I offer to forgive you, and I say, forgive me for what?

I haven't done anything wrong. Oh, no, Cliff, you stole my wallet.

Well, so what? Yeah, so so then I say that what you're doing there is unforgivable, right? I I'm not going to forgive you for what you're doing right now.

And so then tomorrow, when you come to me and say, you know, yesterday, when I was sort of like refusing to even acknowledge I I I I was wrong, I'm sorry about that.

And I say, hey, man, I already told you, I'm not forgiving you for that.

Christ will always forgive the person who is repentant. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an unrepentant, hardened heart.

There's no need there. There's no understanding of my need for forgiveness. And once you get into that state, there's no possibility for redemption.

Correct. So like, I mean, what are you imagining? Like how old is a person in this day? Like how long does it take? What do they have to do?

You know, we don't have the finest idea because because people are or what they've done, we don't know, that's between them and God.

I find that so so difficult. Like it it's sure it's difficult, unforgivable, because they're not asking for forgiveness, correct?

You cannot be forgiven unless you ask for forgiveness, you humble yourself. Something it's unforgivable to not ask for forgiveness.

The the problem is there's sort of two levels here, right? There's like there's not asking for forgiveness, which of course you can't be forgiven if you don't ask for forgiveness.

But we're saying here now, it's not you can't be forgiven if you don't ask for forgiveness.

It's you can't be forgiven for the state of not asking for forgiveness. If not asking, if blaspheming the Holy Spirit is something like not asking for forgiveness, to say that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is unforgivable is not to say that when you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you know, you like you you're not going like, okay, you're not being forgiven right now because you're not apologizing.

It's one thing to say you're not being forgiven for not apologizing.

It's another thing to say that you will not be forgiven, like full stop, ever, for the fact that right now you're unforgiven.

You see what I'm saying? The only person who's committed that sin could care less. God is irrelevant.

God is not part of the equation. My sin is not part of the equation. I'm totally shut off. It's a lifestyle, not a one-time thing, right?

Because it sounds like you keep taking it back to a one-time thing, but we're saying it's a full lifestyle.

Sure, age of accountability, you bring in 12 years old, so after 12 maybe. But it's the sheep and the goats, Matthew 25.

I understand it's a terrifying passage. We've had some students come to us crying. I I get it. We need safe spaces for them.

But I think for us it's a matter of what are your motives? When I am sitting in an Uber with a Hindu going to a temple with a Hindu, and sitting in an Uber with a Muslim, I hear very similar things when it comes to, "I have to do X, Y, and Z to get out of this caste in order to get out of a certain cycle.

I have to do X, Y, and Z for my heart to be lighter than a feather to get to Paradise." It's all me, me, me. "I have to do these things," versus, "I'm doing these things, but what is my true motive?

" Motives don't matter here. With these two, it's just you have to do good things.

Here, it's a heart motive in the sense of, "Who am I doing it for? Why am I doing it, God? Am I genuine in my relationship with You?

Am I genuinely loving You? Am I genuinely loving others?" Or is this simply just a sick game where it's a hypocritical lifestyle?

And I think we all know, let's be real, I think we all know when we're living in a hypocritical kind of way.

And the answer is, if you do that for long enough, then you just enter into a state where now for the rest of your life, no matter what you do—no, not no matter what you do, if you repent, you'll be forgiven.

Because they blasphemed the Holy Spirit. It's impossible for them to repent. They have so hardened their hearts that they have no interest in repenting. If you have a slight interest in repenting, Christ will forgive you.

Do you think it's possible to be in a state where you have no interest in repentance for 10 years and then the 11th year regain it somehow.

Good, sure. That happens to many people. Yeah, so they those people didn't blaspheme the Holy Spirit for 10 years and they were sinners, but they chose to repent and that's that's well, that's a thief on the cross.

The thief on the cross, just remember him. Yeah, I mean, I must admit it's one of the most theological theologically troubling things.

I mean, there's there's troubling and then there's troubling, right? Like I find the Old Testament passages troubling.

They're kind of they're kind of gave it away, can't be, you know, I'm oh this seems immoral, this seems wrong, right?

Uh, but maybe it fits in. Maybe maybe that was just fine. Maybe whatever, you know, um, you know, the women verses, I find those challenging. Yeah, but maybe you know, maybe women shouldn't speak in church.

Maybe that's just true, fine. But with this, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, it's not just because I think it's like, oh, that's really immoral or that's kind of evil.

I I just firstly, I don't really understand what it means.

And secondly, it seems just like, so it's it's the reason it sends a shiver down your spine is because it seems so out of character for Jesus, you know, it's like, you know, come to me, child, and forgive and go and sin no more.

Out of and you, whoa, you know, what are you talking about? And so I I must say that of all the things we've spoken about so far, it's been the it's it's it's the most theologically challenging to me.

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Jesus Said This is the ONLY Unforgivable Sin

Hi, I'm Alex O'Connor, host of the Within Reason Podcast. For the curious. New episodes every Sunday from the likes of Richard Dawkins, William Lane Craig, Bishop Robert Barron, Peter Singer, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Jesus Said This is the ONLY Unforgivable Sin

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