SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST
‘All sins shall be forgiven unto … men … but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness.’
There is probably no text of Scripture of which the full meaning is more uncertain, and yet, in spite of its obscurity, probably no text in which there lies a more solemn warning. Why should speaking against the Holy Spirit be less pardonable than blasphemy against the Son of God? The sin of one who has received the Spirit is more conscious; it is a deadlier sin, because the sinner who commits it stands higher in the Christian life. The greater unpardonableness, whatever it be, however it be extended or limited, consists not in the nature of Him against Whom it is committed, but in the state of heart of him who has been guilty of it. No one can pretend on earth to say what this sin is. We simply do not know. There is no known sin of which we can dare to say, without awful presumption, that God can never forgive it. Ignorant and morbid brooding on this matter has often been an instrument in the hands of Satan to craze weak brains. Suffice it for us that all sin is exceedingly sinful, and that until it be forsaken no sin can be forgiven. But even when we have said this the text continues to be a word of solemn and even of awful warning.
It deeply behoves us to consider what sins are sins against the Holy Spirit of God.
I. Disbelief in the Holy Ghost.—You begin the Creed by saying that you believe in an Almighty Father. Well, you may entirely lose the sense of that Fatherhood and yet be forgiven. You go on to say that you believe in a Saviour Son; you may entirely lose the sense of that Sonship and yet be forgiven. But the third article—‘I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life’—disbelieve that if you dare; disbelieve that, and your own being is degraded into the state of dust driven by the wind, and the element of dissolution has entered into your very heart and soul. And why? Briefly and summarily, because the Spirit is the source of life, of all true life, and all nature with one voice and with one glory is set to teach you reverence for the life communicated to you by the Father of Spirits.
II. A sin of the life.—But the sin is not in mere words. It is a sin of the life. It is a sin of the whole being. Wherever any man, whether he calls himself an atheist or a Christian, gives himself over to vile affections, there breathes a leprosy of decay through every word and action. There have been such men; and can any man, in any way, approach to this condition without a sin against the Spirit of God? The gift of the artist, the writer, the orator, the poet, the musician, the man of science, the philosopher, are all the manifold gifts of the one Spirit of God. But when art, sinking into degradation, deals only with what is foul and horrible; and when music becomes petty, vulgar, meretricious, effeminate; and when literature becomes unclean and polluting; and when poetry cares only to paint the gates of hell; and when science bends all her energies to dispeople heaven and earth of God; and when philosophy grovels downwards into a base pessimism—surely every man who in these ways prostitutes the gift of God, is guilty of a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. But it does not require any genius to sin against the Spirit of God; the sin can be sinned in the humblest position by the most common man. Every one who sins against light and knowledge commits this sin.
III. The ground of hope.—But ‘walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.’ The Spirit of God is the Spirit of the Lord of life, and a witness to our hearts that there is a Holy Catholic Church of which every one of us is a member; a communion of saints, to which we may belong; and a forgiveness of sins, of which we may all partake; and a resurrection of the body and a life everlasting, which, even to the worst, and the most abandoned, and most habitual sinner, here may still be—because the offer of Christ’s pardon is still open to him—may still be an immortality full of joy unspeakable. These blessings are meant for every one of us.
—Dean Farrar.
Illustration
‘Although it is difficult to define what the unpardonable sin is, it is far less difficult to point out what it is not. A few words on this point may possibly help to relieve tender consciences. We may lay it down as nearly certain, that those who are troubled with fears that they have sinned the unpardonable sin are the very people who have not sinned it. The very fact that they are afraid and anxious about it is the strongest possible evidence in their favour. A troubled conscience—an anxiety about salvation, and a dread of being cast away, a concern about the next world, and a desire to escape from the wrath of God—will probably never be found in the heart of that person who has sinned the sin for which there is no forgiveness. It is far more probable that the general marks of such a person will be utter hardness of conscience—a seared heart—an absence of any feeling—a thorough insensibility to spiritual concern. The subject may safely be left here. There is such a thing as a sin which is never forgiven. But those who are troubled about it are most unlikely to have committed it.’