The One Unforgivable Sin

 

 Forgiveness of our sins is a major topic in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. After all, the very basis for the existence of the new covenant that was established by Christ is that Jesus paid the price for our sins against God the Father, and has thereby purchased the forgiveness of our sins if we just accept His payment on our behalf. Ephesians 1:7 asserts that, "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace." It is the shed blood of Jesus, the unblemished lamb, that paid our sin debt. Jesus told his disciples this as well when He implemented the observance of the Last Supper in remembrance of what He was about to accomplish, as we read in Matthew 26:28; "for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins." The disciples did not understand this at the time because they could not fathom that Jesus would be killed or what the purpose of His death was.

God Himself presented to Moses the proposition that sin had to be paid for by the shedding of blood. We see this explanation in Leviticus 17:11, where God is telling Moses to instruct Aaron regarding the shedding of sacrificial blood and the ban on the consumption of blood; "For the life (soul) of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life (soul) that makes atonement.’ Our sins and trespasses against God required that a life had to be given as payment, but God provided a substitutionary sacrifice in that mankind did not have to die for our own sins, but the burden of these sins could be placed on unblemished animals. This was always a stop-gap solution until the time was right for the ultimate sacrifice; the death of a man who was perfect, choosing for Himself to bear the weight of humanity's sins on Himself. In Hebrews 9:11-18, the author makes the argument that if the blood of goats and calves could cover sins for a time, then the blood of Jesus cleanses us of our sins; it is not just a temporary covering.

As a result of this sacrifice, all we need to do to access this payment of our debts is to confess that we are sinful creatures and that Jesus paid that debt, and the One who died for our sins will cleanse us and forgive us; 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Not only that, the things that we have done against God are not taken off of our shoulders and set on a shelf where they can be shown and pointed to in order to remind us of our guilt, but they are cast away from us. Psalm 103:10-12 "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. 12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us." Have you ever considered that phrase, "as far as the east is from the west"? Let's look at that for a moment.

If you leave your home and you start travelling straight north, there will come a point where you will start to travel south. You have not changed your trajectory or direction at all, yet your global direction will automatically change to be oriented south, and it will again eventually change back to north. But, if you leave your house and you begin to travel east, you can circumnavigate the globe a million times and you will always be travelling east. Your eastward direction will never change to westward travel. So there are two points on the globe where north meets south; these are at the north and south poles, but there is no point at which east meets west. So when the Bible says that our sins are removed from us as far as the east is from the west, that is saying that we are separated from our sins beyond the opposing reaches of east and west; this means that our sins will never be counted against us again.

In Micah 7:18-19, we also read that our sins will be cast into the depths of the sea; "Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in unchanging love. 19 He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins Into the depths of the sea." The depths of the sea refers to the deepest part, which we currently recognize as the Mariana Trench. Attempts at measuring the depths of this trench have been ongoing since 1875, but the extreme depths have made taking accurate measurements difficult. The deepest measurement taken to date is 36,070 feet or 10,994 metres; that is 6.83 miles or 10.99 kilometres deep, but I don't think that anybody has yet claimed that they have conclusively measured to the very bottom of the deepest part of the Mariana Trench. The darkness and the pressures at the bottom of this trench would make anything that fell into there irretrievable; lost forever. This is where it is said that our sins are cast when we place them on Jesus.

Not only are we forgiven of the sins that we have committed, but our confessed sins will be forgotten. Hebrews 8:12 “For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more”; Romans 4:7-8 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered. 8 “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account”; Hebrews 10:17 “And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” There is no fear that God will someday look at us and say, "You know when you did that thing? I'm not sure that you are worthy of my gift to you." He will never bring up any sins that we have confessed to Him, but as I laid out in this article, we do need to be confessing our sins on a regular basis so that we do not carry what we have done since the point of receiving our salvation to Him as a weight on our righteousness.

There is even a doctrine that states that there is no unforgivable sin. Even as the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day rejected and killed the Son of God, Jesus was pleading for God not to hold that sin against them; "But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:3. But then what do we read in 1 John 5:16 about a sin that leads to death; "If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this." This is not referring to physical death, this is in reference to the spiritual death that forever separates us from the presence of God; this is the second death talked about in Revelation 2:11, 20:6, 20:14 and 21:8.

How do we know that this is not a physical death that is being spoken of here? We know that according to the Old Testament Laws there were sins that required that the community stone the perpetrator to death, which I believe was the only form of death punishment for sin, so how does this not refer to those sins?

The first clue that we see is in the words that are used. We see that "There is a sin leading to death"; only one. The Law lays out many instances in which the penalty for a sin was to be stoning, and these sins seem to be such that caused some type of defilement of the person, causing damage to the spiritual or ceremonial purity of the offender, be it man or animal. These were the types of sins that would threaten to pollute the holiness of the entire camp if it was left unchecked. If there were many such sins, to which one could this statement in 1 John be referring? We have no indication whatsoever. It cannot be referring to any and all of them, because the statement indicates that there is only one sin that leads to death. So then, if no one death penalty sin is referred to here, there must be some other type of death that is being referred to; not physical but spiritual.

We also see that Jesus Himself seems to remove the death penalty from even those sins that required it according to the Law. As the Son of God, it was definitely His prerogative to reinforce His Father's instructions regarding the taking of life for the commitment of a sin that called for death by stoning. Yet when He was placed in just such a situation by the Scribes and the Pharisees as we see in John 8, He does not enforce His own Father's law; He instead challenges those who were without any sin to throw the first stone, and when the crowd of the woman's accusers gradually dissipated, Jesus then Himself offers the accused woman mercy and instructs her to "Go. From now on sin no more” (v. 11). Jesus Himself could have cast the first stone, being without sin Himself, yet He demonstrated one aspect of the New Covenant that He came to establish, that a man's (or a woman's) sins were no longer to be a death sentence on them, but that they should have the opportunity to repent and live without that sin in their life anymore. This is the grace of God in action.

So if Jesus removed the penalty of physical death from the sins that we commit, what, then, is the one sin that leads to death? There can be only one sin that leads to spiritual death if all other sins can and will be forgiven when Jesus is recognized as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. That sin has to be the denial that Jesus is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world! This is the one unforgivable sin.

Matthew 12:31-32 tells us, in the words of Jesus, “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." So we need to understand what it means to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.

Blasphemy is "abuse of or contempt for God or sacred things; syn. contempt, irreverence"[a]. So how are we irreverent and showing contempt to the Holy Spirit? By ignoring His leadings; by silencing His words to us; by denying the Truth of what He says.

It is the Holy Spirit who testifies as to the sovereignty of Jesus and His holiness, as we see in John 15:26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me". So if we deny that Jesus is the Son of God after the Spirit has testified it, then we are making the Spirit out to be a liar.

This same idea is stated in 1 John 5:5-11, but the accusation of being a liar is aimed at God in general; "5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son. 10 The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. 11 And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life." Of course, we know that there is a triune Godhead consisting of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and since the word used for God in verse 10 is Theos, G2316, this can refer to any of the Godhead, as the definition according to Strong's Concordance of the Bible, is "of uncertain affinity; a deity". This is not specifically God the Father, so we can argue that the verses in John 15 and 1 John 5 are stating the same thing, especially as they are written by the same author.

Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 12:3, we are told that only those whom the Spirit enables to do so can state that Jesus is Lord, therefore, one who cannot state such is accursed and destined for the second death; "Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit."

So we are told that there is one unforgivable sin, we are told that the one unforgivable sin is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and we are told that it is the job of the Holy Spirit to testify that Jesus is the Son of God, through whom is the only way to eternal salvation. So, if one refuses to acknowledge this Truth that the Holy Spirit is presenting, one is blaspheming the Holy Spirit and has committed the unforgivable sin.

This can, of course, be turned around simply by acknowledging that which the Spirit is proclaiming. Hence one is no longer guilty of denying the deity of Jesus Christ and is no longer destined for the second death, but will spend eternity with God. I suppose that one could then argue that the unforgivable sin has been forgiven, but I think the point is that all sins can be overlooked and entry can be allowed into God's presence except for this one sin - this one sin cannot be overlooked. This one sin, regardless of the lack of any other sins or the abundance of good in one's life, will destine that sinner to an eternity that he or she has chosen, that being separation from God. God does not sentence man to hell, because we are already destined to go there; God offers the only way to avoid hell. I urge you to accept His invitation.

As always, if you have anything that you would like to add to this conversation, please feel free to tell me about it in the comments section below.

 

[a] World Book Dictionary 1976