The Unpardonable Sin
“Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be for¬ given unto men. And whosoever speak eth a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come” — Matthew 12:31, 32.
THIS passage is often regarded as one of the darkest and gloomiest in the Bible. Many have gone insane, or nearly insane, over this passage; or rather, being already diseased in mind, their diseased brains have seized upon this passage to brood over. But if we look at the passage care¬ fully we will see that the passage has its bright side, and on its bright side it is one of the most cheering utterances that ever fell from the lips of Jesus Christ. It tells us plainly and positively that in all the catalogue of sins that men or women can commit there is only one sin that puts a man or woman beyond hope; that there is only one sin that God will not and cannot forgive if men repent and turn to Jesus Christ, and that sin is one that, as far as my experience goes, very few men and very few women have committed. I have had countless people come to me
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personally, and write to me from all parts of the earth, who thought they had committed this sin, and of all these who have come to me or written to me, when I came to question them carefully it was evident that not one person among them all had committed this sin. And most of those who have come to me thinking they have committed this sin have come out into a bright Christian experience, and many of them have since become among the brightest and most useful Christians I have ever known. Of all the men I have ever led to Jesus Christ, the one who in many ways has had the largest usefulness of all, usefulness not only in America, but in England, China and elsewhere as well, was one who was so sure that he had committed the unpardonable sin that he had attempted suicide five times, had had poison pumped out of him several times and his life barely saved, and he was sent to me hundreds of miles under guard to make sure he got to me, and for fear he would commit suicide on the way.
I. There is Only One Unpardonable Sin
The first thing that our Lord Jesus makes very plain in the words which we have taken for our text, is that there is only one unpardonable sin. He says, “all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.” Language could not make it plainer that in the whole catalogue of possible sins there is only one that men can commit that makes pardon and salvation impossible. Even murder, as desperate and awful a sin as it is, is not unpardonable. There have been many men and women who have stained their hands with human blood who have afterwards found pardon and eternal life, and become among the truest and noblest of Christians. I have met quite a number of persons who thought that salvation was impossible for them because they had taken the life of some fellow-man, but our Lord Jesus declares that there is only one unpardonable sin, and that unpardonable sin is not murder.
David committed murder, one of the most dastardly murders in history, and yet David found pardon. It was after he had brought upon his own soul the guilt of the death of Uriah, his faithful soldier, that he wrote the words, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom Jehovah imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was changed as with the drought of summer.” And then he went on to say, “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity did I not hide: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Ps. 32: 1-5).
Saul of Tarsus, who afterwards became Paul the Apostle, was a murderer. He was responsible for the death of men, women and children whose only fault was that they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet he found pardon. The grossest moral impurity is not unpardonable. Moral im¬ purity is loathsome, but it is not unpardonable. Our Lord declares that there is only one unpardonable sin,.
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and the sin He describes is not moral impurity. I once spoke to a man at the close of my Bible class in Chicago. I stepped up to him and asked him if he were a Christian, and he said, no he was not, though he would like to be. I asked him why he was not a Christian, and with tears running down his face he said that he had committed a sin for which there was no pardon. I told him there was only one sin for which there was no pardon, and I asked him what the sin was that he had committed for which he thought there was no pardon. He told me what it was, describing it very fully. It was gross immorality. When he finished I said, “The Bible nowhere says there is no pardon for that sin.” “But,” he replied, “I remember my mother read a passage in the Bible when I was a boy, that said if a man committed that sin he could not be pardoned.” “No,” I said, “there is no such passage.” But he was sure that there was. I racked my brains to think what passage he might have in mind, and suddenly it flashed upon me, and I said, “Oh, I think I know the passage to which you refer,” and I opened my Bible to I Cor. 6:9, 10, and read, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the king¬ dom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effiminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” His sin was in that dreadful catalogue, and he said, “That is the passage. Doesn’t it say there that the one who commits this sin shall not inherit the kingdom of God?” I said, “Let me read you the next verse,” and I read, “And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the spirit of our God.” “Does it say that?” he cried. I said, “Look at it,” and I put the book in his hand and he read, “And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified.” “Thank God, thank God,” he exclaimed. He then and there accepted Christ. A few weeks afterward he brought to Chicago the wife whom he had deserted in Indianapolis to go off into his life of sin. He introduced her and his grown daughter to me, and they accepted Christ. He is to-day an officer in the Chicago Avenue church, and one of the most earnest men in the church. Profanity and blasphemy are not unpardonable, except the one blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. The most outrageous and blatant infidelity are not unpardonable. Saul of Tarsus, before his conversion, was a blasphemer, he was a rank infidel so far as Jesus Christ was concerned. So far from believing Him to be the Son of God he believed Him to be an impostor. He says of himself that before his conversion he “was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious,” but that the Lord Jesus had saved him, and in view of this he exclaims, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”
II. What is the Unpardonable Sin?
We come then to the question, What is the unpardonable sin?
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1. First of all let me say that the unpardonable sin is a definite act. It is not a certain attitude of mind; it is an act. It is not a series of actions, though it may be the outcome of a series of actions, it is one definite act. This is evident from our Lord’s words. The same thing is evident from I John 5:16, “If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death.” The unpardonable sin, the sin unto death, is one definite sin.
2. Furthermore, the unpardonable sin is a sin of which one may know definitely whether he has committed it or not. A great many fear that they have committed the unpardonable sin. They are not sure that they have. They are not at all clear as to what the one unpardonable sin may be. But the unpardonable sin is a sin of such a definite and clearly defined character that one may know to a certainty whether he has committed it or not.
3. What is this definite act, what is this one unpardonable sin? This definite unpardonable sin our Lord Jesus Christ tells us in so many words is the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. He says, “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be for¬ given unto men.” And in further explanation He says, “And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be for¬ given him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” So it is evident that the one definite unpardonable sin is the definite blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. What is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost? The context in which these words are found will tell us. The Pharisees had seen the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ; they had seen His works of divine power and heard His words of divine grace. They had seen in these miracles clear evidence that Jesus was a teacher sent from God who spoke the very words of God (Jno. 3:2), that He was the Messiah, the Christ. They had been unwilling to accept Him as such, because of what it would cost them to accept Him. They had refused to accept or acknowledge Him as the Christ. But the evidence that He was the Christ was so overwhelming that at last in their determination not to accept Him they had deliberately attributed His works, which they knew to be the work of the Holy Ghost, to the devil. They had said, as recorded in this very chapter in the immediate connection, “This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Be-el-ze-bub the prince of the devils.” In other words, they had deliberately attributed to the devil what they knew to be the work of the Holy Spirit. This then is the unpardonable sin, the only unpardonable sin, the deliberately ascribing to the devil what you know to be the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not merely the attributing to the devil what is the work of the Holy Ghost, but what you know to be the work of the Holy Ghost. Have you committed this sin? Have you deliberately attributed to the devil work that you know to be the work of the Holy Spirit? You reply, “I have been a great sinner.” That is not my question. Have you definitely attributed to the
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devil what you know to be the work of the Holy Spirit? If not, then you have not committed the unpardonable sin, and there is pardon and salvation for you to-night if you will turn from your sin, whatever it may be, and accept the Lord Jesus Christ. “But,” you say, “I have sinned against the light; I have resisted the Holy Ghost.” That is not the point. You may have done all this, but have you definitely attributed to the devil what you knew to be the work of the Holy Spirit? Many have sinned against the light; many have resisted the Holy Ghost. I did for years, but thank God I had not blasphemed the Holy Ghost; I had not attributed to the devil what I knew to be the work of the Holy Spirit, and I found pardon and am a saved man to-night. “But,” you will say, “I have sinned so long I fear I have sinned away the day of grace. My heart is hard and nothing moves it now. I have no desire to repent.” That is not the question. One may do all these things, and many have done all these things, and yet have turned to Christ and found pardon. The question is, have you deliberately and intentionally attributed to the devil what you knew to be the work of the Holy Ghost? If you have, you have committed the unpardonable sin and there is no pardon or hope for you; but if you have not, whatever else you may have done you have not committed the unpardonable sin and there is pardon for you to-night, pardon for you and salvation for you before you leave this building,, if you turn your back upon sin and accept the Lord Jesus Christ. There is but one unpardonable sin and you have not committed that, and as I say, if you turn from your other sins, whatever they may be, and turn to God and to Christ, even without one bit of feeling, you will be saved to-night. The Bible says, “To him (i. e., to Jesus) bear all the prophets witness, that through his name every one that believeth on him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43). And He says again, that “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name.”
III. Why is the Blasphemy Against the Holy Ghost Unpardonable?
There is another important question for us to consider to-night, and that is why the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is unpardonable.
1. First of all, The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is unpardonable because it indicates such a determined choice of evil that a man’s character is determined finally and forever in evil. A man will not deliberately attribute to the devil what he knows to be the work of the Spirit of God unless he has settled it finally and forever that he will not accept the truth; so the man dooms himself to eternal sin¬ fulness and so to eternal punishment. Such a sin comes at the end of a course of persistent rejection of the truth and persistent rejection of Jesus Christ.
2. This sin is unpardonable, in the second place, because the one who deliberately commits such a sin so determines his character that repentance becomes impossible. If any man will repent and come to Christ he will be saved; for the Lord Jesus Christ has declared in the most unmistakable terms, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John
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6:37). But the man who commits this sin has determined that he will not come to Christ, and there¬ fore does not come to Christ, and therefore cannot be pardoned. The fact that one is concerned about his spiritual condition, the fact that one is troubled about his sins, the fact that one desires to come to Christ is of itself conclusive proof that one has not as yet committed the unpardonable sin. On the other hand, all conscious continuance in sin, all de¬ liberate refusal to listen to the truth, all deliberate refusal to accept the Lord Jesus Christ when you know that you ought to accept Him, all turning of a deaf ear to the voice of the Holy Spirit, every such an act is a step toward the unpardonable sin. This was the course of conduot that led the Pharisees of our text to commit the unpardonable sin. Before their very eyes they had conclusive proof that Jesus was what He claimed to be, time and time again they were moved to accept Him; but they would not. Time and time again they said “No” to the voice of the Spirit of God, and they had so hardened themselves in the rejection of Christ that at last in deliberate determination they had attributed His words to the devil, and became utterly blinded in mind and utterly incapable of repentance. And some of you are pursuing exactly the same course to-night. Time and time again you have been moved by the Holy Spirit to accept Christ; time and time again you have said “No” to the voice of the Spirit of God, and you are trying to say “No” to the Spirit of God to-night, as He urges upon you the necessity of forsaking your sins and accepting Christ. You are walking straight toward the unpardonable sin and toward a hopeless and eternal hell. Every one of you here to-night who has heard the Gospel be¬ fore and refused it, every one of you that knows that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and yet refuses to accept Him as your Saviour, every one of you who has been moved by the Holy Spirit once, twice, three times, perhaps more frequently, in the past and have said “No” every time, every time you say “No” to the Holy Spirit you are confirming yourself in sin, you are bringing yourself more and more surely near to the point where you will commit the unpardonable sin and your destiny be eternally sealed.
Some years ago there was a great religious awakening in one of our colleges. Many turned to Christ. Two young men were under deep conviction, but they would not yield. In their determination not to yield they agreed together that on a certain night they would meet at the college chapel and go into the chapel together and blaspheme the Holy Ghost. At the appointed hour they met in front of the chapel. The heart of one of them failed him, and he repented, turned to the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved. The other one went into the chapel alone. What he did in there no one but he ever knew, but when he came out he was pale as a ghost. He went into utter infidelity, became one of the lead¬ ers of the infidel society in Chicago, lived many years and died as he had lived, and was everlastingly lost.
The Spirit of God is speaking to many of you here to-night. He has spoken to you often before. You know you ought to accept Christ. You know you ought to confess Him. If to-night you say “No”
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to Him again you may so determine yourself in sin that repentance will become impossible and you will be lost forever. You will be as surely lost for all eternity as when you have been in hell ten million years. On the other hand, anyone here to-night who will accept Christ, no matter what your past may have been, no matter how grossly you may have sinned, no matter how frightful your sins may have been, no matter how long you have sinned, if you will come to Christ to-night there is pardon, salvation, and eternal life for you. Will you yield and accept Jesus Christ right now?