“Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies whatever they shall blaspheme:  But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit has never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal judgment:  Because they said, He has an unclean spirit.” Mark 3:28-30.

How shall we understand such a hard saying?  Can it be true that we can sin a sin of which Jesus will never forgive us?  Remember, Jesus taught us, “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”   Jesus put no restriction on this command to forgive.  He did not say that we should only forgive this or that sin.  He simply told us that if we expect to be forgiven our sins, then we had better forgive others their sins.  Jesus said that he who blasphemes the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness.  So, is he asking us to do something which he will not do?

First, what does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.  The word itself means to speak evil of. Jesus spoke this word to the religious leaders of his day who spoke evil of him, spoke evil of him who was filled with the Holy Spirit, a man who was all truth, goodness, and loveliness.   They called good evil.  And they did this knowing that he was good.  Thus they made a willful decision to turn truth upon its head and call the epitome of good evil.   This is the blaspheme of the Holy Spirit.

But, why is this sin unforgivable?  Certainly not because Jesus would not or could not forgive these hypocrites.  No, Jesus here states a fact of reality, which is that anyone who in their present condition blasphemes the Holy Spirit shall never have forgiveness.  But conditions change, and if one finally repents of his hardness of heart, his pride, his lusts, his jealousy, or whatever else keeps him from acknowledging the truth, will Jesus not forgive him?

I think he would and I think that this serves to show the two sides of forgiveness.  One side is that Jesus has already forgiven all of us all of our sins.  Nothing we can do can make him unforgive us.  But forgiveness is not complete when only one, the one wronged, forgives.  So long as the wrongdoer remains unrepentant and steadfast in his sin, forgiveness cannot reach him.  Would it be productive and according to God’s will for us to go around blatantly sinning, but all the while proclaiming that we are forgiven and free to sin thus and so?   No, our God is a consuming fire and he will burn all the dross from us.  So long as we have not forgiven our brother, so long as we walk in willful sin, that long we remain in prison.  And we will remain there until we pay the last farthing for our release.

In other words, we will not and cannot know the blessing of God’s forgiveness until we ourselves repent of those things for which we are forgiven.  The Gospel is “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  Forgiveness is always at hand, always at the ready to reconcile us to the Father.  But, so long as we call evil good and good evil and so long as we refuse to forgive our neighbor, we blaspheme the Holy Spirit and we shall not be forgiven.  We shall not be forgiven either in this age or the one to come….