What Does it Mean to Blaspheme the Holy Spirit?
Question: What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit? If Jesus died for all sins, how can there be an unpardonable one?
Answer:
An excellent question: let’s take a brief look at the Word of God to find our answer.
First of all, the word “blasphemy” comes from the Greek word “blasphemia” which means speaking evil against God. According to Acts 5:3-4, Peter tells Ananias that he has “lied to the Holy Spirit…You have not lied to men, but to God.” The Holy Spirit is one of the Persons of the Trinity along with the Father and the Son.
What is the work or role of the Holy Spirit?
In John 16:8-13, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin (8), and He will guide the sinner, who desires a relationship with Jesus, into all truth (13).
The work of the Holy Spirit is to always point us to Jesus.
In order to understand what it means to “blaspheme the Holy Spirit,” we need to look at Matthew 12:31-32. Jesus is speaking: “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come.”
Again, what is the work of the Holy Spirit? (1) to convict us concerning sin, and (2) to lead us into all truth—to point us to Jesus, Who is the Truth (John 14:6). If an unbeliever rejects the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting him of his sin and pointing him to Jesus, then he will be rejecting the work of cleansing of sin in his life by the blood of Jesus. He will be guilty of resisting the work of the Holy Spirit who points him to Jesus and thus this becomes the unpardonable sin: because he has rejected Jesus-—the only way to salvation.
