The Unforgivable Sin
Geoff Thomas
There was a man at the time of the Reformation called Fritz Spiera, a contemporary of Luther and Calvin. Impressed by evangelical Christians, he began to study the Scriptures himself and to believe upon Jesus Christ. He told others of his new joy in Jesus. He kept his membership in the Roman Catholic church but when they discovered what he believed they charged him with undermining the authority of the pope. He had to choose between being burned alive or withdrawing his statements. He recanted and told the Roman church and his Protestant friends that he had given up his Bible doctrines and faith in Christ. He lived in agony for the next five years; there was no hope for someone like himself, he believed, because he had committed the unforgivable sin against the Spirit. No one could comfort him, and many people thought that his sorrow was like that of Judas Iscariot. He became infamous for what he had done. John Calvin wrote to help him and Calvin also wrote to Christians in Germany, France and Italy about him. The Puritans often used his sad end as an illustration of the eternal sin.But no one can know with certainty whether Spiera or any particular person has committed the unforgivable sin. Of course we know that if a person goes on rejecting Christ and trusting in his own merits there is no hope for that person. Love is silent. Jesus tells us, Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, For God's wrath remains on him (John 3:36). I don't know that from any special feelings I might have but because the Saviour tells the world that fact very plainly in the New Testament. We can all know that, but no one personally can have the assurance that he has got to the point where it is impossible for him to trust in Christ and receive a pardon because he has committed the unforgivable sin. Spiera might say that he thought he had, but how could he say it with certainty? Only by determining to go on defying and disobeying the inviting Christ. But I refuse to take Spiera's bleak opinion about himself as the last word because Jesus Christ always has the last word, not men. Spiera may feel he has blasphemed against the Spirit, but I won't believe him. I refuse to believe him. I don't have access to the book of life in heaven to take it down and see that there is no entry under Fritz Spiera's name - but neither does anyone else. Those are secret things that belong to God. The revealed things that belong to us say with divine sincerity, ‘Sinner, come to Christ!’ whoever we are and whatever ups and downs we have gone through in our past, whether we once as teenagers made a profession of faith and then fell away for many years. That is not the unpardonable sin.
I would say to Fritz Spiera, ‘How do you know that you have committed the unpardonable sin?’ He would tell me that he has recanted and rejected the Christ whom once he confessed. ‘Do you feel happy about it?’ I would say. ‘Happy? I'm in agony of soul, and now without hope.’ ‘No you're not,’ I'd say to him. ‘This is a day of grace in which Christ invites rebel sinners to come to himself for rest, and he sincerely invites you. Come as you are to Christ and come now. Come as the most reluctant sinner ever to have come. Come with little assurance and little hope that God will hear you, but still come.’ I would use every means of encouraging him to put his faith - even as fine as a spider's thread - in Christ. I say, do not trust in your belief that you have committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Trust in the one who says, "Come to me."
Christians get depressed and sick for various reasons, and then they may read these words of Jesus about the unforgivable sin. They cling to those awful warnings and they say, ‘That is me! I am in that state.’ But I refuse to believe them. That is the illness talking. They read Pilgrim's Progress and they come across Bunyan's man in the iron cage, and they say, ‘That's me.’ I will not believe such assurance of condemnation. This is a day the Lord has made, when we may go to him for mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. However long our imprisoned spirits have lain fast bound in sin and nature's night Christ's eye still gives a quickening ray. We can awake, and our chains can fall off, and our hearts be free, and we can follow him.
Most of you have heard these counsels often through your life, that if you are anxious that you have committed blasphemy against the Spirit, you needn't fear because the troubled conscience you have is a sure testimony that you haven't committed it. Even in Mark 3 the Lord Jesus doesn't tell the Pharisees they had committed the unforgivable sin. Rather he is telling them to take care, because whoever he might be who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit - though he be a Jerusalem theologian - will never be forgiven.
Let us Face up to the warnings of the Lord as well as his wonderful promises and comforts. Let us be careful not to treat casually those particular words of assurance men give us that we cannot have committed the unpardonable sin if we are worried about it. When we are new Christians we want to please God in everything we do, and our consciences are sensitive, but one day that person who was once so scrupulous about sin may become very indifferent to that sin which is unto death. ‘That's theology,’ he will yawn.
Let us remember how the New Testament writers go on to talk about sinning against the Holy Spirit. They say three things: resist not the Spirit: grieve not the Spirit: quench not the Spirit. Obedience to those commands will take enough heaven-given energy for the rest of our days.
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