It is well said that anyone who is afraid that they have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit probably hasn’t.
Though, if one is indeed guilty, their reason for fear would be well founded. For it carries with it the “guilt of an eternal sin” (Mk.3:29).
But it is highly unlikely that someone guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would feel guilt or fear. Instead, they would feel that they are acting in accordance with the will of God.
The Teachers of the Law attributed Jesus’ power to cast out demons to Satanic empowerment. Jesus sternly informed them that God would forgive them for blaspheming The Son of Man, but “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mk.3:28-29).
The Teachers of the Law had personally witnessed the work of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ miracles. Instead of giving glory to God for the Spirit’s work in Jesus, they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit” (Mk.3:29-30). This was literally unforgivable.
The writer of the Book of Hebrews also speaks of the unforgivable: Believers who are “Insulting the Spirit of grace” (Heb.10:29). The sin of these Christians was to “treat as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them.” They had made themselves enemies of God by walking away from the church. Their return to Judaism was a “trampling underfoot the Son of God.”
To have “received the knowledge of the truth” was to have received the Holy Spirit at baptism and to have “shared in the Holy Spirit…and the powers of the coming age” (Heb.6:4).
Thus, to forsake Jesus is to insult the Holy Spirit—this is to enter a deliberate state of sin. This is to call God’s wrath down upon your head.
They are not covered by Christ’s death.
John Staiger
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