Unforgivable Sin

JimH,
I agree with you. The only unforgivable sin is rejecting Jesus Christ as LORD, and Savior. There are people who have done that for many years, and then repent, and get saved. If it were any other way, the apostle Paul, and many others would be in hell right now.

With the love of Jesus Christ.

AMEN JimH and Hawkins!

Originally posted by JimH
ChristianPilot - I'm not real sure where JohnR7 is going. Guess I'll have to read the book referred to.

Maybe I can help clear things up a bit for you. The debate around the unforgivable or unpardonable sin has been going on for many years. To put it simply, the only unforgivable (or unpardonable) sin is the rejection of Jesus Christ's free gift of salvation. Once a person accepts Him as Lord and Savior and gets saved, the unforgivable sin is no longer applicable to that person. Remember when Jesus died He died for all of our sins. Not just the ones we decide to confess or give up or anything like that, He died for all of them. So when we become a christian, His blood is applied to all of our sins...past, present, and future. That is the only way we can have a relationship with a holy and pure God. It's called justification - appearing before God as though we have no sin.

Click to expand...

*Raises hand* I second that.

Wow! I wasn't expecting such a big response! Thanks to everyone who has shared with me their views, it's really cleared things up for me. I've got a lot of questions about the Bible and this place looks like the best way to get them answered.
Thanks again!

I too was going to ask this question until I saw this thread already started.

So...

Assume I am saved. Say I am beginning the act of sinning, and the Holy Spirit convicts me and comes in my mind and says, "Wait! Stop...don't do it!"

And I say in my mind, "leave me alone right now" and commit the sin...

Is that blaspheming the Holy Spirit or not?

I find it hard to believe that God would take away all his love for us for something that small, sisterclaire. But I don't know for sure.

soulsisterclaire: Hope I can help a little here. To directly answer your question, "Is that blaspheming the Holy Spirit or not?", no...not in the context of the passage in Matthew 12 quoted earlier. In the technical, dictionary definition of the term blaspheme, yes....what you've described would be blasphemy. Confused?? I hope not.

The passage in Matthew 12 is talking about our response to accept Jesus Christ, get saved, and allow the Holy Spirt to enter our lives. If we reject God's free gift of salvation, we have committed the only sin that He cannot forgive. You stated.."Assume I am saved"...if you are saved, then that settles everything else. Jesus' blood covers all your sins.

To address the rest of your scenario, is what you did sin? Absolutely!! Does our sin disrespect, dishonor, and break our Lord's heart? Certainly!! Does it hinder our relationship with Him and prevent His blessing? You bet!! But His love for us is no different then that of us toward our children. No matter what they do, we will love them because they are our children. God treats us no different as His children. He doesn't always like what we do, but He never stops loving us.

Again, let me stress this point. The only sin that God cannot forgive is rejection of His free gift of salvation. He cannot forgive it because those that reject the gift refuse to ask. It's that simple.

Hope I've helped.

God Bless

ive got a scenario that i'd like to ask about.
and please excuse my grammar, i'm also using my computer desk as a study desk at the moment and there isn't much room.

say, someone rejects God's wonderful gift of salvation. then, maybe a few years later, accepts it. is he still guilty of the unforgivable sin?

ChristianPilot: No problem. I'm glad I can be of some help. I do think you're making this way too complicated though.

In the great scheme of things, someone has not ultimately rejected the gift of salvation until they no longer have the opportunity to make the decision. To make it simple, they either die or the rapture occurs and they stand before God unsaved.

When someone becomes a christian, even after years of rejecting His call, they are now exonerated from the unforgivable sin.

You see now why we should be concerned with sharing our faith and helping everyone we know come to know Him.

God Bless

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the persistant deliberate act of rejection of the Holy Spirit's attempts to draw a person to Christ. In other words, when a person is called to Christ, it is their deliberate rejection of and fighting against the work of the Holy Spirit in their heart to save them. There is no sin that is unforgivable if a person wants to be forgiven- the only sin that is unforgivable is the deliberate rejection by a person of the only way of salvation and forgiveness. It is not that God is an unforgiving God and doesn't want to forgive a certain sin or sins- but he is a God who allows free will and respects a person's freedom to choose where they will be for all eternity. If a person knows the truth and deliberately rejects the only way that can God can forgive and save them, then what can God do for them? The sin is at first unforgivable in the sense that whilst a person is committing it, there is no way they can ask to be forgiven- because they are fighting against and deliberately rejecting that forgiveness. However eventually a person can harden their own heart so much that there eventually reaches a point where even an all powerful God can do nothing to make them commit themselves to Jesus of their own free will. It is at this point, when God finds that he can do no more to bring that person to Christ that they commit the eternal sin and can never be brought back. The sin is eternal in that God respects the person's choice and leaves them alone for all eternity. Without the work of the Holy Spirit in that person's life there is nothing in all existance that can bring that person to salvation and when God gives up on someone, they become eternally lost. No one who genuinely wants to be saved and forgiven for all of their sins can ever be lost (providing they don't die before they make such a commitment).

I would love to be able to agree with what your saying but the scriptures clearly state in Matthew 12:32
"Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who SPEAKS AGAINST the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come."
That would say to me not the act of rejecting salvation, but vocally speaking against the Spirit. I would have to say it would be a public ridicule like the Pharisees were doing. Not just by merely saying for instance someone was "nuts" when they were talking in tongues for example.
I Hope you are right and I am wrong on this one. I am not very gifted, as some of you seem to be, at interpreting the Scriptures.
I am willing to hear any other opinions.

Although, literally speaking, the scriptures say that the sin is speaking against the holy spirit, I would have to agree that it's rejecting salvation.

I was always taught that God's grace was unlimited and perfect. But you had to accept salvation to be able to access that grace. It just doesn't make sense to me that something like speaking against the holy spirit would be so bad that it would be unforgivable. And not accepting salvation doesn't grant you access to forgiveness, so it makes sense that you wouldn't be able to be forgiven for it

A sin has to be commited consciously, in other words, one needs to KNOW that what they are doing is wrong otherwise they are not sinning. All sins are forgiven once one repents. Anyone who sins repents unless they do not really grasp the fact that they have sinned, in which case they have actually NOT sinned and therefore do not need forgiveness. Thats the Word
-good_news

This is rather confusing. They say that true knowledge and wisdom comes in knowing that one knows nothing. Well if one knows nothing how can one sin? (read above post by me, good_news).

>>I'm not real sure where JohnR7 is going.

I am going to heaven, anyone want to go along?

I know some of what I say is not going to make sense to some people, if the Holy Spirit does not help them with it. I am sort of a trail blazer. Sometimes I find myself two or three years ahead of people. That is I will say something to someone and they will say: What are you talking about. Then two or three years later they will get it and understand what I was trying to tell them.

Although usually by then, they forgot they heard it from me, and they think they discoved it for themselves. But I have been told that the best teachers do not teach at all, they just help people to discover the truth for themselves. Thanks, JohnR7

>>They say that true knowledge and wisdom comes in knowing that one knows nothing.

Sounds like a buddist belief. Wisdom and knowledge comes to us from God through the Holy Spirit. Sometimes things do not make sense, then the Holy Spirit will help us with it and all of a sudden we start to understand. Sort of like someone turning the lite on. Thanks, JohnR7

>>Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the persistant deliberate act of rejection of the Holy Spirit's attempts to draw a person to Christ.

That is the road to Blasphemy. But you actually have to speak out against the Holy Spirit to Blasphemy. If your mouth does not say the words, it's not blasphemy.

Daniel 4:31
While the WORD was still in the king's MOUTH, a voice fell from heaven: "King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you!

What exactly do you mean to speak out against the holy spirit? Is it saying bad things about the holy spirit, not showing correct reverence for the holy spirit?
And am I correct in saying that, if you don't know it's a sin when you do it, you're not really comitting a sin?

I'm still not resolved on the issue.
It really bugs me to not be able to say "Jesus loves you, no matter what you did." Not knowing exactly what the unforgivable sin is also starts me worrying about whether or not I've done it.

Does anyone else have anything else to add?

The rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour.

1 John 5
11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

John 3:36
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.


1 John 5:20
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.