**** On “Eonian Sin” ****
The most serious problem left over, is Mark 3:29 which reads in most ancient Greek texts “eonian sin”. The evidence from textual copies (not only in Greek but other ancient translations and applications of GosMark) that “sin” was the original reading here is very strong, even though there is disagreement about the precise grammatic form of the word; and there is no disagreement at all about {aiôniou}. This would be the only time sin is called “eonian” in the New Testament.
An impressive number of other Greek texts, some early, as well as other languages (some early) feature “crisis” {kriseôs} here instead (with a couple of texts using another term for judgment from which we now derive “crime”, and a couple using both “crisis” and “sin”, and a couple using “kolasis” instead as in Matthew 25.) The textual evidence in itself is about equal either way, although either way (eternal sin or eternal crisis) the term would be unique in the New Testament; but the majority existence of an odd form of the term for sin {hamartêmatos}, with a few Greek texts and most translations from Greek witnessing to the more expected form {hamartias} instead, is hard to explain if “sin” was not the original reading.
If “punishment” or “crisis” (judgment) was the original reading, then certainly that would come uniquely from God, and so the term would be entirely neutral to the question of whether or not the sin (and thus the punishment) ever ends. Such variants themselves actually testify to the notion that “eonian” was understood to mean that the noun described by the adjective comes uniquely from God, which would be theologically shocking if “sin” was the noun! But fairness requires me, at this time, to acknowledge “sin” as, most likely, the original reading.
What does the phrase “eonian sin” necessarily imply, if so? By the evidence of surrounding context, the other Synoptic accounts of the saying, and the usage of the term elsewhere in both the OT and the NT, nothing fatal to universalism.
1.) The argument previously given, from story details, about Jesus’ intention in talking about the sin against the Holy Spirit, still stands on its own merits, over-against a hopeless interpretation of the phrase. This in itself might be considered decisive! – unless a case can be made for a hopeless meaning which does not involve charging God with having no intention or no capability of saving those who have been plundered by the Plunder-possessor (against Jesus’ own sarcastic retorts to the criticisms of the Pharisees). Which interpretation gathers the most with Christ, and which interpretations involve scattering instead? – and does gathering with Christ or scattering instead involve being for or against Christ?! Which interpretations involve bringing shame onto the Holy Spirit, even defying salvation “into the Holy Spirit” (as Mark puts it, as into the face of the Person of God Who convicts sinners of sin) and which does not? Any Christian should carefully consider the varieties of options, whether Calvinistic, Arminianistic, or universalistic.
2.) In Mark’s report, the grammar is very strange in any case. Jesus says whoever blasphemes against (or rather into) the Holy Spirit, is not having pardon into the eon (which is clear enough grammar, regardless of what “into the eon” may or may no mean), “but a liable-one is sin-effect of eonian.” In other words, in that last clause (which is a small independent sentence in itself) “a liable one” or “the liable” one (or the guilty-one, or the one obliged one, or the one held fast like the prisoners Christ just talked about rescuing from Satan) is the subject of the verb “is”, and “sin-effect” is the object of the verb, or more accurately the predicate nominative. {Hamartêmatos} isn’t the object of the preposition implied by {aiôniou} which is in the genitive form.
In other words, the grammar doesn’t read “X is guilty of-sin”, so doesn’t read “X is guilty of-eonian-sin” either. In English terms, the grammar is more like “the-guilty-one”, that which is under judgment, “is sin of-eonian”. If this doesn’t mean God, the Eonian One, is guilty of sin-effect (which would be ridiculous), it would mean eonian sin-effect itself, not the sinner, is what is bound for judgment!
No doubt this is why some Greek texts, and many translations into other languages from Greek, replace the term either with {hamartias} which is a genitive noun to fit with the “of-eonian” (thus matching the usual translation “of eonian sin”), or with {kriseôs} which is also a genitive noun to fit the prepositional phrase as “of-eonian-judgment”. But notice then that the one who is guilty, is the one who insists on eonian judgment, or who insists on an eonian sin-effect! (The guilty-one is of-eonian-judgment, or is of-eonian-sin-effect. The phrasing matches that for identifying someone who holds to a particular party, or who follows a person, or comes from a certain place. For example, St. Paul’s complaint of factions disputing because “I am of Apollos!” “I am of Paul!”)
Putting it another way, the actual strange grammar of the end of Mark 3:29 fits the idea that the ones being condemned of sin against the Holy Spirit are those who insist on some eonian effect of sin in a way that insults the reputation of the Holy Spirit before men, a way that involves rejecting (as the work of Satan not of God) Christ’s salvation of the man whose latter state was worse than his former, and a way that involves scattering instead of gathering with Christ. That way would not be Christian universalism, obviously!
Admittedly, the grammatic issues here are extremely difficult, and so perhaps open to other interpretations. (Possibly there is an underlying Aramaic grammatic issue here explaining the oddity in some other way, for example.) But the difficulties of the grammar do provide at least some evidence in favor of a more hopeful reading of the text, in conjunction with the various contextual details around the text.
Assuming, then, that these two points are not sufficient to carry the rebuttal against using “eonian sin” as testimony of a hopeless result, I will continue with some other observations about the situation, first by clarifying a point previously mentioned:
3.) As I indicated previously, the peculiar form of the term in GosMark, {hamartêmatos}, which agrees with Jesus’ previous extremely strong statement one verse prior about all sins and blasphemies being forgiven, indicates a result of the action of the sin with the {-ma} type of suffix. This explains why “eonian” can be used to describe the noun: the sin is not “eonian”, the results of the sin are “eonian”, and the results are (at least) judgmental punishment uniquely from God (thus explaining substitutions in many texts with “crisis”). On the theory that “eonian” in the NT refers to things which come uniquely from God, this term still fits (not referring to sin coming uniquely from God!) Whether the crisis or the punishment/kolasis continues never-endingly is a whole other question.
4.) On the other hand, at least once indisputably in the New Testament (at Romans 16:25), and often in the Greek Old Testament, the term “eonian” refers to something which has an end. Whether that applies in this example or not, is admittedly a question of contextual evidence; but this is why I have given the topical and thematic contextual argument first!
