A Little Light Reading.
BEYOND MERCY,
The unpardonable sin.
Doug Bachelor.
A man visiting Scotland for the first time went to
a place on the coast featuring a beautiful bay
beach. Up along the beach, soft, sandy hills rose
up sharply into a steep, rocky cliff that dropped down
right along the narrow shore. The man was enjoy-
ing his time, meditating and studying the shells. He
noticed the tide had gone out, exposing a lot of new
beautiful rocks and shells. So he continued to walk—
the ocean on one side, the beach beneath him, and
the sheer rock cliff wall that stretched for miles on the
other side.
As he traveled up the shore, he came to a rusted
steel post in the ground hoisting a metal sign that had
words painted in bold, clear letters:
“Warning!
Danger: If you go beyond this point, you will
not be able to escape the incoming tide.”
The man looked behind him and thought, “Well,
I might not be a marathon runner, but I can surely get
back to the safe zone before the tide overtakes me. I’d
like to go a little farther. These are some of the best shells
and tidal pools I’ve ever seen.” Besides, the tide was a
good way off.
He walked on, well past the sign—preoccupied
with the starfish, seashells, and curious little crabs
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 3 8/23/12 11:53 AM 4
Beyond Mercy
that were now skittering from hole to hole. Along the
way, every so often, he would think: I’ll just keep an
eye on the surf and, when I see it start to change, I’ll
head back to the safe section of the beach.
But once he had gone beyond that sign, he had
already gone too far. He did not realize in that part
of Scotland, during certain seasons and moon phases,
the tidal cycle is often powerful and swift. So he kept
walking, meandering along the wet sand.
Not long after, he saw the tide had changed and
the waves were beginning to come in, so he turned
around. But the tide was surging very fast, charg-
ing in like a galloping horse. He’d never seen a tide
roll in so quickly! No sooner had he turned to make
a hasty retreat, than the waves were upon him like
miniature tsunamis. He began to run, but the rising
waves slapped against his legs, repeatedly knocking
him over. Soon the waves were dragging him right up
against the rocky cliffs!
People sightseeing above the cliffs saw him strug-
gling and watched helplessly as the man was pum-
meled time and time again against the unforgiving
sheer rock.
His lifeless body was found the next day.
What happened? He had gone beyond the warn-
ing sign.
Yes—he was alive and well for a while after he
passed the warning sign, but there actually was no
hope because he had reached the point of no return.
There is, in certain situations, a very clear point of
no return. The military even has a term for it: “PNR.”
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 4 8/23/12 11:53 AM 5
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
And with good reason too. We hear about Navy he-
licopters that are sent on rescue missions. As they’re
flying out over the ocean from their aircraft carrier,
they have a special instrument labeled PNR*—the
point of no return. When they reach a certain point,
an alarm goes off. It tells them, basically, that it’s now
or never—they’ve reached the halfway point of their
fuel supply. It means that, even if they see the person
they’re trying to rescue just a little farther beyond, if
they continue to fly away from their vessel, as well-
intentioned as they might be, based on the laws of
physics, they are going to run out of fuel before they
can get back. They’ll be ditching in the ocean.
Like that man who died on the Scottish shore,
if they don’t turn around right then and there, they
might not make it home by air.
No Turning Back?
Along these same lines, the Bible teaches that there
is a point you can go to in sinning against God where
your life might still be active—your lungs are breath-
ing, your heart is beating—but you are doomed, just
as surely as if the gates of Hades had already closed
behind you. That is, it is possible for a person to have
gone so far away from God, from the promptings of
the Holy Spirit, that they have spiritually reached the
point of no return and, perhaps, even have gone well
past it.
It is called the “unpardonable sin,” and we’re deal-
ing with this because so many worried and confused
* Now also called “Point of Equal Time” (PET) or “Critical
Point” (CP).
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 5 8/23/12 11:53 AM 6
Beyond Mercy
Christians are wondering, “Have I committed the un-
pardonable sin? What hope can you give me?”
No question, in our ministry, we frequently meet
those who have wondered if they have committed
this unforgivable sin. A man feels his prayers seem to
bounce back from the ceiling, or a woman feels there
is no hope of receiving God’s favor or forgiveness. Yet
they can’t identify any particular sinful act that severed
them from the hope of salvation. God just seems si-
lent. How can they tell if they have actually committed
the unpardonable sin? Can any person really know?
Why Does This Matter?
A few years ago the psychology department of
Duke University carried on an interesting experi-
ment. (It would never be allowed today.) They wanted
to see how long rats could swim based on hope. In
one container surrounded by sheer walls, they placed
a rat for whom there was no possibility of escape. He
swam in circles a few moments and then gave up, re-
signed to drown. In the other container, they made
the hope of escape possible for the rat. A little ladder
was placed just out of reach. The rat swam for sev-
eral hours before finally drowning. We usually say, “As
long as there is life, there is hope.” The Duke experi-
ment proved, “As long as there is hope, there is life.”
Some people believe they have committed the un-
forgivable sin and have lost hope and stopped living.
So before answering these troubling questions
about the unpardonable sin, a glorious truth first
needs to be recognized: We serve a God of infinite
love and compassion! It is not His will that anyone
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 6 8/23/12 11:53 AM 7
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
be lost. He has made provision in His Word for every
soul to be forgiven and saved. The incredible promise
of 1 John 1:9 applies to every man, woman, and child
in the world today: “If we confess our sins, he is faith-
ful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.”
On the condition of a sincere confession, God
promises to forgive any sin, regardless of its nature.
“Come now, and let us reason together,” says
the Lord, “Though your sins are like scar-
let, they shall be as white as snow; though
they are red like crimson, they shall be as
wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
Here God is saying, “You have sinned. I know that.
But I still love you and want you to have salvation so
badly that I sent my Son to die on the cross for you, to
pay the penalty for your sins. Why, therefore, don’t you
accept what I have done for you?”
What a special assurance for those who have vio-
lated every law of God and man in their wild plunge
into degradation. God loves them still! There is no
guilt too great for Him to cleanse away. He waits with
outstretched arms to receive those who take the first
step toward His forgiveness and mercy. After all, look
at what happened at the cross! The ultimate price
was paid for our redemption from sin. The God who
would do that for us wants us to have the salvation He
offers, a salvation that cost Him so much.
At the same time, however, people can commit
the unpardonable sin, which will put them out of the
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 7 8/23/12 11:53 AM 8
Beyond Mercy
reach of salvation and eternal life. What is this sin
which heaven regards with such abhorrence? Why,
too, will God deal so severely with those who are
guilty of it?
To the human mind, a great number of depraved
and cruel acts might fall into such a category, but
which one of them would God count so heinous that
it could never be forgiven? This is the crucial question
that we are going to explore in this short book.
A Fearsome Warning
Let’s first look at what the Bible specifically says
about this sin.
Indeed, the most fearful words ever spoken by
Jesus had to do with the fateful possibility of commit-
ting the unpardonable sin. He said,
“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blas-
phemy will be forgiven men, but the blas-
phemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven
men” (Matthew 12:31).
Here it is again:
“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be for-
given the sons of men, and whatever blasphe-
mies they may utter; but he who blasphemes
against the Holy Spirit never has forgive-
ness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”
(Mark 3:28, 29).
And again, in Luke 12:10:
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 8 8/23/12 11:53 AM 9
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
“And anyone who speaks a word against the
Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to
him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,
it will not be forgiven.”
Let’s look at these texts closely. “I say to you,” Jesus
said, “every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven.” We
should be so thankful that the Lord is a God who
forgives “every sin and blasphemy.” After all, human
beings are capable of some pretty gruesome and de-
praved acts, are we not? And yet Jesus here is very
clear: All can be forgiven. That’s how powerful and ef-
fectual Christ’s death on the cross was. It was enough
to cover every sin and blasphemy.
But we would be remiss to end right here, because
Jesus doesn’t end right here.
He goes on to say something very grave. He says
that the “blasphemy against the Spirit will not be for-
given men.” Amazing! “Anyone who speaks a word
against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him.” Yet
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven!
Right after some religious leaders in Israel, in cahoots
with the Romans, crucified Jesus, He prayed, “Father, for-
give them.” Would Jesus have uttered that prayer if it was
not possible for them to be forgiven? Even something as
horrible as crucifying the Son of God was forgivable.
But what did Jesus say in another place? “But
whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be
forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come”
(Matthew 12:32).
That’s heavy! They could be forgiven for driv-
ing nails into Jesus’ hands and hoisting him up on a
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 9 8/23/12 11:53 AM 10
Beyond Mercy
ragged cross but not for “speaking” against the Holy
Spirit. No forgiveness—not now, not in judgment day,
not in the resurrection…not ever!
Again, we see this same contrast in Mark: “All sins
will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blas-
phemies they may utter.” That’s encouraging; is it not?
God is so merciful that He can forgive us all sins and
blasphemy. But then we are given this warning: “But
he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has
forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”
(Mark 3:28, 29).
How much clearer could Jesus be? We obviously
don’t want to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit be-
cause it will lead to “eternal condemnation.” Thus,
how important it is that we learn two things:
• First, what does it mean to “utter blasphemy”
against the Holy Spirit?
• Second, how can we make sure that we don’t do it?
What the Unpardonable Sin Is Not
Now, whenever people hear about the unpardon-
able sin, their first question is, “What is it?”
In search of the answer, they often go the book of
Exodus and look through the Ten Commandments,
where they try to conjure up what they think is the
worst possible sin; that sin is surely, they surmise, the
unpardonable one.
For instance, one might believe that innocent life
is certainly the most important thing, and if someone
were to take an innocent life—that is, commit mur-
der—that would have to be the unpardonable sin.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 10 8/23/12 11:53 AM 11
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
After all, once a person is dead, there’s nothing that
can be done to bring that person back.
That makes sense, of course. Murder is horren-
dous. However, we clearly find examples in the Bible of
those guilty of murder who we believe will be in heaven.
First, there’s Moses. Exodus 2:12 says the great
prophet “looked this way and that way, and when he
saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the
sand.” That was the sin of murder. God didn’t want
Moses to commit it, but God did forgive the imperfect
prophet and even used Moses to do a great work in
leading the children of Israel out of Egypt.
How about David? In 2 Samuel 12:9, the prophet
Nathan said to David, “Why have you despised the
commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight?
You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you
have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed
him with the sword of the people of Ammon.” So, be-
sides murder, we can add adultery to David’s grievous
sin. Neither murder nor adultery, bad as they are (and
they are bad), can be the unpardonable sin, because
we know from the Bible that God forgave David both
of these sins—though, of course, the king did have to
live with the terrible consequences of his sins, which
is another matter entirely.
In our culture, perhaps the worst crime is when
someone sexually abuses or otherwise harms or kills
an innocent child. Truly, how much lower can a per-
son stoop? Even Jesus says, “Whoever causes one of
these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would
be better for him if a millstone were hung around his
neck, and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42).
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 11 8/23/12 11:53 AM 12
Beyond Mercy
If anything were the unpardonable sin, one would
think it would be harming an innocent child.
This crime is actually mentioned in the Bible too.
As a matter of fact, in some pagan nations, infanticide
was part of their worship. They would kill their chil-
dren and burn them on altars, all to supposedly ap-
pease their gods. In the Bible, it’s referred to as making
their children “pass through the fire.”
It’s referenced in Ezekiel 16:20–22 as one of the
things that was especially offensive to the Lord re-
garding the nations that surrounded Israel. But what
made matters worse was that some Israelites began
doing the same thing to their own children. Despite
all the light that they had been given, they had fall-
en into one of the most awful and degrading of all
pagan practices! “They even sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to demons” (Psalm 106:37).
Now what could be worse than that—especially for
a people who should have known better because of
all the special revelations given to them as God’s
chosen nation?
But there’s somebody in the Bible who did this,
yet, according to the biblical record, we can believe
that person is forgiven. Manasseh was a king in Israel
who was guilty of infanticide. A king! 2Kings 21:6
says: “He made his son pass through the fire, prac-
ticed soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted
spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight
of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.” It was child
sacrifice, pure and simple. But you read on and the
Bible tells us that this king fully repented, accepted the
Lord, and even implemented a reformation in Israel.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 12 8/23/12 11:53 AM 13
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
It’s unimaginable to us that someone, after they get
involved in child sacrifice, could be forgiven. God is,
obviously, more gracious and merciful than most of
us would be, that’s for sure!
(Maybe you’ve heard of Ted Bundy, a vicious se-
rial killer of young women. The murders were espe-
cially horrific. When he was finally caught and put in
prison on death row, he confessed and ostensibly went
through a conversion process and accepted Jesus. The
respected family counselor Dr. James Dobson went to
visit Bundy before his execution, and the Christian
leader came away believing that God can even forgive
someone who did the horrible things that Bundy did,
as unimaginable as that might seem to us.)
Thus, when Jesus says there’s a sin for which you
can’t be forgiven, it must be really bad! Worse than
adultery…worse than murder…even worse than
child sacrifice!
Could it be the act of denying Christ? Well, can
we think of somebody in the Bible who openly and
blatantly denied Christ yet was forgiven? The book
of Matthew records how Peter swore up and down
that he would be faithful to Jesus no matter what.
However, when accused of being a follower of Christ,
he openly denied it—three times, even! “Then he be-
gan to curse and to swear.” It was bad enough that he
denied Christ, but he did it with cursing and swearing
as well! (See Matthew 26:69–75.)
Publicly denying Christ, renouncing that you know
Him, and doing it with an oath and foul language…
that’s pretty bad, especially for someone who had been
as privileged as Peter, who had been part of Jesus’
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 13 8/23/12 11:53 AM 14
Beyond Mercy
intimate inner circle for so long and who had seen so
many miracles! Could that sin be forgiven?
Obviously it can, because Peter was not only for-
given his sin, he also became a leader in the early New
Testament church. Here are the words of Jesus to him
after Jesus had been raised from the dead:
“So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said
to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you
love Me more than these?’ He said to Him,
‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’ He said
to him, ‘Feed My lambs.’ He said to him again a
second time, ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love
Me?’ He said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; You know that
I love You.’ He said to him, ‘Tend My sheep.’
He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of
Jonah, do you love Me?’ Peter was grieved be-
cause He said to him the third time, ‘Do you
love Me?’ And he said to Him, ‘Lord, You know
all things; You know that I love You.’ Jesus said
to him, ‘Feed My sheep’” (John 21:15–17).
If that doesn’t sound like forgiveness, what does?
What About Suicide?
This is obviously a very emotionally charged sub-
ject. Indeed, who doesn’t know, either directly or in-
directly, someone who committed suicide? Sometimes
suicidal people call our radio program asking, “If I
commit suicide, can I still be saved?” What do you
think we tell them? We discourage them in every way
possible. We suggest to them that if the last act of a
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 14 8/23/12 11:53 AM 15
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
person’s life is an act of utter hopelessness and faith-
lessness, and if the Bible tells us that without faith it’s
impossible to please God, what can we say? We do all
we can to dissuade them from the thought, reminding
them if the last act of their lives is self-murder, obvious-
ly, that wouldn’t bode very well for their eternal future.
At the same time, who doesn’t know someone
whose loved one, a child, perhaps, has taken his or
her own life? These dear people are so devastated by
the thought that a loved one’s next conscious thought
is that they are eternally lost, they do everything they
can in their reasoning to widen that gate. And, indeed,
we need to be careful not to be dogmatic about the
eternal destiny of anyone, including a suicide. Only
God knows the state of the heart and mind in those
last moments of life.
Besides, we have an example in the Bible of some-
one who committed suicide yet was still deemed faith-
ful: Samson. Judges 16:30 reads, “Then Samson said,
‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ And he pushed with
all his might, and the temple fell.” Yes, the temple fell
on the lords of the Philistines, killing them, but its walls
also fell on Samson. Some might argue, “Look, they were
getting ready to kill him anyway; he just thought to take
his enemy with him. Thus, Samson’s act of war was re-
ally a sacrifice and not a suicide. Nevertheless, Samson
knew that by knocking down the walls, he would kill
himself as well—and that is a form of suicide.
Will Samson be in heaven? In Hebrews 11, he’s
listed among the faithful. Suicide, though tragic in ev-
ery way, cannot be the unpardonable sin.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 15 8/23/12 11:53 AM 16
Beyond Mercy
The Horror of Hopelessness
On December 17, 1927, while surfacing, the US-
S-4 submarine was accidentally rammed and sunk by
the Coast Guard destroyer Paulding. The entire crew
was trapped in its prison house of death. Ships rushed
to the scene of disaster off the coast of Massachusetts,
where the doomed men clung to life as the oxygen
slowly gave out.
A diver placed his helmeted ear to the side of
the vessel and listened. He heard a tapping noise.
Someone was tapping out a question in the dots and
dashes of Morse code. The question came slowly:
“Is…there…any…hope?”
Sadly, despite their best efforts, there was no rea-
son for hope and all six men perished.
This seems to be the cry of humanity: “Is there
any hope?” Hope, indeed, is the basis of all human ex-
istence in Christ!
You have heard the expression, “Where there is
life there is hope.” This comes from the Bible, where
Solomon says, “But for him who is joined to all the liv-
ing there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead
lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4).
So far we have looked at some pretty heavy sins,
and yet we have reason to believe that, as bad as these
sins are, not one of them is the unpardonable sin that
Jesus spoke so strongly about.
What, then, is the sin that is so bad that it cannot
be forgiven, no matter what? What sin is so bad that
even the death of Jesus isn’t enough to save the guilty
one from condemnation? What sin leaves them with
no hope?
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 16 8/23/12 11:53 AM 17
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
After all these years, who isn’t still disturbed by
the images from the 9/11 attacks on America? Some
are very graphic, like when photographers captured
images of those desperate and trapped workers in the
World Trade Center. They have photos of people on
the higher floors who found their way to the windows
in an effort to escape the flames. They couldn’t make
it down because the fires trapped them, but once
they got to the windows, then what? In some cases,
they were 40 stories above the ground, yet with no
other recourse, they jumped to their deaths rather
than be burned alive inside the building. Talk about
utter hopelessness!
Or what about this situation? He was a parachute
instructor who had spent so much time making sure
that his students were all suited up and cinched in
tight that one day he had forgotten, believe it or not,
to put on his own parachute. He then jumped out of
the airplane to his death! Can you imagine what he
must have felt like on the way down, knowing that
he was going to die? All that training for others…yet
he ended up doing something so careless. Again, talk
about an awful sense of hopelessness!
We use these two sad stories as an analogy for
what it must be like to have the Lord declare to a per-
son, a family, a nation, a city, or the world that there’s
no hope for them, that they are eternally lost. To still
be alive and know that your situation is hopeless is a
dreadful thought. It’s like that with the unpardonable
sin, the one sin that cannot be forgiven. So again we
ask, “What is it?”
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 17 8/23/12 11:53 AM 18
Beyond Mercy
Blasphemy
As we saw above, in Luke 12:10, Jesus said, “Any-
one who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will
be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes against
the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven” (emphasis sup-
plied). It is someone who “blasphemes” who cannot
be forgiven. Thus, we need to decipher what blasphe-
my is, because, obviously, it is a crucial component to
understanding the unpardonable sin.
In the Greek, the word is blasphemos and, accord-
ing to one dictionary’s concise definition, it means “to
vilify, to speak impiously, to defame, to rail upon, to
revile, to speak evil, to hurt or blast the reputation,
nature or works of God.” So to speak evil of God—
to defame, to vilify, to undermine Him with your
words—is blasphemy. There are some other defini-
tions, but this one is principally the one that Jesus uses
in this warning.
In the American Heritage Dictionary, blasphemy
is defined as “a contemptuous or profane act, utter-
ance, or writing concerning God or a sacred entity.”
It also gives another definition: “the act of claiming
for oneself the attributes and rights of God.” We ac-
tually believe this last one is closer to the definition
we’re looking for when the Bible speaks of blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit. But if you aren’t sure about dic-
tionary definitions, then let’s let the Bible define itself.
In the Bible, we find some stories in which blas-
phemy is cited, such as in John 10:33. At one point,
some of the leaders in Israel were trying to find a
reason to stone Jesus. “The Jews answered Him, say-
ing, ‘For a good work we do not stone You, but for
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 18 8/23/12 11:53 AM 19
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make
Yourself God.’ ” Thus, man putting himself in the place
of God is a Bible definition of blasphemy, just as it was
in the dictionary.
Now look at Luke 5:21. “And the scribes and the
Pharisees began to reason, saying, ‘Who is this who
speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
alone?’ ” Now, Jesus had just said He could forgive the
sins of a paralytic. The religious leaders were angry,
because they realized that by forgiving the man’s sin,
Jesus was putting Himself in the place of God.
In other words, suggesting that what you think is
more important than what God says. Isn’t that put-
ting yourself in the place of God? Some people might
not have considered that they’re at risk of committing
the unpardonable sin because they are claiming the
prerogatives of God for themselves. They’re making
themselves their own god. They’re not listening to the
words of God; instead, they’re saying, “My reasons are
more important than the commandments of God.” A
man putting himself in the place of God. That’s pretty
heavy. If that’s not blasphemy, what is?
Of course, blasphemy itself is not the unpardon-
able sin. In fact, we all have probably committed vary-
ing degrees of blasphemy at some point or another.
After all, the apostle Paul had been a blasphemer,
and we can be assured that Paul will be in heaven. In
1Timothy 1:13, he writes: “Although I was formerly a
blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I
obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.”
God’s grace to us is exceedingly abundant; it for-
gives even blasphemy. Indeed, right in Matthew 12:31,
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 19 8/23/12 11:53 AM 20
Beyond Mercy
Jesus says: “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiv-
en men” (emphasis supplied). Again, God’s grace is
amazing! All kinds of blasphemy are forgiven…ex-
cept the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Thus, in order to understand what blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit is, we also need to understand
what the Holy Spirit does. Once we grasp that, we can
then better understand what it means to blaspheme
the Holy Spirit and why it’s been deemed the unpar-
donable sin.
Three Functions
What does the Holy Spirit do? Why is His func-
tion so crucial that blasphemy against Him is so seri-
ous a sin that it cannot be forgiven?
Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in My name, He will teach you
all things, and bring to your remembrance all things
that I said to you” (John 14:26). First, the Holy Spirit
teaches us things—the things we need to know for
our salvation.
Next, besides teaching us all things, Jesus indi-
cated that the Spirit will also “guide you into all truth”
(John 16:13). Every searching student of the Word has
probably experienced this guiding influence of the
Holy Spirit. There can be no true insight into biblical
truth without the enlightenment of this Spirit of God.
Finally, the mission of the Holy Spirit is to con-
vict of sin. Jesus said, “It is to your advantage that I go
away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come
to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And
when He has come, He will convict the world of sin,
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 20 8/23/12 11:53 AM 21
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:7, 8).
It is the special work of the Holy Spirit to reprove us
and convict us of our sin. When wrongs are commit-
ted, the conscience is pricked with a sense of guilt—
that is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Thus, we see that the Holy Spirit 1) teaches us
what we need to know, 2) guides us into truth, and 3)
convicts of sin. This is His work. It is logical, therefore,
to conclude that as long as we allow the Holy Spirit
to teach us, to guide us, and to convict us, we could
never be guilty of committing the unpardonable sin.
But suppose we refuse to acknowledge these
three operations of the Spirit in our personal expe-
rience with God? That is exactly when people begin
to approach the deadly parameters of the worst sin
on record.
A Powerful Example
It is intriguing to study the actual examples of the
unpardonable sin in the Bible record. For instance,
at one time, practically everyone in the world passed
over that point of no return. Here is what the Bible
says about the state of the world before the global
flood: “And the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive
with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days
shall be one hundred and twenty years’” (Genesis 6:3,
emphasis added). That’s a scary declaration!
God is saying that at some point, enough is
enough. Look at what the pre-flood people were like:
“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 21 8/23/12 11:53 AM 22
Beyond Mercy
was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and
He was grieved in His heart” (Genesis 6:5, 6). If every
thought of their hearts was evil, imagine what their
words and deeds were like! They were so bad that God
was even sorry that He had created them.
These texts speak of the antediluvian world,
which perished in the global flood. For more than 100
years, the Holy Spirit pleaded with that wicked gen-
eration through the preaching of Noah. Although the
imagination of nearly every heart was evil continually,
a small remnant responded to the Spirit and entered
the ark. All the rest were swept away in the raging wa-
ters, which covered every inch of the earth’s surface.
After years of patient striving, the Spirit withdrew to
leave the stubborn sinners to their chosen fate.
Could the same thing happen again? There is an
amazing parallel between the days of Noah and today.
Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be
also in the days of the Son of Man” (Luke 17:26). The
very same excesses of the pre-flood world are being
committed right now in the great cities of our world.
Perversions of the worst degree continue to mark the
carnal course of every nation under the sun as few
seek the safety of God’s hands.
It’s curious, of course. Why did the vast majority
of pre-flood people refuse to enter the ark of safety?
Many of them probably helped Noah construct that
huge vessel; they saw all the animals go aboard peace-
fully. Surely the Holy Spirit stirred them with convic-
tion, but they would not obey the message. Finally,
God said, “Let them alone. My Spirit will no longer
strive with them.”
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 22 8/23/12 11:53 AM 23
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
Here we see a key issue that should help us un-
derstand the point of no return. God’s Holy Spirit
no longer strove among those people. That is, they
were so hardened in their rejection of the Spirit and
His pleadings with them that God finally had to say
enough is enough—no more.
We also see here at a corporate level what we’re
trying to find on an individual one: what it means to
spurn the Holy Spirit at such a level that nothing more
can be done for us because we have, indeed, reached
the PNR—the point of no return.
How crucial, then, it is for us as individuals to
make sure we don’t make the same mistake that these
people did and fall headlong into the same trap.
Conviction
The good news is that we don’t have to fall into that
trap, not as long as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit
in our lives. Remember, one of the things He does is
convict us of wrongdoing. “When He has come, He
will convict the world of sin” (John 16:8). To refuse,
to reject, and to harden yourself against the convict-
ing influence of the Spirit cannot be something good.
Indeed, as we just saw with those who lived before the
flood, it’s a big step toward crossing the PNR.
Think about it: Is it good to be convicted? If you
are standing in a house that’s caught on fire, your
nerves tell you to run. But if you ignore that pain from
the heat, you’re going to burn. Indeed, pain can be a
healthy thing if it helps you preserve your life, right?
Some unfortunate people have a disease that deadens
the pain nerves in their body. It might sound attractive
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 23 8/23/12 11:53 AM 24
Beyond Mercy
to be unable to experience pain, but the problem is
that the people with this disease sustain all sorts of
injuries the rest of us don’t. For instance, if we were to
put our hand on a hot stove, we would instantly pull it
away. They wouldn’t pull away because they wouldn’t
feel the pain; hence, they would get badly burned in a
way we would not.
Thus pain—conviction—at the right time, in the
right place, is very important. And that’s especially
true when it comes to the work of the Holy Spirit
in bringing to us the conviction of sin. It was the
conviction of the Holy Spirit that led the men to ask
Peter, “What shall we do [to be saved]?” (Acts 2:37).
They were convicted; it was a healthy thing. Yet sup-
pose they were so hardened against the Spirit that
they ignored Peter and his powerful preaching.
One of the most important questions we can ask is,
“What must I do to be saved?” If you don’t ask it, if
you don’t care about being saved, what hope is there
for you?
Indeed, what if you had a son who was regularly
given to cursing, lying, and stealing without any feel-
ings of guilt? Would that not worry you? Wouldn’t
you want your kid’s conscience to bother him about
wrongdoing? You certainly wouldn’t want your son
to feel good, to boast in doing evil! You would want
him to be convicted and to act upon that convic-
tion of wrongdoing, right? It’s an encouraging thing
to see your child feel remorseful about doing wrong.
It’s a sign of growth. But if he’s morally calloused and
doesn’t have any conviction, that’s very dangerous and
any parent should be concerned.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 24 8/23/12 11:53 AM 25
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
Perhaps you remember the story in the book of
Exodus about the Pharaoh of Egypt. Talk about some-
one seeing evidence of the Spirit! What monarch saw
more miracles than he did? Moses would even come
and schedule out the miracles. He’d say there was
going to be a divine plague the next day, and it hap-
pened. Pharaoh personally witnessed the power of
God. How stubborn does one have to be to see a pillar
of fire, to see the Red Sea part, to see the Jews march-
ing through the sea, and yet be so bent on resisting
the evidence of God’s Spirit that he would still attack
His people?
Can you imagine how nervous those Egyptian
soldiers were as they saw the sea part and the chil-
dren of Israel pass through it on dry ground? They
could clearly see that God was with those people. “You
want us to do what? You still want us to attack them
after all these plagues to deliver them?” How stubborn
and ornery can someone be? It’s as if you’d have to
be possessed by another spirit, a dark spirit, to be
that obstinate.
Well, Pharaoh was that stubborn, and that is what
destroyed him in the end—along with his entire army.
He allowed his own heart to become hardened. He was
not able to acknowledge that he was wrong. Despite
all the incredible miracles he had seen, despite all the
evidence that he had witnessed, even the death of his
own first-born son, he refused to acknowledge the
power and sovereignty of the living God.
Take a moment to read these powerful words
from the writer E.G. White:
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 25 8/23/12 11:53 AM 26
Beyond Mercy
“God had declared concerning Pharaoh, ‘I will
harden his heart, that he shall not let the peo-
ple go’ (Exodus 4:21). There was no exercise
of supernatural power to harden the heart of
the king. God gave to Pharaoh the most strik-
ing evidence of divine power, but the monarch
stubbornly refused to heed the light. Every
display of infinite power rejected by him,
rendered him the more determined in his re-
bellion. The seeds of rebellion that he sowed
when he rejected the first miracle produced
their harvest. As he continued to venture on
in his own course, going from one degree of
stubbornness to another, his heart became
more and more hardened, until he was called
to look upon the cold, dead faces of the first-
born” (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 261).
We’re now seeing more clearly what this blasphe-
my against the Holy Spirit involves. We should also
start to discern that this lethal sin isn’t just one horri-
ble isolated deed, but a constant rejection of the work
that the Holy Spirit is seeking to do in a person’s heart.
John 16:13 says, “The Spirit of truth…will guide
you into all truth.” As we have seen, the Spirit guides
us, teaches us, and convicts us—but that’s just for
starters. For us to obtain forgiveness, what has to hap-
pen? “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrigh-
teousness” (1 John 1:9).
To receive God’s forgiveness, we must first re-
pent and confess. If we refuse, then we begin to head
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 26 8/23/12 11:53 AM 27
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
toward the point of no return. But if our hearts are,
like Pharaoh’s, hardened, if we see evidence of God’s
work in our lives but consistently and repeatedly stifle
the conviction that the evidence brings, it’s not likely
that we are going to confess or repent of anything.
How could we?
The Crucial Context
The topic of the unpardonable sin should start to
be clearer now—it’s like Christianity 101. We need to
repent, we need to be convicted, we need to be guided,
we need to know that we have done wrong, and we
need to confess that wrong.
What brings about all these things in our lives? It
is the work of the Holy Spirit alone. Thus, blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit is rejecting and refusing to re-
spond to the leading, the teaching, and the conviction
of the Holy Spirit. It is closing the only door through
which we obtain forgiveness. That’s why it’s the sin
that cannot be forgiven.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the sin for
which we will not repent and confess; hence, it is un-
pardonable, and that is why Jesus spoke so strongly
about it. Let’s look at the context in which Jesus ut-
tered one of His warnings about this sin.
Matthew 12:22 reads, “Then one was brought to
Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute.”
This person was in bad shape: blind, unable to speak,
and demon-possessed. The verse continues: “And
He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both
spoke and he saw.” The demon was cast out, and the
multitudes were amazed; they asked, “Could this be
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 27 8/23/12 11:53 AM 28
Beyond Mercy
the Son of David?”—in other words, “Could this be
the Messiah?”
Why would they ask that? The evidence was over-
whelming that Jesus had the power of God against the
devil. He liberated and healed the man’s sight and
speech as they all stood there and watched. Imagine
if you were to see a miracle like that right before your
own eyes. Someone blind suddenly being able to see;
someone voiceless suddenly able to speak!
What, though, was the reaction of the Pharisees
when they heard about this miracle? “This fellow does
not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler
of the demons.” That was a very dangerous attitude
to have in the presence of God’s Son: to disregard the
obvious evidence of the working of God’s Spirit and to
instead call it the working of the devil!
The Pharisees called the work of Jesus the work
of a pagan deity. Beelzebub was a Phoenician god,
about the lowest of the low when it came to gods.
Beelzebub was also known as the “Lord of the Flies,” a
god of filth, because when the Phoenicians saw some
filth, or scum, or even a corpse, they noticed that flies
would land on them and, soon, worms and maggots
would appear. Not knowing about modern science,
they came to the conclusion that the filth and scum
of corpses somehow had the power to give life. They
thought some god must have put that power in there;
thus, they came to worship the “Lord of the Flies,”
Beelzebub. And this was the being that the religious
leaders said gave Jesus His power.
Talk about pushing the envelope.
Talk about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 28 8/23/12 11:53 AM 29
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
They were denying the influence and power
of the Holy Spirit. That’s why Jesus—knowing their
thoughts—said,
“Every kingdom divided against itself is
brought to desolation, and every city or house
divided against itself will not stand. If Satan
casts out Satan, he is divided against himself.
How then will his kingdom stand? And if I
cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do
your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall
be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the
Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has
come upon you” (Matthew 12:25–28).
In other words, “If what I’m doing is of God, then
what are you men really doing and saying? What po-
sition are you taking in regard to what God is doing
in this world? You are ascribing to the devil the work
of the very God you claim to worship and serve.” They
were refusing to acknowledge the obvious demonstra-
tion of God’s Spirit. Look again at His statement in
Matthew 12:28: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit
of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon
you.” He was pleading with them! “The kingdom of
God is come to you. Don’t reject it, don’t deny it, and
don’t mislabel it by calling the obvious signs of that
kingdom the work of the devil.”
But Jesus wasn’t finished. He continued,
“How can one enter a strong man’s house and
plunder his goods, unless he first binds the
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 29 8/23/12 11:53 AM 30
Beyond Mercy
strong man? And then he will plunder his
house. He who is not with Me is against Me,
and he who does not gather with Me scatters
abroad” (Matthew 12:29, 30).
What was Jesus saying here? He was telling the
Pharisees, very clearly and unambiguously, that if they
weren’t recognizing His work as the power of God,
then they would eventually be filled with the power of
the devil. There’s no middle ground; we’re on one side
or the other. There is, indeed, a great controversy be-
tween good and evil, Christ and Satan, and we have to
make our choice about whose side we are going to join
in this conflict. And to be blunt: to not choose Christ
is to choose the other side—the devil’s side.
Now comes Jesus’ zinger:
“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blas-
phemy will be forgiven men, but the blas-
phemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven
men. Anyone who speaks a word against the
Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but who-
ever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not
be forgiven him, either in this age or in the
age to come” (Matthew 12:31, 32).
So now we have the full context in which Jesus
makes His statement about the unpardonable sin.
The Pharisees refused to recognize the work of
the Holy Spirit; they rejected the clear work of the
Spirit of God. Don’t miss this point: If we refuse to
acknowledge and recognize the working of the Holy
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 30 8/23/12 11:53 AM 31
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
Spirit in our lives, then we are at risk of committing the
unpardonable sin.
Remember back in 2010, when those 33 Chilean
miners were trapped 2,300 feet below the surface? A
narrow, deep hole was dug through the rocky earth to
rescue them. If those miners refused to heed the voice
of their helpers, to escape through that tiny tunnel,
they would have surely died. There was no other way
for them to be saved!
Likewise, as we have seen, if the work of the Holy
Spirit is to guide us into knowledge and lead us to
repentance and conviction, and we reject that very
work, we are in danger of committing the unpardon-
able sin because it’s only through that work we can
be brought to repentance, which ultimately leads
to pardon.
One of the best definitions of the unpardonable
sin that I’ve read comes from E.G. White. She writes,
“No one needs look upon the sin against the
Holy Ghost as something mysterious and
indefinable. The sin against the Holy Ghost
is the sin of persistent refusal to respond to
the invitation to repent” (That I Might Know
Him, pg. 243).
That’s it…pure and simple! “The persistent re-
fusal to repent of sin.” That is the unpardonable sin.
Three Wrong Paths
Now that we better understand what the unpar-
donable sin is, the next question arises: How does it
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 31 8/23/12 11:53 AM 32
Beyond Mercy
happen that someone gets in danger of committing it?
It’s fine that we know what it is, but that’s only part of
the issue. What’s just as important is what we need to
do to make sure we don’t commit it!
What happens, then, that causes people to com-
mit the unpardonable sin—to place themselves in a
position where they can’t be saved, where they have
crossed the point of no return? It happens like this …
Almost imperceptibly, the conscience is seared
and the heart is hardened. In fact, this is why it is
counted as such a terrible sin. Sometimes people don’t
understand why God considers this the worst thing
that can be done, but it is because the Holy Spirit is
the only way God can reach an individual with the
message of salvation. That is the way we are led to
repentance. If we did not have the Holy Spirit, there
would be no hope for us, because we have to repent in
order to be forgiven. If we have no sense of our need
of repentance, we won’t do it and, therefore, we won’t
be forgiven.
Again, it’s like a deep-sea diver. His oxygen tank
has the air he needs to live. His dive computer is al-
ways working to let him know when he’s in danger of
running out of air. But if he ignores the computer and
continues to descend when he knows he should start
ascending, he’s going to run out of air and drown. If he
obeys the warnings of his dive computer and makes
his way to the surface, he will live. But he has no way
of knowing that it’s getting dangerous for him but by
his dive computer—so is it wise for him to ignore it?
In the same way, in this sin-darkened world, the only
way God can reach us is through the Holy Spirit.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 32 8/23/12 11:53 AM 33
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
In our analogy, God is the air we need to live;
Jesus is the salvation at the surface. The Holy Spirit
is the dive computer—He warns us that our spiritual
tank is running out of God and we need to surface to
Jesus to be saved. But if we turn away from the Spirit,
if we refuse to listen and obey our spiritual dive com-
puter, God will have to let us go; thus, we will be lost.
And it was our choice!
This was why King David was so deeply con-
cerned in his great prayer of contrition. While pour-
ing out his heart to God in Psalm 51, David prayed,
“Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not
take Your Holy Spirit from me” (verse 11). He realized
that if God removed the Holy Spirit from his life, he
was lost. He would be left alone with no way of being
saved. That’s why Jesus said this sin is the unpardon-
able sin. When you cut yourself off and refuse to listen
to the Holy Spirit, there is no hope for you.
Now, there are three specific ways in which peo-
ple can commit this hopeless sin.
1) The first way is for a person to simply admit
in his life, “I don’t want to be saved; I don’t want to
be bothered with God and the Bible.” Once in a while,
you’ll find a person like this—but not too often. Most
people really want to be saved, but now and then you’ll
find someone who just isn’t interested at all. He’s satis-
fied with his materialistic world even though he knows
it will ultimately lead to a complete dead end for him.
Proverbs 28:13 says: “He who covers his sins will
not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them
will have
A Little Light Reading.
BEYOND MERCY,
The unpardonable sin.
Doug Bachelor.
A man visiting Scotland for the first time went to
a place on the coast featuring a beautiful bay
beach. Up along the beach, soft, sandy hills rose
up sharply into a steep, rocky cliff that dropped down
right along the narrow shore. The man was enjoy-
ing his time, meditating and studying the shells. He
noticed the tide had gone out, exposing a lot of new
beautiful rocks and shells. So he continued to walk—
the ocean on one side, the beach beneath him, and
the sheer rock cliff wall that stretched for miles on the
other side.
As he traveled up the shore, he came to a rusted
steel post in the ground hoisting a metal sign that had
words painted in bold, clear letters:
“Warning!
Danger: If you go beyond this point, you will
not be able to escape the incoming tide.”
The man looked behind him and thought, “Well,
I might not be a marathon runner, but I can surely get
back to the safe zone before the tide overtakes me. I’d
like to go a little farther. These are some of the best shells
and tidal pools I’ve ever seen.” Besides, the tide was a
good way off.
He walked on, well past the sign—preoccupied
with the starfish, seashells, and curious little crabs
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 3 8/23/12 11:53 AM 4
Beyond Mercy
that were now skittering from hole to hole. Along the
way, every so often, he would think: I’ll just keep an
eye on the surf and, when I see it start to change, I’ll
head back to the safe section of the beach.
But once he had gone beyond that sign, he had
already gone too far. He did not realize in that part
of Scotland, during certain seasons and moon phases,
the tidal cycle is often powerful and swift. So he kept
walking, meandering along the wet sand.
Not long after, he saw the tide had changed and
the waves were beginning to come in, so he turned
around. But the tide was surging very fast, charg-
ing in like a galloping horse. He’d never seen a tide
roll in so quickly! No sooner had he turned to make
a hasty retreat, than the waves were upon him like
miniature tsunamis. He began to run, but the rising
waves slapped against his legs, repeatedly knocking
him over. Soon the waves were dragging him right up
against the rocky cliffs!
People sightseeing above the cliffs saw him strug-
gling and watched helplessly as the man was pum-
meled time and time again against the unforgiving
sheer rock.
His lifeless body was found the next day.
What happened? He had gone beyond the warn-
ing sign.
Yes—he was alive and well for a while after he
passed the warning sign, but there actually was no
hope because he had reached the point of no return.
There is, in certain situations, a very clear point of
no return. The military even has a term for it: “PNR.”
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 4 8/23/12 11:53 AM 5
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
And with good reason too. We hear about Navy he-
licopters that are sent on rescue missions. As they’re
flying out over the ocean from their aircraft carrier,
they have a special instrument labeled PNR*—the
point of no return. When they reach a certain point,
an alarm goes off. It tells them, basically, that it’s now
or never—they’ve reached the halfway point of their
fuel supply. It means that, even if they see the person
they’re trying to rescue just a little farther beyond, if
they continue to fly away from their vessel, as well-
intentioned as they might be, based on the laws of
physics, they are going to run out of fuel before they
can get back. They’ll be ditching in the ocean.
Like that man who died on the Scottish shore,
if they don’t turn around right then and there, they
might not make it home by air.
No Turning Back?
Along these same lines, the Bible teaches that there
is a point you can go to in sinning against God where
your life might still be active—your lungs are breath-
ing, your heart is beating—but you are doomed, just
as surely as if the gates of Hades had already closed
behind you. That is, it is possible for a person to have
gone so far away from God, from the promptings of
the Holy Spirit, that they have spiritually reached the
point of no return and, perhaps, even have gone well
past it.
It is called the “unpardonable sin,” and we’re deal-
ing with this because so many worried and confused
* Now also called “Point of Equal Time” (PET) or “Critical
Point” (CP).
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 5 8/23/12 11:53 AM 6
Beyond Mercy
Christians are wondering, “Have I committed the un-
pardonable sin? What hope can you give me?”
No question, in our ministry, we frequently meet
those who have wondered if they have committed
this unforgivable sin. A man feels his prayers seem to
bounce back from the ceiling, or a woman feels there
is no hope of receiving God’s favor or forgiveness. Yet
they can’t identify any particular sinful act that severed
them from the hope of salvation. God just seems si-
lent. How can they tell if they have actually committed
the unpardonable sin? Can any person really know?
Why Does This Matter?
A few years ago the psychology department of
Duke University carried on an interesting experi-
ment. (It would never be allowed today.) They wanted
to see how long rats could swim based on hope. In
one container surrounded by sheer walls, they placed
a rat for whom there was no possibility of escape. He
swam in circles a few moments and then gave up, re-
signed to drown. In the other container, they made
the hope of escape possible for the rat. A little ladder
was placed just out of reach. The rat swam for sev-
eral hours before finally drowning. We usually say, “As
long as there is life, there is hope.” The Duke experi-
ment proved, “As long as there is hope, there is life.”
Some people believe they have committed the un-
forgivable sin and have lost hope and stopped living.
So before answering these troubling questions
about the unpardonable sin, a glorious truth first
needs to be recognized: We serve a God of infinite
love and compassion! It is not His will that anyone
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 6 8/23/12 11:53 AM 7
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
be lost. He has made provision in His Word for every
soul to be forgiven and saved. The incredible promise
of 1 John 1:9 applies to every man, woman, and child
in the world today: “If we confess our sins, he is faith-
ful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.”
On the condition of a sincere confession, God
promises to forgive any sin, regardless of its nature.
“Come now, and let us reason together,” says
the Lord, “Though your sins are like scar-
let, they shall be as white as snow; though
they are red like crimson, they shall be as
wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
Here God is saying, “You have sinned. I know that.
But I still love you and want you to have salvation so
badly that I sent my Son to die on the cross for you, to
pay the penalty for your sins. Why, therefore, don’t you
accept what I have done for you?”
What a special assurance for those who have vio-
lated every law of God and man in their wild plunge
into degradation. God loves them still! There is no
guilt too great for Him to cleanse away. He waits with
outstretched arms to receive those who take the first
step toward His forgiveness and mercy. After all, look
at what happened at the cross! The ultimate price
was paid for our redemption from sin. The God who
would do that for us wants us to have the salvation He
offers, a salvation that cost Him so much.
At the same time, however, people can commit
the unpardonable sin, which will put them out of the
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 7 8/23/12 11:53 AM 8
Beyond Mercy
reach of salvation and eternal life. What is this sin
which heaven regards with such abhorrence? Why,
too, will God deal so severely with those who are
guilty of it?
To the human mind, a great number of depraved
and cruel acts might fall into such a category, but
which one of them would God count so heinous that
it could never be forgiven? This is the crucial question
that we are going to explore in this short book.
A Fearsome Warning
Let’s first look at what the Bible specifically says
about this sin.
Indeed, the most fearful words ever spoken by
Jesus had to do with the fateful possibility of commit-
ting the unpardonable sin. He said,
“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blas-
phemy will be forgiven men, but the blas-
phemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven
men” (Matthew 12:31).
Here it is again:
“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be for-
given the sons of men, and whatever blasphe-
mies they may utter; but he who blasphemes
against the Holy Spirit never has forgive-
ness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”
(Mark 3:28, 29).
And again, in Luke 12:10:
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 8 8/23/12 11:53 AM 9
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
“And anyone who speaks a word against the
Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to
him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,
it will not be forgiven.”
Let’s look at these texts closely. “I say to you,” Jesus
said, “every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven.” We
should be so thankful that the Lord is a God who
forgives “every sin and blasphemy.” After all, human
beings are capable of some pretty gruesome and de-
praved acts, are we not? And yet Jesus here is very
clear: All can be forgiven. That’s how powerful and ef-
fectual Christ’s death on the cross was. It was enough
to cover every sin and blasphemy.
But we would be remiss to end right here, because
Jesus doesn’t end right here.
He goes on to say something very grave. He says
that the “blasphemy against the Spirit will not be for-
given men.” Amazing! “Anyone who speaks a word
against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him.” Yet
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven!
Right after some religious leaders in Israel, in cahoots
with the Romans, crucified Jesus, He prayed, “Father, for-
give them.” Would Jesus have uttered that prayer if it was
not possible for them to be forgiven? Even something as
horrible as crucifying the Son of God was forgivable.
But what did Jesus say in another place? “But
whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be
forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come”
(Matthew 12:32).
That’s heavy! They could be forgiven for driv-
ing nails into Jesus’ hands and hoisting him up on a
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 9 8/23/12 11:53 AM 10
Beyond Mercy
ragged cross but not for “speaking” against the Holy
Spirit. No forgiveness—not now, not in judgment day,
not in the resurrection…not ever!
Again, we see this same contrast in Mark: “All sins
will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blas-
phemies they may utter.” That’s encouraging; is it not?
God is so merciful that He can forgive us all sins and
blasphemy. But then we are given this warning: “But
he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has
forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”
(Mark 3:28, 29).
How much clearer could Jesus be? We obviously
don’t want to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit be-
cause it will lead to “eternal condemnation.” Thus,
how important it is that we learn two things:
• First, what does it mean to “utter blasphemy”
against the Holy Spirit?
• Second, how can we make sure that we don’t do it?
What the Unpardonable Sin Is Not
Now, whenever people hear about the unpardon-
able sin, their first question is, “What is it?”
In search of the answer, they often go the book of
Exodus and look through the Ten Commandments,
where they try to conjure up what they think is the
worst possible sin; that sin is surely, they surmise, the
unpardonable one.
For instance, one might believe that innocent life
is certainly the most important thing, and if someone
were to take an innocent life—that is, commit mur-
der—that would have to be the unpardonable sin.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 10 8/23/12 11:53 AM 11
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
After all, once a person is dead, there’s nothing that
can be done to bring that person back.
That makes sense, of course. Murder is horren-
dous. However, we clearly find examples in the Bible of
those guilty of murder who we believe will be in heaven.
First, there’s Moses. Exodus 2:12 says the great
prophet “looked this way and that way, and when he
saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the
sand.” That was the sin of murder. God didn’t want
Moses to commit it, but God did forgive the imperfect
prophet and even used Moses to do a great work in
leading the children of Israel out of Egypt.
How about David? In 2 Samuel 12:9, the prophet
Nathan said to David, “Why have you despised the
commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight?
You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you
have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed
him with the sword of the people of Ammon.” So, be-
sides murder, we can add adultery to David’s grievous
sin. Neither murder nor adultery, bad as they are (and
they are bad), can be the unpardonable sin, because
we know from the Bible that God forgave David both
of these sins—though, of course, the king did have to
live with the terrible consequences of his sins, which
is another matter entirely.
In our culture, perhaps the worst crime is when
someone sexually abuses or otherwise harms or kills
an innocent child. Truly, how much lower can a per-
son stoop? Even Jesus says, “Whoever causes one of
these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would
be better for him if a millstone were hung around his
neck, and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42).
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 11 8/23/12 11:53 AM 12
Beyond Mercy
If anything were the unpardonable sin, one would
think it would be harming an innocent child.
This crime is actually mentioned in the Bible too.
As a matter of fact, in some pagan nations, infanticide
was part of their worship. They would kill their chil-
dren and burn them on altars, all to supposedly ap-
pease their gods. In the Bible, it’s referred to as making
their children “pass through the fire.”
It’s referenced in Ezekiel 16:20–22 as one of the
things that was especially offensive to the Lord re-
garding the nations that surrounded Israel. But what
made matters worse was that some Israelites began
doing the same thing to their own children. Despite
all the light that they had been given, they had fall-
en into one of the most awful and degrading of all
pagan practices! “They even sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to demons” (Psalm 106:37).
Now what could be worse than that—especially for
a people who should have known better because of
all the special revelations given to them as God’s
chosen nation?
But there’s somebody in the Bible who did this,
yet, according to the biblical record, we can believe
that person is forgiven. Manasseh was a king in Israel
who was guilty of infanticide. A king! 2Kings 21:6
says: “He made his son pass through the fire, prac-
ticed soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted
spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight
of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.” It was child
sacrifice, pure and simple. But you read on and the
Bible tells us that this king fully repented, accepted the
Lord, and even implemented a reformation in Israel.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 12 8/23/12 11:53 AM 13
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
It’s unimaginable to us that someone, after they get
involved in child sacrifice, could be forgiven. God is,
obviously, more gracious and merciful than most of
us would be, that’s for sure!
(Maybe you’ve heard of Ted Bundy, a vicious se-
rial killer of young women. The murders were espe-
cially horrific. When he was finally caught and put in
prison on death row, he confessed and ostensibly went
through a conversion process and accepted Jesus. The
respected family counselor Dr. James Dobson went to
visit Bundy before his execution, and the Christian
leader came away believing that God can even forgive
someone who did the horrible things that Bundy did,
as unimaginable as that might seem to us.)
Thus, when Jesus says there’s a sin for which you
can’t be forgiven, it must be really bad! Worse than
adultery…worse than murder…even worse than
child sacrifice!
Could it be the act of denying Christ? Well, can
we think of somebody in the Bible who openly and
blatantly denied Christ yet was forgiven? The book
of Matthew records how Peter swore up and down
that he would be faithful to Jesus no matter what.
However, when accused of being a follower of Christ,
he openly denied it—three times, even! “Then he be-
gan to curse and to swear.” It was bad enough that he
denied Christ, but he did it with cursing and swearing
as well! (See Matthew 26:69–75.)
Publicly denying Christ, renouncing that you know
Him, and doing it with an oath and foul language…
that’s pretty bad, especially for someone who had been
as privileged as Peter, who had been part of Jesus’
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 13 8/23/12 11:53 AM 14
Beyond Mercy
intimate inner circle for so long and who had seen so
many miracles! Could that sin be forgiven?
Obviously it can, because Peter was not only for-
given his sin, he also became a leader in the early New
Testament church. Here are the words of Jesus to him
after Jesus had been raised from the dead:
“So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said
to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you
love Me more than these?’ He said to Him,
‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’ He said
to him, ‘Feed My lambs.’ He said to him again a
second time, ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love
Me?’ He said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; You know that
I love You.’ He said to him, ‘Tend My sheep.’
He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of
Jonah, do you love Me?’ Peter was grieved be-
cause He said to him the third time, ‘Do you
love Me?’ And he said to Him, ‘Lord, You know
all things; You know that I love You.’ Jesus said
to him, ‘Feed My sheep’” (John 21:15–17).
If that doesn’t sound like forgiveness, what does?
What About Suicide?
This is obviously a very emotionally charged sub-
ject. Indeed, who doesn’t know, either directly or in-
directly, someone who committed suicide? Sometimes
suicidal people call our radio program asking, “If I
commit suicide, can I still be saved?” What do you
think we tell them? We discourage them in every way
possible. We suggest to them that if the last act of a
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 14 8/23/12 11:53 AM 15
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
person’s life is an act of utter hopelessness and faith-
lessness, and if the Bible tells us that without faith it’s
impossible to please God, what can we say? We do all
we can to dissuade them from the thought, reminding
them if the last act of their lives is self-murder, obvious-
ly, that wouldn’t bode very well for their eternal future.
At the same time, who doesn’t know someone
whose loved one, a child, perhaps, has taken his or
her own life? These dear people are so devastated by
the thought that a loved one’s next conscious thought
is that they are eternally lost, they do everything they
can in their reasoning to widen that gate. And, indeed,
we need to be careful not to be dogmatic about the
eternal destiny of anyone, including a suicide. Only
God knows the state of the heart and mind in those
last moments of life.
Besides, we have an example in the Bible of some-
one who committed suicide yet was still deemed faith-
ful: Samson. Judges 16:30 reads, “Then Samson said,
‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ And he pushed with
all his might, and the temple fell.” Yes, the temple fell
on the lords of the Philistines, killing them, but its walls
also fell on Samson. Some might argue, “Look, they were
getting ready to kill him anyway; he just thought to take
his enemy with him. Thus, Samson’s act of war was re-
ally a sacrifice and not a suicide. Nevertheless, Samson
knew that by knocking down the walls, he would kill
himself as well—and that is a form of suicide.
Will Samson be in heaven? In Hebrews 11, he’s
listed among the faithful. Suicide, though tragic in ev-
ery way, cannot be the unpardonable sin.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 15 8/23/12 11:53 AM 16
Beyond Mercy
The Horror of Hopelessness
On December 17, 1927, while surfacing, the US-
S-4 submarine was accidentally rammed and sunk by
the Coast Guard destroyer Paulding. The entire crew
was trapped in its prison house of death. Ships rushed
to the scene of disaster off the coast of Massachusetts,
where the doomed men clung to life as the oxygen
slowly gave out.
A diver placed his helmeted ear to the side of
the vessel and listened. He heard a tapping noise.
Someone was tapping out a question in the dots and
dashes of Morse code. The question came slowly:
“Is…there…any…hope?”
Sadly, despite their best efforts, there was no rea-
son for hope and all six men perished.
This seems to be the cry of humanity: “Is there
any hope?” Hope, indeed, is the basis of all human ex-
istence in Christ!
You have heard the expression, “Where there is
life there is hope.” This comes from the Bible, where
Solomon says, “But for him who is joined to all the liv-
ing there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead
lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4).
So far we have looked at some pretty heavy sins,
and yet we have reason to believe that, as bad as these
sins are, not one of them is the unpardonable sin that
Jesus spoke so strongly about.
What, then, is the sin that is so bad that it cannot
be forgiven, no matter what? What sin is so bad that
even the death of Jesus isn’t enough to save the guilty
one from condemnation? What sin leaves them with
no hope?
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 16 8/23/12 11:53 AM 17
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
After all these years, who isn’t still disturbed by
the images from the 9/11 attacks on America? Some
are very graphic, like when photographers captured
images of those desperate and trapped workers in the
World Trade Center. They have photos of people on
the higher floors who found their way to the windows
in an effort to escape the flames. They couldn’t make
it down because the fires trapped them, but once
they got to the windows, then what? In some cases,
they were 40 stories above the ground, yet with no
other recourse, they jumped to their deaths rather
than be burned alive inside the building. Talk about
utter hopelessness!
Or what about this situation? He was a parachute
instructor who had spent so much time making sure
that his students were all suited up and cinched in
tight that one day he had forgotten, believe it or not,
to put on his own parachute. He then jumped out of
the airplane to his death! Can you imagine what he
must have felt like on the way down, knowing that
he was going to die? All that training for others…yet
he ended up doing something so careless. Again, talk
about an awful sense of hopelessness!
We use these two sad stories as an analogy for
what it must be like to have the Lord declare to a per-
son, a family, a nation, a city, or the world that there’s
no hope for them, that they are eternally lost. To still
be alive and know that your situation is hopeless is a
dreadful thought. It’s like that with the unpardonable
sin, the one sin that cannot be forgiven. So again we
ask, “What is it?”
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 17 8/23/12 11:53 AM 18
Beyond Mercy
Blasphemy
As we saw above, in Luke 12:10, Jesus said, “Any-
one who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will
be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes against
the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven” (emphasis sup-
plied). It is someone who “blasphemes” who cannot
be forgiven. Thus, we need to decipher what blasphe-
my is, because, obviously, it is a crucial component to
understanding the unpardonable sin.
In the Greek, the word is blasphemos and, accord-
ing to one dictionary’s concise definition, it means “to
vilify, to speak impiously, to defame, to rail upon, to
revile, to speak evil, to hurt or blast the reputation,
nature or works of God.” So to speak evil of God—
to defame, to vilify, to undermine Him with your
words—is blasphemy. There are some other defini-
tions, but this one is principally the one that Jesus uses
in this warning.
In the American Heritage Dictionary, blasphemy
is defined as “a contemptuous or profane act, utter-
ance, or writing concerning God or a sacred entity.”
It also gives another definition: “the act of claiming
for oneself the attributes and rights of God.” We ac-
tually believe this last one is closer to the definition
we’re looking for when the Bible speaks of blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit. But if you aren’t sure about dic-
tionary definitions, then let’s let the Bible define itself.
In the Bible, we find some stories in which blas-
phemy is cited, such as in John 10:33. At one point,
some of the leaders in Israel were trying to find a
reason to stone Jesus. “The Jews answered Him, say-
ing, ‘For a good work we do not stone You, but for
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 18 8/23/12 11:53 AM 19
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make
Yourself God.’ ” Thus, man putting himself in the place
of God is a Bible definition of blasphemy, just as it was
in the dictionary.
Now look at Luke 5:21. “And the scribes and the
Pharisees began to reason, saying, ‘Who is this who
speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
alone?’ ” Now, Jesus had just said He could forgive the
sins of a paralytic. The religious leaders were angry,
because they realized that by forgiving the man’s sin,
Jesus was putting Himself in the place of God.
In other words, suggesting that what you think is
more important than what God says. Isn’t that put-
ting yourself in the place of God? Some people might
not have considered that they’re at risk of committing
the unpardonable sin because they are claiming the
prerogatives of God for themselves. They’re making
themselves their own god. They’re not listening to the
words of God; instead, they’re saying, “My reasons are
more important than the commandments of God.” A
man putting himself in the place of God. That’s pretty
heavy. If that’s not blasphemy, what is?
Of course, blasphemy itself is not the unpardon-
able sin. In fact, we all have probably committed vary-
ing degrees of blasphemy at some point or another.
After all, the apostle Paul had been a blasphemer,
and we can be assured that Paul will be in heaven. In
1Timothy 1:13, he writes: “Although I was formerly a
blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I
obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.”
God’s grace to us is exceedingly abundant; it for-
gives even blasphemy. Indeed, right in Matthew 12:31,
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 19 8/23/12 11:53 AM 20
Beyond Mercy
Jesus says: “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiv-
en men” (emphasis supplied). Again, God’s grace is
amazing! All kinds of blasphemy are forgiven…ex-
cept the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Thus, in order to understand what blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit is, we also need to understand
what the Holy Spirit does. Once we grasp that, we can
then better understand what it means to blaspheme
the Holy Spirit and why it’s been deemed the unpar-
donable sin.
Three Functions
What does the Holy Spirit do? Why is His func-
tion so crucial that blasphemy against Him is so seri-
ous a sin that it cannot be forgiven?
Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in My name, He will teach you
all things, and bring to your remembrance all things
that I said to you” (John 14:26). First, the Holy Spirit
teaches us things—the things we need to know for
our salvation.
Next, besides teaching us all things, Jesus indi-
cated that the Spirit will also “guide you into all truth”
(John 16:13). Every searching student of the Word has
probably experienced this guiding influence of the
Holy Spirit. There can be no true insight into biblical
truth without the enlightenment of this Spirit of God.
Finally, the mission of the Holy Spirit is to con-
vict of sin. Jesus said, “It is to your advantage that I go
away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come
to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And
when He has come, He will convict the world of sin,
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 20 8/23/12 11:53 AM 21
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:7, 8).
It is the special work of the Holy Spirit to reprove us
and convict us of our sin. When wrongs are commit-
ted, the conscience is pricked with a sense of guilt—
that is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Thus, we see that the Holy Spirit 1) teaches us
what we need to know, 2) guides us into truth, and 3)
convicts of sin. This is His work. It is logical, therefore,
to conclude that as long as we allow the Holy Spirit
to teach us, to guide us, and to convict us, we could
never be guilty of committing the unpardonable sin.
But suppose we refuse to acknowledge these
three operations of the Spirit in our personal expe-
rience with God? That is exactly when people begin
to approach the deadly parameters of the worst sin
on record.
A Powerful Example
It is intriguing to study the actual examples of the
unpardonable sin in the Bible record. For instance,
at one time, practically everyone in the world passed
over that point of no return. Here is what the Bible
says about the state of the world before the global
flood: “And the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive
with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days
shall be one hundred and twenty years’” (Genesis 6:3,
emphasis added). That’s a scary declaration!
God is saying that at some point, enough is
enough. Look at what the pre-flood people were like:
“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 21 8/23/12 11:53 AM 22
Beyond Mercy
was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and
He was grieved in His heart” (Genesis 6:5, 6). If every
thought of their hearts was evil, imagine what their
words and deeds were like! They were so bad that God
was even sorry that He had created them.
These texts speak of the antediluvian world,
which perished in the global flood. For more than 100
years, the Holy Spirit pleaded with that wicked gen-
eration through the preaching of Noah. Although the
imagination of nearly every heart was evil continually,
a small remnant responded to the Spirit and entered
the ark. All the rest were swept away in the raging wa-
ters, which covered every inch of the earth’s surface.
After years of patient striving, the Spirit withdrew to
leave the stubborn sinners to their chosen fate.
Could the same thing happen again? There is an
amazing parallel between the days of Noah and today.
Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be
also in the days of the Son of Man” (Luke 17:26). The
very same excesses of the pre-flood world are being
committed right now in the great cities of our world.
Perversions of the worst degree continue to mark the
carnal course of every nation under the sun as few
seek the safety of God’s hands.
It’s curious, of course. Why did the vast majority
of pre-flood people refuse to enter the ark of safety?
Many of them probably helped Noah construct that
huge vessel; they saw all the animals go aboard peace-
fully. Surely the Holy Spirit stirred them with convic-
tion, but they would not obey the message. Finally,
God said, “Let them alone. My Spirit will no longer
strive with them.”
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 22 8/23/12 11:53 AM 23
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
Here we see a key issue that should help us un-
derstand the point of no return. God’s Holy Spirit
no longer strove among those people. That is, they
were so hardened in their rejection of the Spirit and
His pleadings with them that God finally had to say
enough is enough—no more.
We also see here at a corporate level what we’re
trying to find on an individual one: what it means to
spurn the Holy Spirit at such a level that nothing more
can be done for us because we have, indeed, reached
the PNR—the point of no return.
How crucial, then, it is for us as individuals to
make sure we don’t make the same mistake that these
people did and fall headlong into the same trap.
Conviction
The good news is that we don’t have to fall into that
trap, not as long as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit
in our lives. Remember, one of the things He does is
convict us of wrongdoing. “When He has come, He
will convict the world of sin” (John 16:8). To refuse,
to reject, and to harden yourself against the convict-
ing influence of the Spirit cannot be something good.
Indeed, as we just saw with those who lived before the
flood, it’s a big step toward crossing the PNR.
Think about it: Is it good to be convicted? If you
are standing in a house that’s caught on fire, your
nerves tell you to run. But if you ignore that pain from
the heat, you’re going to burn. Indeed, pain can be a
healthy thing if it helps you preserve your life, right?
Some unfortunate people have a disease that deadens
the pain nerves in their body. It might sound attractive
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 23 8/23/12 11:53 AM 24
Beyond Mercy
to be unable to experience pain, but the problem is
that the people with this disease sustain all sorts of
injuries the rest of us don’t. For instance, if we were to
put our hand on a hot stove, we would instantly pull it
away. They wouldn’t pull away because they wouldn’t
feel the pain; hence, they would get badly burned in a
way we would not.
Thus pain—conviction—at the right time, in the
right place, is very important. And that’s especially
true when it comes to the work of the Holy Spirit
in bringing to us the conviction of sin. It was the
conviction of the Holy Spirit that led the men to ask
Peter, “What shall we do [to be saved]?” (Acts 2:37).
They were convicted; it was a healthy thing. Yet sup-
pose they were so hardened against the Spirit that
they ignored Peter and his powerful preaching.
One of the most important questions we can ask is,
“What must I do to be saved?” If you don’t ask it, if
you don’t care about being saved, what hope is there
for you?
Indeed, what if you had a son who was regularly
given to cursing, lying, and stealing without any feel-
ings of guilt? Would that not worry you? Wouldn’t
you want your kid’s conscience to bother him about
wrongdoing? You certainly wouldn’t want your son
to feel good, to boast in doing evil! You would want
him to be convicted and to act upon that convic-
tion of wrongdoing, right? It’s an encouraging thing
to see your child feel remorseful about doing wrong.
It’s a sign of growth. But if he’s morally calloused and
doesn’t have any conviction, that’s very dangerous and
any parent should be concerned.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 24 8/23/12 11:53 AM 25
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
Perhaps you remember the story in the book of
Exodus about the Pharaoh of Egypt. Talk about some-
one seeing evidence of the Spirit! What monarch saw
more miracles than he did? Moses would even come
and schedule out the miracles. He’d say there was
going to be a divine plague the next day, and it hap-
pened. Pharaoh personally witnessed the power of
God. How stubborn does one have to be to see a pillar
of fire, to see the Red Sea part, to see the Jews march-
ing through the sea, and yet be so bent on resisting
the evidence of God’s Spirit that he would still attack
His people?
Can you imagine how nervous those Egyptian
soldiers were as they saw the sea part and the chil-
dren of Israel pass through it on dry ground? They
could clearly see that God was with those people. “You
want us to do what? You still want us to attack them
after all these plagues to deliver them?” How stubborn
and ornery can someone be? It’s as if you’d have to
be possessed by another spirit, a dark spirit, to be
that obstinate.
Well, Pharaoh was that stubborn, and that is what
destroyed him in the end—along with his entire army.
He allowed his own heart to become hardened. He was
not able to acknowledge that he was wrong. Despite
all the incredible miracles he had seen, despite all the
evidence that he had witnessed, even the death of his
own first-born son, he refused to acknowledge the
power and sovereignty of the living God.
Take a moment to read these powerful words
from the writer E.G. White:
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 25 8/23/12 11:53 AM 26
Beyond Mercy
“God had declared concerning Pharaoh, ‘I will
harden his heart, that he shall not let the peo-
ple go’ (Exodus 4:21). There was no exercise
of supernatural power to harden the heart of
the king. God gave to Pharaoh the most strik-
ing evidence of divine power, but the monarch
stubbornly refused to heed the light. Every
display of infinite power rejected by him,
rendered him the more determined in his re-
bellion. The seeds of rebellion that he sowed
when he rejected the first miracle produced
their harvest. As he continued to venture on
in his own course, going from one degree of
stubbornness to another, his heart became
more and more hardened, until he was called
to look upon the cold, dead faces of the first-
born” (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 261).
We’re now seeing more clearly what this blasphe-
my against the Holy Spirit involves. We should also
start to discern that this lethal sin isn’t just one horri-
ble isolated deed, but a constant rejection of the work
that the Holy Spirit is seeking to do in a person’s heart.
John 16:13 says, “The Spirit of truth…will guide
you into all truth.” As we have seen, the Spirit guides
us, teaches us, and convicts us—but that’s just for
starters. For us to obtain forgiveness, what has to hap-
pen? “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrigh-
teousness” (1 John 1:9).
To receive God’s forgiveness, we must first re-
pent and confess. If we refuse, then we begin to head
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 26 8/23/12 11:53 AM 27
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
toward the point of no return. But if our hearts are,
like Pharaoh’s, hardened, if we see evidence of God’s
work in our lives but consistently and repeatedly stifle
the conviction that the evidence brings, it’s not likely
that we are going to confess or repent of anything.
How could we?
The Crucial Context
The topic of the unpardonable sin should start to
be clearer now—it’s like Christianity 101. We need to
repent, we need to be convicted, we need to be guided,
we need to know that we have done wrong, and we
need to confess that wrong.
What brings about all these things in our lives? It
is the work of the Holy Spirit alone. Thus, blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit is rejecting and refusing to re-
spond to the leading, the teaching, and the conviction
of the Holy Spirit. It is closing the only door through
which we obtain forgiveness. That’s why it’s the sin
that cannot be forgiven.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the sin for
which we will not repent and confess; hence, it is un-
pardonable, and that is why Jesus spoke so strongly
about it. Let’s look at the context in which Jesus ut-
tered one of His warnings about this sin.
Matthew 12:22 reads, “Then one was brought to
Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute.”
This person was in bad shape: blind, unable to speak,
and demon-possessed. The verse continues: “And
He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both
spoke and he saw.” The demon was cast out, and the
multitudes were amazed; they asked, “Could this be
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 27 8/23/12 11:53 AM 28
Beyond Mercy
the Son of David?”—in other words, “Could this be
the Messiah?”
Why would they ask that? The evidence was over-
whelming that Jesus had the power of God against the
devil. He liberated and healed the man’s sight and
speech as they all stood there and watched. Imagine
if you were to see a miracle like that right before your
own eyes. Someone blind suddenly being able to see;
someone voiceless suddenly able to speak!
What, though, was the reaction of the Pharisees
when they heard about this miracle? “This fellow does
not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler
of the demons.” That was a very dangerous attitude
to have in the presence of God’s Son: to disregard the
obvious evidence of the working of God’s Spirit and to
instead call it the working of the devil!
The Pharisees called the work of Jesus the work
of a pagan deity. Beelzebub was a Phoenician god,
about the lowest of the low when it came to gods.
Beelzebub was also known as the “Lord of the Flies,” a
god of filth, because when the Phoenicians saw some
filth, or scum, or even a corpse, they noticed that flies
would land on them and, soon, worms and maggots
would appear. Not knowing about modern science,
they came to the conclusion that the filth and scum
of corpses somehow had the power to give life. They
thought some god must have put that power in there;
thus, they came to worship the “Lord of the Flies,”
Beelzebub. And this was the being that the religious
leaders said gave Jesus His power.
Talk about pushing the envelope.
Talk about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 28 8/23/12 11:53 AM 29
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
They were denying the influence and power
of the Holy Spirit. That’s why Jesus—knowing their
thoughts—said,
“Every kingdom divided against itself is
brought to desolation, and every city or house
divided against itself will not stand. If Satan
casts out Satan, he is divided against himself.
How then will his kingdom stand? And if I
cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do
your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall
be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the
Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has
come upon you” (Matthew 12:25–28).
In other words, “If what I’m doing is of God, then
what are you men really doing and saying? What po-
sition are you taking in regard to what God is doing
in this world? You are ascribing to the devil the work
of the very God you claim to worship and serve.” They
were refusing to acknowledge the obvious demonstra-
tion of God’s Spirit. Look again at His statement in
Matthew 12:28: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit
of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon
you.” He was pleading with them! “The kingdom of
God is come to you. Don’t reject it, don’t deny it, and
don’t mislabel it by calling the obvious signs of that
kingdom the work of the devil.”
But Jesus wasn’t finished. He continued,
“How can one enter a strong man’s house and
plunder his goods, unless he first binds the
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 29 8/23/12 11:53 AM 30
Beyond Mercy
strong man? And then he will plunder his
house. He who is not with Me is against Me,
and he who does not gather with Me scatters
abroad” (Matthew 12:29, 30).
What was Jesus saying here? He was telling the
Pharisees, very clearly and unambiguously, that if they
weren’t recognizing His work as the power of God,
then they would eventually be filled with the power of
the devil. There’s no middle ground; we’re on one side
or the other. There is, indeed, a great controversy be-
tween good and evil, Christ and Satan, and we have to
make our choice about whose side we are going to join
in this conflict. And to be blunt: to not choose Christ
is to choose the other side—the devil’s side.
Now comes Jesus’ zinger:
“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blas-
phemy will be forgiven men, but the blas-
phemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven
men. Anyone who speaks a word against the
Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but who-
ever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not
be forgiven him, either in this age or in the
age to come” (Matthew 12:31, 32).
So now we have the full context in which Jesus
makes His statement about the unpardonable sin.
The Pharisees refused to recognize the work of
the Holy Spirit; they rejected the clear work of the
Spirit of God. Don’t miss this point: If we refuse to
acknowledge and recognize the working of the Holy
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 30 8/23/12 11:53 AM 31
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
Spirit in our lives, then we are at risk of committing the
unpardonable sin.
Remember back in 2010, when those 33 Chilean
miners were trapped 2,300 feet below the surface? A
narrow, deep hole was dug through the rocky earth to
rescue them. If those miners refused to heed the voice
of their helpers, to escape through that tiny tunnel,
they would have surely died. There was no other way
for them to be saved!
Likewise, as we have seen, if the work of the Holy
Spirit is to guide us into knowledge and lead us to
repentance and conviction, and we reject that very
work, we are in danger of committing the unpardon-
able sin because it’s only through that work we can
be brought to repentance, which ultimately leads
to pardon.
One of the best definitions of the unpardonable
sin that I’ve read comes from E.G. White. She writes,
“No one needs look upon the sin against the
Holy Ghost as something mysterious and
indefinable. The sin against the Holy Ghost
is the sin of persistent refusal to respond to
the invitation to repent” (That I Might Know
Him, pg. 243).
That’s it…pure and simple! “The persistent re-
fusal to repent of sin.” That is the unpardonable sin.
Three Wrong Paths
Now that we better understand what the unpar-
donable sin is, the next question arises: How does it
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 31 8/23/12 11:53 AM 32
Beyond Mercy
happen that someone gets in danger of committing it?
It’s fine that we know what it is, but that’s only part of
the issue. What’s just as important is what we need to
do to make sure we don’t commit it!
What happens, then, that causes people to com-
mit the unpardonable sin—to place themselves in a
position where they can’t be saved, where they have
crossed the point of no return? It happens like this …
Almost imperceptibly, the conscience is seared
and the heart is hardened. In fact, this is why it is
counted as such a terrible sin. Sometimes people don’t
understand why God considers this the worst thing
that can be done, but it is because the Holy Spirit is
the only way God can reach an individual with the
message of salvation. That is the way we are led to
repentance. If we did not have the Holy Spirit, there
would be no hope for us, because we have to repent in
order to be forgiven. If we have no sense of our need
of repentance, we won’t do it and, therefore, we won’t
be forgiven.
Again, it’s like a deep-sea diver. His oxygen tank
has the air he needs to live. His dive computer is al-
ways working to let him know when he’s in danger of
running out of air. But if he ignores the computer and
continues to descend when he knows he should start
ascending, he’s going to run out of air and drown. If he
obeys the warnings of his dive computer and makes
his way to the surface, he will live. But he has no way
of knowing that it’s getting dangerous for him but by
his dive computer—so is it wise for him to ignore it?
In the same way, in this sin-darkened world, the only
way God can reach us is through the Holy Spirit.
Beyond Mercy Text.indd 32 8/23/12 11:53 AM 33
What Is the Unpardonable Sin?
In our analogy, God is the air we need to live;
Jesus is the salvation at the surface. The Holy Spirit
is the dive computer—He warns us that our spiritual
tank is running out of God and we need to surface to
Jesus to be saved. But if we turn away from the Spirit,
if we refuse to listen and obey our spiritual dive com-
puter, God will have to let us go; thus, we will be lost.
And it was our choice!
This was why King David was so deeply con-
cerned in his great prayer of contrition. While pour-
ing out his heart to God in Psalm 51, David prayed,
“Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not
take Your Holy Spirit from me” (verse 11). He realized
that if God removed the Holy Spirit from his life, he
was lost. He would be left alone with no way of being
saved. That’s why Jesus said this sin is the unpardon-
able sin. When you cut yourself off and refuse to listen
to the Holy Spirit, there is no hope for you.
Now, there are three specific ways in which peo-
ple can commit this hopeless sin.
1) The first way is for a person to simply admit
in his life, “I don’t want to be saved; I don’t want to
be bothered with God and the Bible.” Once in a while,
you’ll find a person like this—but not too often. Most
people really want to be saved, but now and then you’ll
find someone who just isn’t interested at all. He’s satis-
fied with his materialistic world even though he knows
it will ultimately lead to a complete dead end for him.
Proverbs 28:13 says: “He who covers his sins will
not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them
will have
Arabic
French
Spanish
Portuguese
Deutsch
Turkish
Dutch
Italiano
Russian
Romaian
Portuguese (Brazil)
Greek
हिन्दी