The Unpardonable Sin
“Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” (Matthew 12:31,32.)
There may be no more misunderstood teaching of Jesus than what has been labeled the “unpardonable sin” of Matthew 12. (Spoiler alert: there is no such thing as an unforgivable unpardonable sin for the believer). It has been interpreted to take in certain words or a set of words which blaspheme the name of God, much like the warning in the Ten Commandments about taking the Lord’s name in vain. But while taking the Lord’s name in vain can be done in a variety of ways, the so-called unpardonable or unforgiven sin is a very specific sin, committed by a very specific group of people, and condemned as unforgivable for a very specific time.
Matthew 12 is a pivotal chapter in the earthly ministry of Jesus. From the time John the Baptist (not a denominational affiliation) began preaching in the wilderness (Matthew 3) until Jesus sent the Twelve Apostles to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10) the message was, “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The message was an offering of the kingdom to first century Jews. His miracles were done to confirm the fact that He was indeed Israel’s Messiah spoken of by the Old Testament prophets. Then in Chapter 12 everything changed. A man who was demon-possessed, blind, and mute was brought to Jesus. Jesus drove the demon out of this man and healed him so that he was able to both see and speak.
“All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, this man cannot be the Son of David, can he?” (Matthew 12:23). Knowing that the Messiah was to come through the line of David and that He was to perform many attesting signs and miracles, the people wondered, could this be Him? The people looked to their religious leaders, the Pharisees, to decide for them whether this was true or not. So, the Pharisees has a dilemma. Earlier in Chapter 12 the Pharisees had a confrontation with Jesus concerning healing on the Sabbath and had “conspired against Him as to how they might destroy Him.” (Matthew 12:14). They could hardly turn around now and proclaim Him the Messiah. But if they denied Jesus was the Messiah, they would have to give an explanation as to how He was able to perform miracles like the one the people had just seen. In verse 24 the Pharisees rendered their verdict, which was to come with consequences far beyond anything they could have imagined.
“This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of demons.”
Not only did they accuse Jesus of being demonically possessed, no, that wasn’t enough. He was possessed by Beelzebul, the ruler of demons. In verses 30-37 Jesus pronounces judgment on the Jewish generation of that day. Seven times in those verses appears the words “you” and “your.” In verses 38-45, after the Pharisees had the audacity to ask Jesus for another sign, He repeated, “an evil and adulterous generation” (v.39), “this generation” (v.41), “this generation” (v.42), “this evil generation” (v.45), making it very clear that the unpardonable sin was not an individual sin but a national one, and not one applied to any future generations of Jews. The sin for that current generation was unpardonable and judgment was set. Judgment came just 37 years later with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans in 70 A.D., along with the worldwide dispersion of the Jews.
For two reasons this is not a sin that can be repeated today. First, it is a national sin, limited to the generation to whom Jesus was physically and visibly present and to which nation He was offering Himself as Messiah. Second, all sins are forgivable to individuals who will come to God through Jesus the Christ.
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” (Ephesians 1:7).