OUR FATHER WHOSE SPIRIT MUST NOT BE BLASPHEMED

The Lord Jesus, having just previously told the pharisees that those who were not with Him were against Him and those who were not gathering with Him were scattering, said this stern warning to them;

31 “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

The pharisees found Jesus to be a potent rival for the hearts and minds of the people in the land of Israel and some of them began to plot how to get rid of Him so that they could hold onto their religious monopoly over the territory.

He was challenging the status quo in their understanding of the scripture and the kingdom of God was attesting to the validity of His ministry with astounding supernatural power and authority.

Jesus, in this passage, said that if the visceral reactions against Him out of envy or defensiveness caused the religious and political guard to speak against Him, these offences would be forgivable but, if they ventured beyond challenging Him and blashphemed the Holy Spirit who was the facilitator of the supernatural attestations of Jesus, they would have no pathway to forgiveness either in that time or in the time that was to come.

The pharisees, having attributed Jesus' ability to deliver people from demonic oppresion to the Beelzebub, had blasphemed the Holy Spirit who was the One who had powered the removal of the demons and the healing of the blind and mute.

The damning of the supernatural ministry of the Holy Spirit  is particularly aggrigeous because it undercuts the outreach that God Himself provides to stir up people's faith and by undermining this outreach, other people can be prevented from attaining a place of trust in God.

Even though there were some factions within the pharisaic order that began to take Jesus seriously like the one to which Nicodemus belonged to, the efforts of the particular pharisees who blasphemed the Holy Spirit, caused them to be excluded from ever reaching saving faith and for them, they were without remedy and in their unforgivable state, ended up pursuing the destruction of Jesus until they succeeded in having Him crucified.

Have mercy on us O God.

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