14.02 What is the Sin?

14 - The Unpardonable Sin; Section 2 WHAT IS THE SIN?

What is the sin against the Holy Spirit? In the third chapter of Mark, we have the parallel passage to the text we just read in Matthew, the same record of these men coming around Jesus when they saw Him perform His mighty miracle for the poor man who could neither see nor speak. In order to keep the people from believing Jesus, they said the miracle was performed by the power of Satan. Notice the words of Jesus in verses 28-30 (Mark 3:28-30): "Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith so ever they shall blaspheme. But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost has never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: BECAUSE THEY SAID, HE HAS AN UNCLEAN SPIRIT." Ah - now there’s a clue - the Pharisees’ opposition to Jesus was not a spur of the moment, hotheaded fit of pique. These men knew what they were doing. Their schemes against Jesus were deliberate, calculated. A leading Pharisee, Nicodemus, once confided to Jesus, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him" (John 3:2). Many of them knew better, but unlike Nicodemus they still plotted to destroy Him. They had developed an implacable contempt for Jesus because He presented a threat to their prestige and power over the people. Jesus warned them of the dire consequences of their attitude and actions. They were not just sinning against God in heaven above, or against the Son of God on earth - they were resisting, opposing, withstanding, impugning, confronting, assailing, attacking and repulsing the Holy Spirit - THE VERY ACTIVITY AND MINISTRATION OF GOD TOWARDS THEM! They were in danger of blaspheming the Holy Ghost!

Let me put it this way. The Father in heaven is the unseen, invisible God. The Son is the visible manifestation of God in human flesh - the historic Jesus of two millenniums ago. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1:14; John 1:18). The Father is unseen. The Son is the visible, fleshly manifestation of the invisible God. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is the activity, the action, the motion, the operation, the force, the energy, the influence of God toward men. The English word "spirit" is from the Latin SPIRARE, meaning "to breathe," the words "respiration," "expiration," and "inspiration" all being derived from the same source. Similarly the Greek word PNEUMA comes from PNEO, meaning "to breathe or blow," and the Hebrew RUAHH is believed to come from a root having the same meaning. The Holy Spirit is God’s breath, God’s out-breathing, God’s ENERGY FORCE by which He accomplishes His purpose and executes His will. Many times we have thought of the Holy Spirit as "power," and certainly He has power, but power is basically the ability or capacity to act or do things and it can be latent, dormant, inactively resident in someone or something. "Force," on the other hand, more specifically describes energy projected and exerted on persons or things, and may be defined as "an influence which produces or tends to produce motion, or change of motion." "Power" might be likened to the stored energy in a battery, while "force" could be compared to the current flowing from such battery. "Force," then, more accurately represents the sense of the Hebrew and Greek terms as relating to God’s Spirit, and this is borne out by a consideration of the scriptures.

Thus, the Holy Spirit is God’s ENERGY FORCE. It is God’s energy force projected and exerted upon man. It is God’s motion, action and influence in one measure or another upon man. Jehovah God accomplished the creation of the universe by means of His Spirit or energy force. Regarding the planet Earth in its early formative stages, the record states that "The Spirit (energy force) of God was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters" (Genesis 1:2). Psalms 33:6 says, "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath (spirit) of His mouth." Like a powerful breath, God’s Spirit can be sent forth to exert power even though there is no bodily or visible contact with that which is acted upon. Where a human craftsman would use the force of his hands and fingers to produce things, God uses His Spirit. Hence that Spirit is also spoken of as God’s "hand" or "fingers." Jesus told the Pharisees, "If I cast out devils by the SPIRIT of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you" (Matthew 12:28). But Luke, in recording the same event, expresses it thus: "If I with the FINGER of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you" (Luke 11:20). The Holy Spirit is the working, the activity of God usward.

Let’s look at that for just a moment. The religious rulers were not in danger of committing the unpardonable sin because they said that Jesus performed miracles by the power of the devil. That is not the condemnation. He says that ALL BLASPHEMIES shall be forgiven men. There is not a sin that you committed yesterday but what if you come to Christ today He would forgive you and accept you. His mercies are higher than the heavens. What then was their problem? They were expressing an attitude of unbelief which was persistent and calculated rejection of the activity of God toward them. They were resisting the Holy Spirit, striving against the influence of God acting upon their minds and hearts. Notice that later on Stephen was brought before this same group, and he said to them the same thing the Lord Jesus had said: "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you" (Acts 7:51). They were doing the same thing their fathers had done. In Christ’s day they were resisting the Holy Spirit, and the same condition exists today - they are still resisting the Holy Spirit!

Repentance is always the Lord’s way of preparing His people for the next move of His Spirit. It is significant to note that the Pharisees refused to repent at the preaching of John the Baptist, and consequently were the very ones who rejected the Christ when He came. Prophet after prophet had announced to them the coming of the Messiah. In due time He came. God was manifest in the flesh. He came unto His own - to this people whom for over two thousand years He had been preparing to receive Him; but "His own received Him not." They "despised and rejected Him;" they hated Him because He testified of them that their deeds were evil; they blasphemed the Spirit of God, accusing God’s Son of deriving His power from the prince of devils; they took counsel together to slay the Holy and the Just; they bore false witness against Him to put Him to death; they became His betrayers and murderers; they cried, "Crucify Him, crucify Him," and by their wicked hands He was crucified and slain. And when the still lingering longsuffering of God sent them one more chance of repentance, and the risen Savior told His apostles that remission of sins through His name was to be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, when the Holy Ghost in Peter and in Stephen pleaded still with Judah to repent and be converted, they filled up the measure of their iniquities by rejecting this final offer of mercy. They slew Stephen and persecuted the church. "The Jews both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; they please not God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always, for WRATH IS COME UPON THEM to the uttermost" (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16). Because they repulsed the operation of God by His Spirit on their behalf, Jesus said to the unrepentant chief priests, elders and Pharisees, "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:43). In the great and eternal order of God there is an allotted time for the preparation of an individual, a city, a people or a nation to hear the word of the Lord and to respond to the activity of the Holy Spirit to illuminate mind and heart and draw them into relationship with Himself. In the time of Christ, Jerusalem was the headquarters of God’s most favored nation, the house of Judah; it was the hub of religious government and leadership of that day, and the center of religious instruction. Every Sabbath day Moses and the prophets were read to the people, including the promise of the coming of Messiah and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. However, with all that reading and teaching, there were apparently few in the city who believed the prophetic word of the Lord and trusted for its fulfillment. There came a decisive day when Jesus approached the city, and as He beheld the careless, unheeding multitudes thronging its noisy streets, He wept audibly over it, saying, "If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong unto your peace! but now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, that your enemies shall cast a trench about you, and compass you round, and keep you in on every side, and shall lay you even with the ground, and your children within you; and they shall not leave in you one stone upon another; BECAUSE YOU KNEW NOT THE TIME OF YOUR VISITATION! (Luke 19:41-44). The horrible blindness of not recognizing the time of God’s visitation, when God is visiting you, showing Himself gracious toward you, moving in your midst by His Spirit, must be a blindness of the worst form. But to have the deep, inner revelation of the Spirit to His people is a wisdom of the highest kind. But because the people of Jerusalem disregarded God’s word and rejected the move of the Holy Spirit and refused the power of His Kingdom, the Lord had no alternative but to weep over the city and pronounce corrective judgment upon it. The Lord said of Jerusalem, "For the days shall come upon you, that your enemies shall cast a trench about you ... because you knew not the time of your visitation." They shall "compass you round, and keep you in on every side ... because you knew not the time of your visitation." Your enemies "shall lay you even with the ground, and your children within you ... because you knew not the time of your visitation." "They shall not leave in you one stone upon another; because you knew not the time of your visitation." The mighty works which Jesus, the first Son, began will be completed by the other sons who are coming into His image. This is not presumption on the part of man. This is the revealed plan and purpose of God for this generation at the end of the age. Today, by revelation of the Word, by the prophetic voice of His prophets, by the inner illumination of the anointing the promise is before us: "For ... the sufferings of this present time are not worth being compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and for us, and conferred on us! For the concentrated and undivided expectation of the creation is assiduously and patiently awaiting the revelation of the sons of God" (Romans 8:18-19, Amplified & Wuest). Let us never read or listen to these truths and lightly cast them aside, but earnestly pray that the eyes of our understanding may be enlightened; that we may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance IN THE SAINTS, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ Jesus when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. Those who read these lines with the revelation and understanding of the Almighty upon their minds know that the spiritual realm is alive with much activity in preparation for the long awaited manifestation of the sons of God. The heavens are astir! The sphere of spirit power and spirit life is teeming with divine activity! God is moving now among His chosen ones, searching for a people who will follow on to know Him in all His glorious and eternal reality. All who will receive His visitation will discover a new experience taking place in their lives - as definite and spiritual an experience as they have ever had, yea, as definite as their conversion and the joy and peace that flooded their hearts when their sins were forgiven, washed away by faith in the precious blood of God’s redeeming Lamb, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Ah, my beloved, THIS IS THE TIME OF O-U-R VISITATION. Christ will soon appear in His sons in the full glory and majesty and power of His divine life! My earnest prayer for all who read these words is that each may truly and fully know that this is YOUR DAY, the time of YOUR VISITATION! The sin that has been called the "unpardonable sin" is the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit - AGAINST THE DIVINE ACTIVITY AND ENERGY FORCE OF GOD TOWARD ONE IN HIS DAY OF VISITATION. It is something infinitely greater than merely speaking a word against the Father in heaven, or against His Son on earth. Vast multitudes today blaspheme the God of Heaven and the earth is filled with men and women who hate and reject the Son of God and swear profanely against Him. The very Pharisees who Jesus warned about blaspheming the Holy Spirit finally trumped up charges against Him and occasioned His crucifixion by the Romans. But was this the unpardonable sin? No way! As Jesus tasted the awful bitterness of His anguish upon the cross, as sorrows like sea billows rolled over the Son of man, He was heard to pray, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." They scourged Him and mocked Him and cursed Him and nailed Him to the tree. But the message is clear - "Whosoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him." And He forgave them! His Father forgave them! Heinous as their crime was - I do not hesitate to tell you that those men will never stand in the judgment for the sin of crucifying the Lord of Glory, for THEY H-A-V-E B-E-E-N FORGIVEN! Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Their sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit ran deeper than this. It was not their attitude toward an unseen and invisible God in heaven. It was not their treatment of God manifested outwardly in the flesh before their eyes. It was, rather, their reviling of God’s SPIRITUAL ENERGY FORCE, their utter and complete contempt for His illuminating and transforming ACTIVITY TOWARD THEM BY SPIRIT, their impious response to the GRACIOUS ACTION AND INFLUENCE of God in mighty spirit power as He touched the deepest chords within their hearts by the moving and wooing and brooding of the Holy Ghost.