Matthew 12:25-32 - Speaking against the Holy Spirit

12:22-24

A demon-possessed man was then brought to Jesus, the man was blind and mute, Jesus healed him and the people were amazed. They wondered if he was the Son of David, i.e. the promised Messiah. The Pharisees had a different agenda, they were not interested in the man being healed, so they claimed that it was only by the power of the prince of demons that Jesus could drive out demons.

12:25-29

Jesus knew their thoughts and pointed out the logical nonsense in their claims. Why would Satan drive out Satan? The religious leaders also claimed to be able to drive out demons, by what power did they manage it? Jesus did drive out demons, and it meant the kingdom of God was near. Moreover it made perfect sense, for to “plunder his house”, i.e. to set people free the strong man has to be bound up first.

12:30-32

The religious leaders were treading on very dangerous ground. For they were blaspheming against the Holy Spirit and would not be forgiven.The “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is one of the most difficult phrases because Jesus says it is the unforgivable sin. So let’s try and take a careful look at the matter. What is the context? What has Jesus just been talking about? The context is the work of the Spirit being attributed to Satan. We should also note that this is not a casual attribution, it is the underlying presupposition of the Pharisees approach, not simply making a mistake. Now, what happens if we deliberately and firmly attribute the work of God as being the work of Satan? We will deny Christ, for the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to Jesus. It has often been said that if we are worried that we might have committed the unforgivable sin then that is a sign that we haven’t, for it indicates that there is still some sensitivity in our hearts, we have not been hardened to the point of no hope.

Jesus now says that speaking against the Son of Man (i.e. speaking against Himself) can be forgiven, but speaking against the Holy Spirit will not. He even makes the point stronger by saying there will be no forgiveness in this life nor the next. Why is speaking against the Holy Spirit so important? Maybe it is something like this. When someone is presented with Jesus, or we hear some teaching about Jesus, we may reject it or react against it just out of the dullness or blindness of our minds. “Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”. When the Holy Spirit works in our lives He opens our minds to the truth of God, so if we reject that we are deliberately and knowingly rejecting the truth. So in the one case we sin out of ignorance (it is still sin), in the other we sin knowing and seeing the truth.