(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

You're listening to audio from Faith Church Indy. This summer, we're going through the Gospels, learning about how understanding the tougher sayings of Christ can lead to a deeper connection with Him. Now here's the teaching.

If you all stand, we'll read briefly. You can open the Black Pew Bibles in front of you, unless you have your own. We'll be going to Matthew 12, 31, and 32 to read from Scripture.

Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, people. But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven.

But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Well, thank you, worship team, for leading us in those wonderful songs, reminding us of our hope in Christ and the anchor that Jesus is for us. And then we read a passage like Daniel read for us this morning, which doesn't sound so promising and hopeful. As I thought about this passage, I began to realize it's hard in a couple ways.

There's a sense in which this passage is just hard to understand. Just exactly what does Jesus mean by blaspheming the Holy Spirit? And what's this strange distinction that Jesus makes between speaking a word against the Son of Man and speaking a word against the Holy Spirit? Why would one be forgiven and the other not? There's also the notion that, the hard part of this, that it's just a little bit disturbing to think that we could do or say something that would forever exclude us from the possibility of God forgiving us. I don't know how you come to this passage this morning, but it is probably with some kind of mix.

Our grandkids, I began to realize a couple years ago, our two oldest grandsons, were a bit disturbed by the Halloween decorations that come out in the fall. I will admit I get a little disturbed by them as well. But I knew they were disturbed because when I would invite them to go with me to the home store, they were not too eager to go.

Even if I promised to let them sit on the John Deere tractors. If we went in, they would make sure that we didn't pass through that Halloween section. And they both came up with their own ways of dealing with that.

Our grandson, Cal, took the ignore it approach. Cal said to his cousin, Nolan, if you see something spooky, just look the other way. Nolan, more the rational type, he tried to reassure himself by responding to Cal, Cal, those things don't scare me.

They're not real. Still didn't want to go through the section anyway. I think as I thought about the way my grandsons responded to their fear there, I think I see in that the ways that we tend to respond to this passage about the danger of blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

Some of us hear Jesus' words in this hard saying and we think, wow, this is really dangerous. What if I or someone I love at some point in life does something or says something and that action totally cuts them off from God's forgiveness forever? What if I, as a follower of Christ, a believer in Christ, who have reached out to Him in faith and accepted the gift of salvation, what if I somehow blaspheme the Holy Spirit and cut myself off from the forgiveness of God? I don't know where you are on this point this morning, but I'd like to look at it with you and consider what it is that Jesus means in this statement. You might be sitting there thinking, this has no relevance to me.

Christ died for my sins. I've been forgiven. Psalm 103 says, Psalm 103 says that my sins, my trespasses have been separated from me as far as the east is from the west. 

It's irrelevant. Jesus must have been talking to some other people at some other time in some other place. However you come, I invite you to consider with me as we try to understand what it is Jesus is warning us about in this passage and apply it to our lives.

Pray with me. Father, we come before you and before your word this morning and ask that you, through your spirit, would make clear to us what Jesus is communicating to us. He, the way, the truth, and the life. 

Amen. Now I would like, I'm usually a three-point guy, but this morning I have four points, which is probably going to throw me way off, but what I would like to do with you this morning is first look at two ways in which I think this passage about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit has been misunderstood and has perhaps disturbed people down through the generations. And after we look at those two misunderstandings, I would like to answer two questions.

Point three being, what did Jesus mean by blaspheming the Holy Spirit? And then fourth, what's this distinction between speaking a word against the Son of Man and speaking a word against the Holy Spirit? Why would one be forgiven by God and the other not? So that's the plan. First point then, what is this idea that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit could be some kind of curse that we would say or some kind of way we take God's name in vain that would forever exclude us from his forgiveness? Now this notion that blasphemy is that kind of a magical, mystical, religious statement that we could make was the assumption behind the blasphemy challenge. I don't know, most of you are a lot younger than me, but 20 years ago there was an atheist group that put out this challenge that went viral.

They set up an internet site and they challenged people to make a recording of themselves saying, I deny the Holy Spirit, and then posting that out on the website. And the assumption was, this is what Christians mean by blaspheming the Holy Spirit. And by doing this, we're thumbing our nose at God and saying we don't care.

We accept that God's not going to forgive us. Now that understanding of what Jesus, what the scriptures mean by blasphemy is really based on kind of a modern notion of what blasphemy means. The word for us has all kinds of religious connotations, but in Jesus' day, this lone word from the Greek blasphemeia, it just meant to slander or demean or degrade someone.

It could be used of God, it could be used of a human being. But when Jesus talks about blasphemy, he's talking about some kind of slander. Now when we think about this notion that blaspheming the Holy Spirit is maybe taking God's name in vain some special way, or uttering something that brings God's curse upon us, I think it becomes pretty clear that that's not what Jesus had in mind when we look at the context in which this hard saying is given.

So look with me at this context. This story, or the saying of Jesus about this warning about blasphemy in the Holy Spirit is part of an account or story that starts in Matthew 12, verse 22. It reads this way, Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw.

And all the people were amazed and said, Can this be the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons. So as we try to understand what Jesus means about blaspheming the Holy Spirit, two questions. Who was Jesus addressing? Who was this warning addressed to? It was addressed to the Pharisees.

And what did the Pharisees do? What was the behavior or the speech or the action that Jesus is addressing as blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Well, the Pharisees are looking at this awesome miracle that Jesus has performed, and they're calling it the work of Satan. Now, the very fact that Jesus is addressing this warning about blaspheming the Holy Spirit to the Pharisees tells us something, because the Pharisees set up all kinds of fences around the law of God, the Torah of God. They wanted to be sure they didn't offend God, and one of the things that they did was they wanted to be sure they didn't offend God in their speech.

They didn't even say out loud the covenant name of God, Yahweh, out of fear they might accidentally take the Lord's name in vain. When Jesus is addressing the Pharisees about blaspheming the Holy Spirit, he's not talking about them cursing or swearing. There's something else at issue here.

Now, the second negative, I'd like to say, is probably the more common misconception and troubling misconception for many of us, and that's this notion that blaspheming the Holy Spirit, this warning that Jesus is giving in this passage, has to do with committing a certain amount of sin or a certain hideous type of sin that forever cuts us off from the forgiveness of God. This view of blaspheming the Holy Spirit kind of looks at God as a parent that's been pushed over the edge. That's it. 

That's over the line. Too much. I'm not going to put up with it anymore.

Off to your room without dinner, without forgiveness. I think about this understanding of what it means to blaspheme the Holy Spirit when I walk through an airport, and I get off the plane, I'm heading for the exit, and you've probably experienced this as well, many of you. You come to a place in the airport where there's a sign that says no re-entry after this point.

And you come up to that line, and you walk out, and you're excluded. And that's the way people are understanding blasphemy at this juncture. Now, there's two important things to realize when we evaluate whether that's what Jesus meant.

The first thing is, if we look at this statement, this warning from Jesus about blaspheming the Holy Spirit, not being forgiven, those words for what's forgiven and not forgiven are both future tense. Jesus is not talking about today walking up and crossing a line that forever stamps upon our forehead, unforgivable. Jesus is warning about some point in the future where God grants forgiveness or does not grant forgiveness.

And the point that he has in mind in the context that Jesus gave this statement in is the future day of judgment. That becomes pretty clear in the context of Matthew 11 and 12. This hard saying of Jesus appears in this section of Matthew, Matthew chapters 11 and 12, where Jesus is traveling around teaching in the cities of the Jews, and we're seeing him interact, and we're seeing responses to him.

And as these responses and interactions are taking place, at several points, Jesus is giving the kind of warning we have in this hard saying. And I want you to notice with me the context here. So if we look back to Matthew 11, verse 20, we read this, Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done.

Why? Because they sinned too much? Or they committed the wrong kinds of sin? Why? Why did he denounce them? Because they did not repent. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment than for Tyre and Sidon, than for you.

So what's in mind in these warnings that Jesus is giving? He's commenting on the reality that so many people, including the Pharisees, were experiencing the work of the Spirit through his life and ministry and rejecting it. And in so doing, they're cutting themselves off from the means of forgiveness. Jesus repeats the same kind of warning right after the hard saying we're looking at today in Matthew 12, 41.

The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. There's a second problem, second observation I would make about this understanding of blaspheming the Holy Spirit being some kind of committing too much sin or too great a sin for God to forgive us.

The second problem is it just doesn't appreciate the biblical or the Christian notion of the seriousness of sin. This understanding of the blaspheme of the Holy Spirit puts a line between humanity. And on one side of the line, there's the people that haven't sinned so much or so bad that they can still receive God's forgiveness.

And on the other side of the line, we have the people that have just blown it. They've gone too far over, they've gone too dark, and God is not going to forgive them. And that's totally out of sync with the biblical notion of the seriousness of sin.

If we think of a common passage that we're familiar with, like Romans 3, 23, it starts out in verse 22 of Romans 3, For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory, the majesty, the beauty, the holiness of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. There's a line, all right, but there's one person on the righteous side of that line, and it's Jesus Christ. And every other human being exists, stands on the other side of that line, short of the glory of God.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. James makes this point in James chapter 2, where he's addressing the churches in his day that were giving preference to the powerful and the rich. And James says, you don't look at this as a serious problem, as a serious sin, but the reality is that before God, it is serious sin.

And then he makes this interesting point, driving it home in verse 10, For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of it all. That's the biblical understanding of sin. There's no amount of sin that isn't put us in a position of needing, of being excluded from God and his grace and love.

There must be some other provision. We're not going to earn it. Now, fortunately for me, there's actually an example in the New Testament of one of these blaspheming Pharisees that indeed did later receive forgiveness.

He even says he's the worst of the bunch, the worst of the lot. Who is that? Yeah, Paul, Saul of Tarsus, Paul. He committed what Jesus is talking about here.

He blasphemed the Holy Spirit. He rejected Jesus Christ as Messiah, and yet he found forgiveness. Why? Because he accepted God's means for forgiveness.

He came to the place where he embraced Jesus Christ as Messiah and as Savior. He gives this beautiful testimony to that extent in 1 Timothy 1, verse 12. I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service.

Though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is worthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

The issue with the Pharisees is not that they committed some sin or some amount of sin that made them unforgivable by God. The problem with the Pharisees is that they were rejecting God's means for forgiveness by looking at the work of the Spirit and calling it the work of Satan. Does that make sense? So those are the two negatives.

What about the positive statement? What does Jesus mean when he speaks of blaspheming the Holy Spirit? We look at the life of Jesus and we just accept the idea that Jesus came as a meek and lowly servant. The people of Jesus, they were struggling with that notion and came up with a wrong interpretation of who he was. So we see Jesus' response to the Pharisees if we continue on in that story from Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew chapter 12 verse 25. So the Pharisees have looked on this amazing healing of this blind and mute man. The common people are standing around there looking on it and they're saying, wow, could it be that this is the son of David? And the Pharisees bring the hammer down and say, no way.

This man must be operating out of the power of Satan. And then we come to Jesus' response in Matthew 12, 25. Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

And if Satan cast out Satan, he's divided against himself. How then will this kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they will be your judges. Jesus is pointing out the ridiculous nature of this claim.

But then Jesus drives the point home here that his warning about blaspheming the Holy Spirit is based on. But if it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. This account in Matthew of the healing of this blind and mute man is the third in a pattern in Matthew chapter 12.

In verses 8, 1 through 8, you have this account of Jesus and his disciples. They're walking through the grain field, and it happens to be Sabbath day. And his disciples are reaching out, plucking a few heads of grain to snack on.

And the Pharisees come down and criticize Jesus. Why are you letting your disciples break the Sabbath? Here they are out harvesting grain on the Sabbath. And Jesus responds to them and says, you fellows are missing the point here.

You're missing the purpose, the heart of the Sabbath, to find rest in God. And you're fixated on these rules that you set around it as your fences. Then in Matthew 12, verses 9 through 14, we have a second account where Jesus or his disciples do something, and the Pharisees respond, and then Jesus gives his response to them.

In Matthew chapter 12, verse 9, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand. They're in the synagogue, in a synagogue, on the Sabbath day. And the Pharisees kind of bait Jesus.

They say to him, with this guy standing right there in front of them, they say to him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? What's Jesus do in his grace and mercy? He heals the man. And he says to the Pharisees, which one of you would have a sheep that would fall in a pit on the Sabbath day, and you wouldn't rescue it? That was okay in the Pharisees' mind. So Jesus asked them a simple question.

What's more valuable, your sheep or this man created in the image of God? It's lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And then we come to this third account where Jesus does something, the Pharisees evaluate it, and Jesus responds. But this account's a little bit different.

If you read it, there's no Sabbath controversy here. This is happening on the Sabbath. There's no accusation of breaking cleanliness laws or hanging out with tax collectors and sinners.

There's nothing going on here that should offend them. But what does offend them is when the common people look on and they say, wow, this is incredible. Could this be the hand of God? Could this be Messiah? Could this be son of David? And the Pharisees couldn't countenance that.

It drove them nuts. And so they come up with this crazy idea that, yeah, sure, we're not going to deny it's a wonderful miracle, and we can't find anything else to criticize about it, but we're sure that this man's not of God. So whatever he's doing, whatever power he has, must come from Satan.

A few years ago, my brother and I were both in New York for some business meetings, and it just so happened we were on the same flight home. Now, I was the expert about flying United Airlines out of Newark Airport. I knew how it worked.

I knew that the flights went out of Terminal C. So I arranged the Uber. My brother's, you know, I'm taking care of him, my little brother. I've arranged the Uber.

We swing by and pick him up, and I tell the driver, please take us to Newark Airport Terminal C. And my novice brother's over there on the other seat. I don't know if that's right. Doug, listen, I'm the expert here.

I know what's going on. This is the way United Airlines works at Newark Airport. So he gives up, and sure enough, we pull up to the airport, and all the signage is up there, if you want to get to United Airlines, go to Terminal C. You know where this story's going, don't you? So we get there.

We go through security. It always takes a little bit longer than we'd hoped, and we're kind of tight on time. And then we start looking for our gate and look at all the signs, and our gate's not there.

And just to make me look like a fool, United Airlines moved that flight over to Terminal B. We got a lot of extra exercise trying to make that flight on time. Now, this is the kind of place that the Pharisees were in with Jesus. They knew what Messiah was going to look like.

They knew how he was going to show up. He was going to be one of them. He was going to look like them.

He was going to think like them. He was going to praise them. He was going to take care of all that sinful riffraff in the rest of Israel, and he was going to lead them off into victorious glory as another Pharisee of the Pharisees conquering the Romans.

And they just could not see that this Jesus who shows up critical, questioning their authority, questioning their teaching, could in any way be Messiah. And this is what Jesus is warning them of. Because of their inability to see, to recognize the Spirit of God working through his life, they're cutting themselves off from the means of God's forgiveness.

What's it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit? Well, it means just what the Pharisees were doing, looking straight at the work of God's Spirit in the life and ministry of Jesus, and saying, that's Satan. What about this second question? What's this distinction that's being made between speaking a word against the Son of Man being forgivable, but speaking a word against the Holy Spirit is not forgivable? I will admit that I'm not that bright, so I was consulted probably 10 or 12 commentaries when I was trying to figure out this hard statement. And about half of them didn't even want to touch this question.

And so maybe I shouldn't either, but we'll give it a shot. The other half of the commentaries I was reading had some version of the notion that this distinction between speaking a word against the Son of Man and speaking a word against the Holy Spirit is based on our growing out of the unexpected character or nature of Christ's Messiahship, Jesus as Messiah. We just kind of take it for granted that Jesus came as a meek and humble servant.

But the people of Jesus' day were not expecting that kind of Messiah. Even his own followers who spent

(This file is longer than 30 minutes. Go Unlimited at https://turboscribe.ai/ to transcribe files up to 10 hours long.)