Margaret wanted to know what was the difference between blaspheming Jesus (which will be pardoned ) versus blaspheming the Holy Spirit (which won't be pardoned during this age or the coming one)?
This post is an attempt to answer Margaret's question.
Firstly, here are the relevant texts from David Bentley Hart's Literal Translation.
Hence I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be excused men, but the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit will not be excused.
[Matt 12 : 31]
And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be excused him; but whoever speaks against the Spirit, the Holy one, it will not be excused him, neither in this age nor in the one that is coming.
[Matt 12 : 32]
But whoever blasphemes against the Spirit, the Holy one, has no excuse throughout the age, but is answerable for a transgression in the Age.
[Mark 3 : 20]
The Background.
Jesus had just healed a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and the Jewish leaders accused Jesus of doing this through the power of an evil spirit. Jesus saw this accusation as an example of slandering or blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which led Him to give the warning quoted in the texts above.
Blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has many roles including enabling us to believe the gospel and be the "firstfruits" to experience God's salvation during this age of grace.
Salvation during the ages, during the realm of time, depends entirely on the ministry of the Holy Spirit speaking to people, giving them the faith to believe and respond to the gospel, and empowering them to live as faithful disciples.
So a blasphemer of the Holy Spirit, someone who slanders or speaks evil of the Holy Spirit, is clearly someone who is not disposed to this ministry of the Holy Spirit and therefore unqualified to be a member of the saved, justified Body of Christ - those chosen by God to be alive with Christ in the coming age, the Kingdom Age that is often called the Millennium.
These (blasphemers) will answer for their "transgression in the Age" by missing that life, as their pardon awaits the distant consummation of the ages when all creation will be reconciled to God.
Blaspheming Jesus.
While the death and resurrection of Jesus are the essential and only means of salvation and life for all people, it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit that allows believers to experience this salvation and life in the present and coming age.
Blaspheming Jesus, while not a good practice in itself, is completely overridden by the power of the Holy Spirit when God chooses to become involved in a person's life.
A person who has no time for Jesus and his life, death and resurrection, and even slanders and speaks evil against him, will be pardoned after the Holy Spirit gets hold of him/her.
A beautiful illustration of this is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus in Damascus.
On the road to Damascus, Jesus got Saul's attention in a pretty dramatic way, but it wasn't until Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit under the ministry of Ananias that he was changed from the Pharisee Saul, a blasphemer of Jesus and a persecutor of Jesus' followers, to the Apostle Paul, God's chosen instrument to bear His name to the nations.
Clearly, the work of the Holy Spirit trumps all Saul's blaspheming of Jesus and the persecuting of His followers.
Conclusion.
So to me, blaspheming Jesus will be excused when God calls a person into the Body of Christ by the ministry of the Holy Spirit during this age of grace.
But blaspheming the Holy Spirit will not be excused in this age or the next, and shows that a person is not being called to life and service with Christ in the coming kingdom age.
This is the most obvious difference I can see between blaspheming Jesus (which will be pardoned) versus blaspheming the Holy Spirit (which won't be pardoned during this age or the next).
What do you think might be the difference?
PS. An After-thought.
In this exchange with the Jewish leaders Jesus was identifying Himself as the Son of Man even though the thrust of the gospel being proclaimed to the Jewish nation during His ministry was to recognise Him as the Son of God, their long-awaited Messiah.
Although He is both the Son of Man and the Son of God, I wonder if Jesus was making the distinction on this occasion to emphasise His humanity and show that to speak evil against Jesus as a man living among men, as terrible as that might be, was an error that would be forgiven, and hence not comparable to blaspheming or slandering the Spirit of God.
Blessings, Barry
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