In Matthew 12:31-32, Jesus defines “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit” as the attribution of Beelzebub to the work of the Holy Spirit when He healed a blind and mute demoniac to authenticate His offer of the kingdom to Israel. This passage is often misunderstood through soteriological rather than doxological lenses when teachers downplay or even reject the kingdom significance and instead hold to a soteriological reading of this vital passage. John Piper describes his soteriological view of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit from a Calvinistic New Covenant Theology perspective:
Can a true believer, whose salvation is eternally secure in Christ, still be guilty of blaspheming the Holy Spirit? No… Christians can commit all kinds of sin, but what marks a Christian is that they don’t settle in long term. They hate it and they repent of it. They feel bad about it. They turn to God for fresh forgiveness. So no, a Christian cannot commit what Jesus calls blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.1
This understanding unfortunately undermines the Christian’s assurance of his salvation. Instead of encouraging Christians to rest in Christ’s finished work and promises, Piper’s words push Christians to constantly ask themselves if they “hate [sin] and repent of it” enough to know that their “salvation is eternally secure.”
The lack of salvation (or even the loss of salvation) view of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is common within Christendom, but it is not the only interpretation. The dispensational understanding advocates that this blasphemy is a specific national sin and not available to be committed today. This interpretation is also popular. Mark Musser summarizes the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit:
Mark Musser summarizes the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit:
The exorcisms of Jesus cornered the Pharisees. In truth, the exorcisms were an ultimatum. The Pharisees must either accept Jesus as the Messiah, or sacrifice reality, common sense, and even their reason in order to deny it. When the Pharisees began to say that Jesus was doing His miraculous powers of exorcism by the power of the devil, they demonstrated their obstinate unbelief to the fullest extent that is without remedy. God had done everything possible for such men so they could easily believe that Jesus was the Messiah by affording them the best possible circumstances and evidence imaginable this side of the grave. Yet the Pharisees willfully refused to believe that Jesus was the Christ in the face of overwhelming proof that strongly confirmed otherwise. The obstinate sinful willpower of these Pharisees sacrificed their faith, reason, and common sense in order to avoid the obvious conclusion that Jesus was truly their Messiah. The blasphemy of the Spirit is therefore a special category of unbelief reserved specifically for certain Pharisees, who, in light of their knowledge of Judaism and as guardians of the Old Testament Law, were granted the best possible opportunity to believe in Christ, but shockingly, were unwilling to do so (John 5:44-47).2
This understanding of this sin is nothing new, as over a century ago, A. C. Gaebelein penned:
In His coming to His own people, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were manifested. The Holy Spirit in. His power was manifested through the Son, our Lord, upon whom He was in His fullness. The signs He did were not alone done in His own omnipotent power as Jehovah, they were the manifestation of the Holy Spirit likewise. And these Pharisees had sinned against this Holy Spirit by accusing Christ, that He drove out the demons by Satanic power. They had blasphemed the Spirit, spoken injuriously about Him, in saying that Beelzebub, the prince of demons, was present with Christ and not the Holy Spirit. This they did maliciously. And this and nothing else is the sin of which our Lord here speaks. The sin is to charge the Lord with doing His miracles through Satanic power and not through the Holy Spirit. We do believe, therefore, that this sin could only be committed as long as our Lord Jesus Christ was in the earth and that it was committed by the Pharisees with their blasphemies.3
Though MacArthur unfortunately seems to extend the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit to be one that individuals can commit today in support of his erroneous doctrine of lordship salvation, he does correctly summarize the Pharisee’s sin:
Unable to deny his power, the Pharisees sought to sway the crowds by insisting that Jesus worked his miracles by the power of Satan rather than the power of God… They had no good reason to suppose Jesus’ miracles were demonic; they simply did not want to accept his divine authority… Jesus identified the Pharisees’ accusations as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:31), for it was by the Spirit that he performed these works… Though the Pharisees had received the clearest revelation of Jesus’ authority, their hearts were so hardened that they refused to accept what they knew to be true, and levied a slanderous charge in a malicious attempt to silence him. As a result, Jesus declared them to be past the point of repentance and forgiveness.4
Fruchtenbaum comments on the uniqueness of this sin:
That generation had committed the unpardonable sin: the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit… this is the only context in which this sin is found and must be interpreted accordingly. The unpardonable sin was not an individual sin, but a national sin. It was committed by that generation of Israel in Jesus’ day and cannot be applied to subsequent Jewish generations. The content of the unpardonable sin was the national rejection of the Messiahship of Jesus while He was physically present on the grounds that He was demon possessed.5
Dennis Rokser writes likewise:
But this sin [the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit] was committed by the unbelieving Jewish leaders and marked the official national rejection of Jesus Christ, eventually culminating in His crucifixion. The reader of Matthew’s Gospel must recognize this critical juncture in the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. From this point forward, Christ withdraws His previous offer of the Kingdom of Heaven being “at hand.”6
Indeed, even Adam Clarke, a Wesleyan Arminian who rejects the notion of a kingdom offer and believes the call to repent is for unbelievers to be saved,7 still says of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit:
[T]he “unpardonable sin,” as some term it, is neither less nor more than ascribing the miracles of Christ wrought by the power of God to the spirit of the devil Many sincere people have been grievously troubled with apprehensions that they had committed the unpardonable sin; but let it be observed that no man who believes the divine mission of Jesus Christ ever can commit this sin: therefore let no man’s heart fail because of it.8
Other examples of agreement that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit was a unique national sin abound. The significance of this sin in the greater context of the kingdom postponement is that “At that point, the expression ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ virtually disappears from Matthew’s Gospel. The concept does not resurface until the offer is re-extended to a distant generation of Jews during the future Tribulation period (Matt. 24:14).”9 That is to say, at this point in history, Jesus postponed His offer of the kingdom.
- John Piper, “Can a Christian Blaspheme the Holy Spirit?” Ask Pastor John (podcast) episode 902, July 21, 2016 accessed November 7, 2019, https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/can-a-christian-blaspheme-the-holy-spirit.
- R. Mark Musser, “What about the Unpardonable Sin?” Paper presented at the Chafer Theological Seminary Pastor’s Conference, Houston, TX, March 2015.
- Arno Clemens Gaebelein, The Gospel of Matthew: An Exposition vol. I (New York: Our Hope Publication Office, 1910), 251. Available online at https://archive.org/details/thegospelofmatth00gaebuoft/ (accessed November 7, 2019).
- John MacArthur, Richard Mayhue, general editors, Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 352.
- Arnold Fruchtenbaum, The Footsteps of the Messiah: A study of the Sequence of Prophetic Events, revised ed. (San Antonio, TX: Ariel Minisries, 2018), 296.
- Dennis Rokser, “Examining the Contextual Problems” in Dennis Rokser, Tom Stegall, Kurt Witzig, Should Christians Fear the Outer Darkenss (Duluth, MN: Grace Gospel Press, 2015), 82-83.
- Adam Clarke, The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, New Edition, vol. v., Daniel Curry, ed. (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1884), 30.
- Adam Clarke, The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, New Edition, vol. v., Daniel Curry, ed. (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1884), 74.
- Andrew Woods, The Coming Kingdom: What Is the Kingdom and How Is Kingdom Now Theology Changing the Focus of the Church? (Duluth, MN: Grace Gospel Press, 2016), 64.