The Unforgivable Sin

What is it? Is there such a thing. Many different people have many different ideas of what the unforgivable sin is.

To address this, we must first understand how forgiveness of sin works. Sin is forgiven through two main acts of Jesus. The first act I’d like to address is the act of Jesus interceding for us. When God sees us commit a horrible act of sin, Jesus stands as our defender, knowing the temptation we felt because he felt it. Jesus understands the desire that leads to all sin, because he felt that desire at one time or another in his life. At the end of the age, when we stand and are judged guilty of our sin, it will be Jesus who steps in and gives us pardon, because he knew how impossibly hard it was for us.

The second act is the crucifixion. Most people know about the crucifixion, but don’t know or understand why it works. The most important principle of the crucifixion is the use of a loophole. Maybe its a loophole in nature, maybe its a loophole allowed in conflict between God’s infinite mercy versus God’s perfect justice. The primary requirement of this loophole was a sinless person to live a perfect, sinless life, and die with the sin of others. The first step of this was for the person to be born without sin. Only a true virgin birth can accomplish this, for sin is passed through the male seed. After the person is born without sin, they must never sin through their life. Jesus followed the law of Moses faithfully throughout all the days of his life. He was sent to the wilderness to be tempted for 40 day, so that his will could be fully tested. He even used his abilities to turn water to wine in order to keep one of the ten commandments, “Honor your father and mother.” The last requirement is for this perfect, innocent person to suffer and die with the sins of others on his shoulders. And so Jesus was flogged, maimed, and asphyxiated until he died. During this entire process, he gathered the sin of the world from the past, present, and future to himself. So great was the amount of sin upon his shoulders that this spiritual, unseen entity impaired the sunlight for hours. At last, because he himself had never sinned and therefore never earned the penalty of death, gave up his own spirit with the weight of all the sin on his shoulders.

With these acts working in concert accomplish this incredible forgiveness. We are forgiven of the punishment of our sin, because through the crucifixion Jesus literally traded the acts of his life for ours. He is guilty of our sin while we are raised up for his accomplishments. In this Jesus words “I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it” becomes truth. For because of Jesus, it is as if we lived our life following the law of Moses in perfect, impossible, obedience. We are also forgiven of the judgment of our sin, because Jesus understands what we went through when we fell, and has compassion and sympathy on us. He stand before us so that God is never angry or disappointed in us, but can love and cherish us no matter what.

So now we’re back to the question. What is the unforgivable sin? Some believe it is suicide. After all, suicide tears down what God struggled to build in you. It seemingly circumvents God’s plans for you. Suicide destroys what many believe is God’s holy temple, for if you accept Jesus into your heart then he lives in you. Who are you to desecrate or destroy God’s temple? Who are you ruin God’s plan? It is an inconceivable act, and therefore cannot be forgiven. Suicide may also be unforgivable because it ends your life in sin. If your life ends in sin, what time then is there to be forgiven for that sin?

Lets view each argument for suicide individually. The first of which being that suicide desecrates and ruins something holy in the sight of God. However, this can be said for all sin. Sin has consequences, regardless of whether or not its forgiven. It affects you and those around you. It gets in the way of what God wants for your life and others. So then the only difference between suicide and other sins is the severity of judgment against the sin. But as we know, Jesus intercedes for our sins, bringing compassion upon us and not anger or judgment. So how can Jesus possibly sympathize with suicide? When did he ever want to end his own life? Even now I bet you understand the point I’m about to make. How many times do you think, when Jesus was hot, tired, starving, and constantly pestered by the devil himself, did Jesus look longingly at a rock,or a cliff considering how, if he could just die, then all the pain would disappear? At what number of lashings did Jesus’s mind begin to wander toward an escape for all the cruelness that had been pointed his direction? How many times do you think Jesus had fallen before he almost hesitated in getting back up while all his people whom he loved were heaping insults at him and spitting on him? Jesus understands the deep, inescapable pain that leads people to suicide. He, of course, would stand up for those who died by there own hand, because he knows their pain.

The only argument left, is the more logical, less emotional argument. There just isn’t time to be forgiven, because you are dying in the midst of your sin. I ask you, when has time ever been a barrier to God? How could an act 2000 years ago forgive your sins from yesterday. Jesus’s act would have to reach two thousand years in the future to affect yesterdays sins. So if it can affect yesterday’s sins, why couldn’t it affect sins two more days in the future. As mentioned earlier, you claim the perfect life of Jesus. When you die, regardless of how, you die in the life of Jesus and not your own. Suicide has no hold on you, except that it ruins all the good works you could do, and makes the lives you would've and did impact emptier than they were before. Suicide is horrible, but not unforgivable.

What shall we say then? Is there no such thing as an forgivable sin? Jesus tells us that this is not true. “Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven, in this age or the next.” Does this mean you can’t say anything bad about God. The old testament is filled with righteous people, who cry out to God in frustration. Job was one such person. When everything became too terrible for Job to endure, he cried out against God. And yet, at the end of Job’s story, God blessed him many times over how he had been blessed before his test. Jesus strictly means “blasphemy.” In the contextual use of the word, that means telling lies in relation to who God is. For instance the Jewish priests and rabbis called it blasphemy when Jesus claimed to be the messiah. In fact it would have been blasphemy if Jesus had not be the messiah. So to clarify, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is basically to claim that the Holy Spirit is not what it truly is. Claiming God does not exist for instance would classify. To claim that Jesus, who is God, is nothing but a prophet or a “good person” would also classify. Really, it is impossible to not blaspheme against the Holy Spirit unless you truly believe in Jesus. However, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that he died for your sin, then you will be saved.