Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit

We must be careful not to call good evil or evil good.

Some modern Protestant interpretations of the sin include the deliberate labeling of good as evil, as rejecting the conviction of the Holy Spirit, of publicly attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan, and attributing the work of Jesus to Satan (under this interpretation, the sin could only have been committed in the first century AD).Regardless of their interpretation, Protestant interpreters generally agree that one who has committed the sin is no longer able to repent, so one who is fearful that they have committed it has not done so.

Thomas Aquinas lists, or has responded to six sins that supposedly go against the Holy Spirit:

• despair: which consists in thinking that one's own malice is greater than Divine Goodness, as the Master of the Sentences teaches,

• presumption: if a man wants to obtain glory without merits or pardon without repentance

• resistance to the known truth,

• envy of a brother's spiritual good,

• impenitence,

  • obstinacy, whereby a man, clinging to his sin, becomes immune to the thought that the good searched in it is a very little one.

It is apparently not a single act of defiant behavior, but a continued state of opposition entered into willfully. The tense of they said indicates a continued action, not a onetime event. The words and works of Christ were spoken and performed by the power of the Holy Spirit. To attribute them to Satan is to call the work of heaven a work of hell. For such perverse belief there is no remedy.

Many people fear they have committed some sin that God cannot or will not forgive, and they feel there is no hope for them, no matter what they do. Satan would like nothing better than to keep us laboring under this misconception. The truth is that if a person has this fear, he/she needs only to come before God, confess that sin, repent of it, and accept God’s promise of forgiveness. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). This verse assures us that God is ready to forgive any sin—no matter how heinous—if we come to Him in repentance. 

If you are suffering under a load of guilt today, God is waiting with His arms open in love and compassion for you to come to Him. He will never disappoint or fail to pardon those who do.

Mark 3:28-30

²⁸ “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; ²⁹ but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”—³⁰ because they said, “He has an unclean spirit.

³¹ “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 

Matthew 12:31

¹⁰ “And anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven. 

Luke 12:10