This is the third book

May 2001

'The Unforgivable Sin'

Over the years I have heard a number of folk talk about 'The Unforgivable Sin', confession is now made that I have never been able to fully understand this important subject, therefore have put the matter on the 'back burner' many times.With the present emphasis on the ministry of The Holy Spirit of our God, my mind is activated once more on this subject.Please understand right from the very beginning of this exegesis, that it's impossible for me to cover every aspect of this important matter, so please do not 'shut up shop' if I do not mention your particular understanding with this very important teaching.I can only touch on what I grasp about the third person of The Trinity, He is a Divine Being and His one desire is to make and keep us holy

With this matter I am going to concentrate on the words spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ as recorded in The Holy Oracles.I will not go any further beyond the direct teaching of our Lord Jesus Himself regarding this important doctrine.Just for a few moments please dwell on who our Lord Jesus was and indeed is

He was with The Father BEFORE time began

He was the 'Only Begotten of The Father'

He is our 'Lord' referring to His 'deity', our 'Jesus' stating His

'humanity' and the 'Christ' denoting His 'anointing'

He paid the penalty for our sins on The Cross

He is our Great High Priest

He now intercedes for us at the right hand of His and our Father God

He is coming again and every knee will bow to Him in worship

or judgment, confessing that He is Lord to the glory of God The Father

With such a One we must take notice of what He taught, it would be foolish to do otherwise.In any case to whom else can we go?With Scripture we must see the plain things as the main things and the main things as the plain things.Remembering in Godly matters that the main person is The Main Person and this Main Person is The Main Person who is Christ our Lord

In the record in Mark c3 v29 we observe that blasphemy against God's Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, so I ask the rhetorical question, 'Whatever is this sin?'For an answer we turn to the words of our Lord Jesus Himself, these recorded in John's Gospel c16.Jesus in this chapter and the previous one speaks to His special chosen ones, He told them that the Comforter was to come, this so after Jesus had 'gone away'.The Comforter, the Holy Spirit was to reprove the world of sin, righteousness and judgment, the order of these three matters is most important. This point is proved in the next few verses, Jesus did not then speak of judgment, righteousness and sin, but sin, righteousness and judgment, there is always our Lord's divine order in everything

Jesus explained about this sin, saying, 'Of sin because they believe not on Me'.As I understand matters from this Scripture as confirmed by other folk, the greatest sin is the rejection of the person and work on The Cross of our dear Lord Jesus Christ.About our Lord, Peter said, 'Thou art The Christ, The Son of The Living God'.The centurion seeing the experience of our Lord on The Cross, he said, 'Truly this was The Son of God', yes and as such He paid the eternal sacrifice for our sin on this same Cross.This being fully accepted by His Father God after Jesus shouted in victory, 'It is finished'.Then His Father God said Amen to the work of His Son, when He was raised from the dead on the third day

The prime ministry of The Holy Spirit of our God is to convict us of our sin in the rejection of the person and work of His Son, against this sin there is NO forgiveness.Only as we confess this sin, that was hitherto our rejection of this Jesus, can it be forgiven.But if this is not done, then we sin against the convicting power of The Holy Spirit and this as far as the great eternal God is concerned, is unforgivable.We become Christians, as Christ lives in us by His Spirit, in that great eternal day which is yet to be, those who are not Christ-ones will bow to His knee, but in eternal judgment.But as we believe in the Biblical sense, then our spirits, our hearts will bow in eternal worship, that He is Lord to the glory of God The Father.This is an eternal experience that none of us can now fully understand

The main ministry of the Holy Spirit is also to glorify the person of our Lord Jesus; I am not splitting hairs in just taking some of the words from John's Gospel c16 v14 & 15.Some of these words by Jesus are, 'He shall glorify Me'-'He shall take of Mine and show it unto you'.For me it is the desire of our Loving Heavenly Father, that as He is God, He yearns for the worship of those whom He has created and saved through the grace of His Son, our dear Lord Jesus.In response we should give Him all the glory, the worship of our redeemed hearts, nothing less and how could it be anything more?For me the sum of this is that we should glorify our Father God, this in and through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.This can only be done effectively by His Divine Holy Spirit.Now I am going to write something, which others and I understand, if we glorify the Divine Holy Spirit, we can grieve Him.His ministry is to glorify our blessed Lord Jesus, not Himself!

My conclusion in this matter of the greatest sin, is to deliberately reject in a calculated way the person of our Lord Jesus, this as to who He is and what He did on The Cross for every one of us.To make this perfectly clear, it is the Divine Spirit of our God who convicts of the sin of the rejection of the person and work of our blessed Lord Jesus.As anyone deliberately rejects the pleading of The Spirit of our God in this matter, then there is no forgiveness.Yes and in this matter it is the work of our God, not ourselves in any way and to Him is all the glory

Please, whatever do we mean in the use of the word 'glory'?As I see matters there are different ways of understanding this word in Scripture because of varying circumstances.I will try to group one or two

Firstly there is what I call - the 'Togetherness' of our God, this can be seen in Creation, through the Baptism of Jesus and the Transfiguration of our Lord.During these three occasions there was 'together' God The Father, God The Son & God The Holy Spirit

Then we have the 'Transcendent' glory of our Lord, seen so clearly during the transfiguration; this glory going beyond anything the three brethren had previously experienced

The glory of our God is also expressed in the Ten Commandments.For us to understand this please read and meditate on Romans c3 v23, 'For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God'.To sin is to fall short of a target, this target which was set by the great eternal, holy, righteous God as seen in the Ten Commandments.Only one person is able to fulfill in every sense the true standard our God has set in these commands, this person is our Lord Jesus Christ, 'so all have sinned and come short of the glory of God'.Now just for a few moments please consider the life of God's only begotten Son, He fulfilled every one of those commands - what a character, personality and glory He had!

Finally there is to be for us the 'Eternal' glory of our God, to see Him in far more of His fullness than we can now understand.This glory of God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Spirit which we have yet to fully experience, then we will in reality worship Him in Spirit and in truth.Maybe the Apostle Paul had a touch of this glory when he spoke of himself as being, 'Caught up to the third heaven', to paradise to heard unspeakable words,'which were not lawful for man to utter'.Then we have the record how the Apostle John, while in exile was, 'In the spirit on the Lord's Day' and yes I must record the words of a contemporary in the 20th Century,Martin Luther King, when he said about a special experience of his, he had, 'Gone over the hill'

We come into a personal relationship with the Lord God Almighty only as we have confessed thesin of the rejection of the person and workof our dear Lord Jesus.Only as this sin is confessed can forgiveness through our dear Lord Jesus be given, all this through the special ministry of His Divine Holy Spirit and to God be the glory, for ever and ever, Amen

This is the third book