Latest / Reformed Thinking / Mercy Without Measure, Warning Without Compromise: The Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31–32)

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Mercy Without Measure, Warning Without Compromise: The Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31–32) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  It's really good to have you with us again.
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  Glad to be here. Today we're doing something a
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  little different. We're taking a stack of, well,
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  some pretty heavy sources, commentaries, sermons,
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  exegetical notes, and we are going to try to get to the
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  bottom of one of the most difficult and, frankly, one of
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  the most terrifying doctrines in the entire Bible.
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  Oh. Absolutely.
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  It's a topic that has kept Christians awake at night for
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  centuries. It's the kind of passage that if
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  you just read it quickly without context, it can really make your
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  stomach drop. We are talking about the
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  unforgivable sin, specifically the blasphemy against the Holy
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  Spirit. We're looking at Matthew chapter
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  12, verses 31 and 32. And just to set the stage for
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  you, here is the tension that makes this text so, so
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  arresting. In one breath, Jesus offers a
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  promise that is wide enough to swallow the worst human guilt.
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  He says every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people.
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  Which is just an incredible statement of grace.
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  It covers almost everything you can possibly imagine.
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  Almost everything. But then side by side with that,
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  there is a sentence that is just terrifying in its finality, he
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  says. The blasphemy against the Spirit
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  will not be forgiven. He doesn't stop there.
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  No, he double s down. He says it won't be forgiven in
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  this age or in the age to come. It's a Thunder clap, Yeah.
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  And what we find in the sources, you know, is that this creates
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  2A very common but opposite reactions in people.
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  On one side you have presumption.
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  These are people who think grace is just automatic.
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  You know, they think the warnings are empty threats or
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  that God is just too nice to actually judge anyone.
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  The. God is love, so nothing really
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  matters. That's one way to put it, yeah.
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  But then you have the other reaction, which is dread, and
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  this is the tender conscience, fear.
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  OK, I think a lot of us know this. 10 for sure, these are the
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  people who worry that, you know, a stray thought they had 10
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  years ago, or a dark season of doubt, or maybe a rash word
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  spoken in anger has somehow placed them beyond the reach of
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  mercy. Right.
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  They live in this constant low level anxiety that they've
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  accidentally crossed a line they can never ever uncross.
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  Exactly, and it's tormenting. I think a lot of us have felt
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  that cold chill at some point. You read that verse and your
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  first thought is, wait a minute, have I done that?
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  It is a very natural reaction. But our mission today is to
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  argue, based on these reformed theological sources, that this
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  passage is actually doing two things at once.
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  It's announcing the just the breathtaking breath of Divine
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  Forgiveness. Which we see in verse 31-A.
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  Yes, but it's also warning of a very specific a settled,
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  malicious reversal of moral reality.
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  A moral reversal? Yeah, That is a phrase we are
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  going to come back to a lot. I think I are.
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  We have to. We're going to investigate this
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  through a reformed lens, sticking close to the
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  Westminster Confession, and we really want to understand the
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  why and the how of this judgment.
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  So why is this specific sin unforgivable?
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  Is it because God just, I don't know, runs out of patience?
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  Or is it something about the nature of the sin itself?
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  That's the question we need to answer.
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  OK, so let's unpack this. But we can't just drop a
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  parachute into verse 31. We have to look at the scene of
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  the crime, so to speak. This doesn't happen in a vacuum
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  ring, no. Absolutely not.
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  And that is probably the biggest mistake people make.
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  They treat these verses like a, you know, a fortune cookie.
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  Fortune. Just a detached saying, but
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  Matthew 12 is a narrative. It's a story.
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  It's a story of escalating conflict.
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  The tension has been building and building for a while in the
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  text. Right before we even get to the
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  scary verse, we have these Sabbath controversies.
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  We do. The Pharisees are well, they're
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  weaponizing the law against Jesus.
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  They're accusing his disciples of breaking the Sabbath just
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  because they pluck some grain to eat.
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  Something David himself did. Exactly, and they were watching
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  Jesus to see if he heals on the Sabbath, not because they care
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  about the person being healed, but so they can accuse him.
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  So it's like they are using God's law to attack God himself.
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  It's a trap. It's a trap, and Matthew gives
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  us this crucial framing right before our passage.
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  In verses 15 through 21, he quotes Isaiah 42 describing
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  Jesus as the Servant who will not crush a bruised Reed or
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  quench A smoldering Wick. That's.
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  So important. It's vile context.
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  The Pharisees are opposing the fulfillment of scripture.
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  Who is standing right in front of them?
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  They aren't just debating some rabbi, they're colliding with
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  the Messiah. So the pot is already boiling
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  and then we get to the trigger event the the spark that sets
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  off the whole explosion. Verse 22.
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  Yes, a demon oppressed man is brought to Jesus and Matthew is
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  very specific about the condition.
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  This man was blind and mute. That feels significant.
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  Blind and mute, He's completely cut off from communication, from
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  perception. A little prisoner.
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  He is a prisoner in his own body.
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  But there's another layer of Jewish context here that we
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  often miss. In the 1st century, Jewish
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  exorcist had a specific protocol to cast out a demon.
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  They believed you generally had to obtain control over it by
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  asking its name. You see Jesus do this with the
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  gerosene demoniac. When he asks what is your name?
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  The demon replies Legion. Right, that establishes
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  authority over it. But if the man is mute.
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  The demon can't speak. It cannot give its name.
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  So in the mindset of that time, this was an impossible case.
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  It was a lock without a key. So a regular exorcist couldn't
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  do it. Couldn't touch it.
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  The Rabbi's actually taught that only the Messiah would be able
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  to handle a case like this, because the Messiah would heal
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  not through some ritual, but through absolute intrinsic
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  authority. Wow.
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  So when Jesus heals him, he isn't just doing a good deed, He
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  is doing the specific thing that they believed only the King
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  could do. Yes, and Matthew is implicitly
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  referencing Isaiah 35.5 to 6 here.
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  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the
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  deaf unstopped. Giving sight to the blind and
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  speech to the mute was a specific credential of the
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  coming Kingdom. It was a messianic miracle.
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  That's the term for. It So this wasn't just a cool
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  magic trick, this was Jesus flashing his ID card.
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  That is a great way to put it. It was a Kingdom sign and the
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  crowd gets it. Their intuition is spot on.
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  They ask the question that the text wants us to ask.
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  Can this be the son of David? Which is code for?
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  Is this the Messiah? Correct.
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  They recognize the royal authority inherent in the act.
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  They're connecting the dots between the scripture they knew
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  and the man standing right in front of.
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  Them, but then the camera cuts to the Pharisees and they are
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  not happy. Not at all.
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  They're backed into a corner. They cannot deny the strength of
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  the miracle. It happened in public.
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  The guy who couldn't talk is talking.
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  The guy couldn't see is looking right at them.
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  So they can't say it didn't happen.
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  They can't, It's undeniable. So they have to spin it.
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  They. Have to reinterpret the source
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  of the ability. Exactly.
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  And this is where that moral inversion begins.
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  They say it is only by Beelzebel, the Prince of demons,
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  that this man casts out demons. That is such a heavy accusation.
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  They aren't just saying we aren't sure.
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  They are saying this is the devil's work.
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  And Beelzebul. That's not a compliment.
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  No, it is a derogatory title. Yeah, it likely means Lord of
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  the Flies, or even more grotesquely, Lord of Dung.
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  They are taking the most beautiful act of mercy,
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  liberating A tortured man and attributing it to the filthiest
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  source imaginable. It's spiritual propaganda.
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  It is. They're poisoning the conclusion
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  to keep their own authority intact.
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  That's it. It's a power play.
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  If they admit this is God's spirit, they have to submit to
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  Jesus. Their entire system comes
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  crashing down. But if they can convince people
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  it's the devil, they can justify killing him.
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  So Jesus hears this and he doesn't just let it slide.
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  He goes on the defense, but he also uses this, this incredible
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  logic. He dismantles their argument
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  completely. First he starts with the divided
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  house argument. He says, look, if Satan is
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  casting out Satan, his Kingdom is collapsing from within.
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  It makes no sense. Why would the devil heal a man,
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  give him sight and liberate him from demonic oppression?
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  It's a civil war in hell. It would be like a general
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  bombing his own troops just to trick the enemy.
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  It is completely self defeating. It's irrational.
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  Satan wants to bind people, not free them.
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  Then Jesus uses the sons argument.
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  He asks if I cast out demons by Beelzebel, by whom do your sons
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  cast them out? So he's pointing out their
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  hypocrisy. He is.
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  They accepted their own Jewish exorcist who performed, you
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  know, much less impressive feats, but they condemned Jesus
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  for doing something far greater. But then he pivots.
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  He pivots to the true explanation.
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  And this is where it gets really interesting.
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  Verse 28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out
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  demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.
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  He names the true agent. It is the Spirit.
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  So ambiguity. None.
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  And then he gives the strongman parable.
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  I love this image. The strongman.
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  Jesus says you can't plunder A strongman's house unless you
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  first bind him. The strongman is Satan.
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  The house is the world he controls.
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  So Jesus isn't Satan's agent. He is Satan's conqueror.
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  He is breaking into the house and stealing the property, which
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  is people. He is liberating this blind and
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  mute man from Satan's grip. So the Pharisees are looking at
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  a rescue mission and calling it an act of terrorism.
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  That is the core issue. This is the heart of the matter.
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  The Pharisees aren't just mistaken on a fine point of
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  theology. They are calling the Conqueror
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  an accomplice. They look at the spirits.
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  Liberating work, clear, undeniable good work, and they
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  call it darkness. And that brings us to the
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  warning. This is the moment where Jesus
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  draws the line in the sand, yes. It is because of this willful,
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  malicious moral inversion that Jesus issues the warning about
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  the unforgivable sin. So let's define this because I
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  think this is where people get so tripped up.
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  We need to be crystal clear about what this sin IS and what
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  it is not. OK, let's start with what it is,
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  not just to clear away the debris.
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  It is not a stray intrusive thought.
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  That's a big one for a lot of people.
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  Huge. It is not a momentary slip of
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  the tongue where you say something disrespectful in anger
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  or frustration. It is not profanity in the
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  modern sense of just using bad words.
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  And it's not just struggling with doubt, even deep doubt.
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  No doubt is questions looking for answers.
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  This is something else entirely. Based on the sources and the
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  context we just walked through, the definition is this.
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  It is a deliberate, informed, persistent and malicious slander
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  that attributes the spirits manifest testimony to Christ to
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  Satan. OK, that's a mouthful.
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  Let's break that down piece by piece, Deliberate and informed.
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  What does that mean? You mean they knew better?
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  They had a clear light. That is a key ingredient you see
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  in all the reformed commentaries.
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  They saw the miracle. They weren't ignorant country
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  folk who didn't know the scriptures.
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  They were the experts. They saw the blind man see.
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  They knew deep down that this power was not demonic.
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  But they suppress that truth. Willfully, which leads to the
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  next part, malicious intent. So this wasn't an honest
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  mistake. Not at all.
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  They were purposely slandering Jesus to justify their unbelief
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  and their desire to kill Him. They needed a reason, a
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  justification to reject Him, and this was it.
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  And the moral reversal? This is the most frightening
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  part. It directly echoes Isaiah 5.20.
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  Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness
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  for light and light for darkness.
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  They looked at the purest light, the work of the Holy Spirit, and
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  called it the deepest darkness. And finally, a settled posture.
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  Yes, it wasn't a one time outburst in a moment of passion.
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  It was the hardened verdict of the heart.
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  It was a conclusion they had reached and were digging their
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  heels into. It was their official final
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  position. The sources mention the Greek
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  word here, blasphemia. Does that give us any more color
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  on this? It does.
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  Blasphemia in this context isn't just casual insult.
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  It implies defiant, injurious speech.
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  It connects back to the Old Testament concept of high handed
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  sin you find in Numbers 15-A. Sin with a high.
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  Hand It means a sin committed with a raised fist against God.
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  It's defiance, not just weakness.
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  And the grammar of the verse itself will not be forgiven.
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  Is pretty heavy too, isn't it? The future passive indicative,
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  The passive voice is key. It implies a divine decree.
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  This isn't just a natural consequence, it's a judicial
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  hardening. God is the one saying OK, if
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  that is your final verdict, then that is your final judgement.
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  Now this raises a question that I know I've had and I'm sure
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  many listeners have. In verse 32, Jesus makes this
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  very sharp distinction. He says whoever speaks a word
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  against the Son of Man will be forgiven.
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  But then he says whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not
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  be forgiven, right? Why the difference?
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  Is the Holy Spirit somehow more sensitive than Jesus?
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  Is he ranked higher? That is a fascinating and
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  important question, and the answer is no, it's not about
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  sensitivity or, you know, ranking the Trinity.
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  It is all about the context of the revelation.
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  How so? Explain that.
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  OK, think about the title Son of Man.
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  That's Jesus. In his humiliation, he's walking
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  around in dusty sandals. He looks like a Carpenter from a
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  backwater town. His divine glory is veiled.
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  So it's possible to just miss it.
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  It's absolutely possible to look at Jesus in that state and just
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  not get it. You might stumble over his
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  lowliness. You might say this guy can't be
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  the king, he's from Nazareth. Nothing good comes from
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  Nazareth. So that kind of rejection is
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  based on ignorance. Right.
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  And ignorance is curable. You can learn.
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  You can see the resurrection later and go oh wow I was wrong.
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  Paul is the prime example. He spoke against the Son of man
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  but he did it in ignorance. But.
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  The spirit is different. The Holy Spirit in this context
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  is the attesting agent, the miracle, the blind man seeing,
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  the mute man speaking. That was the Spirit pulling back
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  the curtain. That was a raw, unveiled
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  demonstration of divine power. There was no disguise on that
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  miracle. So to reject that wasn't
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  ignorance. No, that was what the sources
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  call malicious clarity. They saw the power, they knew it
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  was supernatural, and they consciously, willfully chose to
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  label it demonic. This connects to the Reformed
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  view of the Trinity and how salvation works, doesn't it?
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  The so-called economy of salvation.
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  It does perfectly. We usually summarize it like
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  this. The Father is the architect.
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  He plans our salvation. He elects the Son is the
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  Builder. He comes to Earth.
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  He executes the plan. He purchases redemption on the
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  cross. And the Spirit.
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  The Spirit is the occupant or the applier.
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  He is the one who takes that purchase, redemption, and
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  applies it to our hearts, giving us new life.
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  So the Spirit is the one who actually connects the wires, so
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  to speak. And this reveals the fatal step
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  they're taking. If you reject the Father who is
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  invisible, the Son comes to reveal him.
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  If you reject the Son in his humiliation, the Spirit comes to
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  testify of him with power. But if you reject the applier,
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  if you reject the Spirits clear testimony, there is no fourth
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  person of the Trinity to come and correct you.
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  You've cut the communication line.
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  You've. Severed the connection?
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  Yeah, you are willfully isolating yourself from the very
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  agent of God who brings life and repentance.
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  This leads us right into the theology of why it's
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  unforgivable. Because some people hear this
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  and think, wait a minute, is God's grace limited?
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  I thought Christ's blood was infinite.
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  And that's a crucial point to get right.
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  The limit is not in Christ's blood.
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  His sacrifice is infinite in value.
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  It is sufficient for all sin, for all people, for all time.
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  The limit is in the sinner's capacity to receive it.
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  OK, explain that mechanism. How does that work?
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  Well, forgiveness is bound to repentance.
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  The two are inseparable in Scripture.
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  You cannot have forgiveness without repentance.
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  OK, that makes sense. So the next question is, who
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  creates repentance in the sinful human heart?
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  The Holy Spirit. According to the Westminster
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  Confession, yes, effectual calling, regeneration,
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  repentance, that is the work of the Spirit.
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  So if you look at the Holy Spirit and say that is the
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  devil, you are rejecting the very agent that creates
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  repentance in you. It's.
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  Like rejecting the doctor. That is the classic analogy used
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  in the commentaries. Imagine you were dying of a
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  fatal disease. There is a physician with the
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  one and only cure, but you look at the physician and you say you
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  are a murderer, and you look at the medicine and say that is
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  poison. You cannot be healed.
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  Right, But why? Not because the medicine failed.
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  Not because the doctor wasn't willing.
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  But. Because you refuse to take it.
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  You refuse it. The sin is unforgivable because
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  the Sinner who commits it will never want forgiveness.
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  They are past feeling, as Ephesians 4 says, they have
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  hardened themselves into a state where they're incapable of
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  asking for mercy because they don't believe they need it from
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  God. That is a terrifying thought, to
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  be so hard and that you don't even want out.
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  It is it is a judicial hardening where God finally gives them
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  over to their own delusion. He says your will be done.
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  Now Jesus adds this phrase at the end of verse 32.
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  Either in this age or in the age to come.
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  I have heard people get very confused by this.
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  Some have tried to use this to argue for, say, a chance for
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  forgiveness after death for other sins like purgatory.
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  The Reformed sources are very, very clear on this.
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  No, this is a common Jewish idiom.
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  When you say in this age or the age to come, you are using a
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  figure of speech that means never.
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  So it's like saying not in a million years.
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  Exactly. It's a way of saying under no
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  conditions whatsoever, it closes every single loophole.
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  So far from opening a door to post mortem forgiveness, it's
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  actually slamming it shut. It explicitly refutes the idea
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  of post mortem expiation. There is no purgatory.
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  The state of the soul at death is fixed.
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  It also, by the way, refutes universalism, the idea that
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  everyone gets saved in the end. This text clearly establishes a
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  category of opposition that ends in final, irreversible judgment.
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  There is also a dispensational note in some of the sources,
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  this age being the pre messianic era under the law and the age to
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  come being the messianic Kingdom.
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  Yes, in that reading, the leaders of Israel rejected their
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  king when he arrived. By doing so, they barred
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  themselves from the millennial blessings.
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  They locked themselves out of the very Kingdom that was
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  knocking on their door. It sounds like a judicial
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  unveiling. Jesus is just stating the
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  reality of where their hearts already are.
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  He is. He's declaring the finality of
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  their choice. He's showing them the end of the
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  road they're so determined to walk down.
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  We have been focusing on Matthew, but this isn't the only
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  place this concept shows up in the Bible, right?
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  This isn't some isolated idea. No, not at all.
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  The rest of the Canon supports this reading.
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  Mark Chapter 3 is the direct parallel passage, and Mark is
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  actually even more explicit. He concludes his account by
• 18:29
  saying they slander Jesus because they were saying he has
• 18:32
  an unclean spirit. So Mark underlines the very
• 18:35
  definition we've been working with.
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  He links the sin directly to their words.
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  Then you have John chapter 3 where Jesus says people love
• 18:43
  darkness rather than light because their works were evil.
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  That's the moral preference for evil we talked about.
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  It's not an intellectual error, it's a volitional choice.
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  And then there are those scary passages in Hebrews, Hebrews 6
• 18:57
  and Hebrews 10. Those are the heavy hitters.
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  They warn about falling away after having been enlightened
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  and tasting the heavenly gift and the power of the age to
• 19:06
  come. How does that fit with the
• 19:07
  Reformed doctrine of the perseverance of the Saints that
• 19:11
  true believers can't lose their salvation?
• 19:14
  A great question. The common reform view is that
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  these warnings are for those who are part of the Covenant
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  community externally, but never truly regenerated internally.
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  They had all the light, all the privileges, they tasted the
• 19:26
  goodness, but they never truly possessed it.
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  Like the Pharisees, they were the religious leaders.
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  They had all the external signs of being God's people.
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  Precisely. And if you want an Old Testament
• 19:35
  picture, look at Pharaoh. That is the pattern.
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  He saw sign after sign. He saw miracle after miracle,
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  but he hardened his heart repeatedly until finally, the
• 19:45
  text says God hardened it for him.
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  This really connects back to the doctrine of total depravity,
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  doesn't? It it does, total depravity
• 19:52
  doesn't mean we are all as bad as we could possibly be, but
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  that sin has corrupted every part of us, including our minds,
• 20:00
  our ability to reason about God. It's noetic.
• 20:03
  It affects the mind. The Pharisees didn't just get
• 20:05
  their facts wrong, they had a corrupt moral compass that
• 20:09
  pointed S instead of north. I saw a phrase in the notes I
• 20:11
  really liked a soteriological severing.
• 20:14
  That's a good summary. It is the ultimate expression of
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  depravity. Looking at God's clearest, most
• 20:19
  powerful revelation of good and calling it the devil, you are
• 20:23
  severing the very connection through which salvation flows.
• 20:26
  OK, I want to pivot now because I know for a fact there is
• 20:28
  someone listening to this who is starting to sweat.
• 20:30
  We talked about the tender conscience earlier, the person
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  listening and asking themselves, Oh no, have I committed this
• 20:35
  sin? This is the most common pastoral
• 20:38
  question that comes from this text, and it's the most
• 20:40
  important one to answer with care.
• 20:42
  So let's give them a diagnostic test based on the text and what
• 20:45
  we've learned. Let's do it.
• 20:47
  Let's contrast the Pharisees in this story with the anxious
• 20:50
  believer who is listening right now.
• 20:53
  Look at the Pharisees. Are they worried about their
• 20:55
  standing with God? Not at all.
• 20:57
  They seem pretty confident, actually.
• 21:00
  Arrogant. Even they are triumphant,
• 21:02
  they're proud, they are strategic, they're on the
• 21:04
  attack. They are absolutely not asking
• 21:07
  for mercy or forgiveness. OK, now look at the anxious
• 21:11
  believer, the person worried they've committed this sin.
• 21:14
  What are they feeling? They're worried.
• 21:16
  They're grieving over their sin. They're afraid of offending God.
• 21:19
  They desperately want to be right with Him.
• 21:21
  So the verdict is. If you are worried about it, you
• 21:24
  haven't done it. Say that again, because someone
• 21:26
  needs to hear that very clearly. If you are worried that you have
• 21:29
  committed the unforgivable sin, you have not committed it.
• 21:33
  Your worry is the evidence that you haven't.
• 21:35
  What's the logic there? How can we be so sure?
• 21:38
  The logic is that this sin involves A seared conscience, to
• 21:41
  use Paul's term. It involves a hardening of the
• 21:44
  heart to the point where you lose the ability to care about
• 21:47
  spiritual things. Dead men don't tremble.
• 21:50
  The corpse doesn't worry about its health.
• 21:52
  So if you are trembling at God's Word, if you're worried about
• 21:54
  this, it proves you are spiritually alive.
• 21:57
  That is it exactly. Your anxiety is paradoxically
• 22:00
  the evidence of spiritual life within you.
• 22:02
  That's. Huge.
• 22:03
  The Westminster Confession says that assurance may be shaken,
• 22:06
  but the seed of God remains in the true believer.
• 22:09
  If you have the desire to repent, that desire is a gift.
• 22:13
  It comes from the Spirit. And if the Spirit is giving you
• 22:15
  the desire to repent, he has not abandoned you.
• 22:19
  So the practical advice is don't navel gaze.
• 22:22
  Please don't. Don't look inward at your own
• 22:24
  scary thoughts and anxieties. Look to Christ.
• 22:28
  This warning in Matthew 12 is like a high wall with spikes on
• 22:31
  it to keep the wolves out, the arrogant, defiant Pharisees.
• 22:34
  It is not a barrier to keep the broken, trembling sheep out.
• 22:37
  But we also need to apply this to the other group, to the
• 22:40
  skeptic, to the person who might be drifting toward that wolf
• 22:43
  category. Yes, the thunderclap warning.
• 22:47
  This text is aimed squarely at the arrogant, the cynical and
• 22:51
  the religiously proud. It's a warning against the
• 22:53
  spirit of the age that sits in judgement over scripture and
• 22:56
  calls good evil. And we see this today, don't we?
• 22:59
  Even if people aren't seeing Jesus perform miracles in the
• 23:01
  flesh. We do.
• 23:03
  While the specific historical act, seeing the Incarnate Christ
• 23:06
  heal and calling it the devil was unique to that time, the
• 23:10
  principle remains. The root of the sin is still
• 23:13
  very much possible. What are some of the modern
• 23:15
  danger zones? Where do we see this principle
• 23:18
  at work? Well, I think we see it when
• 23:20
  people slander the Spirit's work of conviction, when they take
• 23:24
  the inner sense of guilt for sin, which is work of the
• 23:26
  Spirit, and they relabel it as psychological trauma or
• 23:29
  religious abuse or. Calling biblical holiness
• 23:32
  oppression or biblical morality bigotry.
• 23:35
  Right. Is that same moral inversion, or
• 23:37
  even just simple pragmatism, using religion and Christian
• 23:40
  language for political or financial gain while privately
• 23:43
  rejecting Christ's of actual authority?
• 23:45
  It's a progression, isn't it? It's a progression.
• 23:48
  Resistance can harden into inability.
• 23:51
  That is the scary part. You say no to the spirits,
• 23:54
  nudges enough times and eventually you can't hear him
• 23:57
  asking anymore. That's why the Bible is so
• 24:00
  urgent when it says today, if you hear his voice, do not
• 24:03
  harden your hearts. It also makes you think about
• 24:06
  how we speak. You mentioned reforming speech
• 24:08
  in your notes. Yes, look at what comes right
• 24:10
  after this warning. Matthew 12.3337 Jesus connects
• 24:15
  our words directly to the state of our heart.
• 24:18
  Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
• 24:21
  So Christians need to be careful.
• 24:22
  We need to be so careful. We live in a very cynical,
• 24:25
  sarcastic, hot take culture. We need to be careful not to
• 24:28
  mock holy things or speak flippantly about the work of
• 24:31
  God. Avoid being cynical about the
• 24:33
  Spirit's work in other people or in other churches, even if it
• 24:36
  looks different from what we're used to.
• 24:37
  You nailed it. Discernment is one thing.
• 24:40
  Cynical slander is another. So as we wrap up this deep dive,
• 24:43
  let's just try to what we found. We have found a paradox.
• 24:47
  Forgiveness in Christ is breathtakingly wide.
• 24:50
  Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, but human opposition
• 24:54
  to that grace can become terminally hard.
• 24:56
  And the unforgivable sin is that point of terminal hardness, the
• 25:00
  soteriological severing, cutting the cord of the Spirit.
• 25:03
  Exactly. And so our final charge to you,
• 25:05
  the listener, is twofold. To the fearful, to the tender
• 25:09
  conscience. Take comfort, you're trembling.
• 25:11
  Proves you are alive. Your grief over sin is a gift
• 25:14
  from the Spirit. Run to Christ.
• 25:17
  This warning is not for you. And to the hard hearted, the
• 25:20
  cynical, the proud. Tremble.
• 25:22
  The door of grace is open now, but it will not stay open
• 25:25
  forever. Do not mistake God's patience
• 25:27
  for His permission. I want to leave us with one
• 25:30
  final thought from the sources and this one really really stuck
• 25:32
  with me. Go for it.
• 25:33
  Jesus gives this warning before the cross.
• 25:35
  He gives it to these Pharisees who are actively plotting
• 25:38
  against him. In that moment He is issuing
• 25:40
  what 1 commentator called a severe mercy.
• 25:43
  Severe mercy. That's beautiful.
• 25:45
  He is trying to stop them on the edge of the Cliff.
• 25:48
  The warning itself is an act of grace.
• 25:50
  It's designed to arrest the Sinner before the cement dries.
• 25:54
  Wow. So the question for all of us
• 25:56
  is, are we listening to this warning as a threat to be feared
• 26:00
  or as a rescue attempt to be heeded?
• 26:02
  That changes everything about how you read it.
• 26:04
  Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
• 26:06
  We hope this deep dive has helped clear some of the fog on
• 26:09
  a very difficult text. And more than anything, pointed
• 26:13
  you back to the vastness of the grace found in Christ.
• 26:15
  We will see you next time.