Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Unforgivable Sin

My daughter asked me if there was a sin that could not be forgiven. Without mch hesitation I replied, "Of course not; Jesus die for all of our sins." 
To which she replied, "Well, I had heard that blasphemy is unforgivable." 
She is right. In Matthew 12, Jesus is teaching us such a valuable lesson, especially in the climate that America has been melting in... a house divided against itself is will not stand. And he knows that without this "rule" that he cannot rally the people and perpetuate his cause. This has been an elemental requirement for any society since the dawn of time. Socrates' appeal in the "Apology" was to consider the state (one's society) before determining one's personal descisions. He states, "I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good privately to everyone of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the state before he looks to the interests of the state; and that this should be the order which he observes in all his actions." Concurrently, each country has a threshold of tolerance to which they determine is dangerous to the good of the whole. It is called treason. The bottom line in
Matthew 12 is:
  30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

However, I wasn't completely wrong either. One could only blaspheme if they were on the outside looking in. When we make our committment to God, when we invite Jesus into our hearts, we must be all in. There is no waffling. There is no half way. We willfully shed our old ways and are born again with new minds, with new hearts, with new lives. So one could not blasphemy the Holy Spirit if one were in love with the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ and 100% committed to God.

God speed!

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