Mark 3:28

Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin: because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

3. This third response to their blasphemous charge was to imply, without actually stating it, that the blasphemers were guilty of a sin that could never be forgiven. The final clause, "because they said, etc.," connects the eternal sin with their blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Jesus made a distinction between blasphemy against the "Son of man" (Matthew 12:32) and that against the Holy Spirit. A little further discussion of this sin is appropriate.

(a) What was their particular sin? It was the sin of reading the pure and holy life of Jesus Christ as satanic, the sin of viewing black as white and white as black, of making wickedness righteous and righteousness wicked. "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter" (Isaiah 5:20). John Milton expressed it as the soul's deliberate choice, "Evil, be thou my good."[9]

(b) Can such a sin be committed today? There is every reason to believe that it can be, and the fear is justified that the commission of it is prevalent. This does not mean that any person should entertain any morbid fear that he has committed such a sin, because it may be safely concluded that any person whosoever who still retains some concern for the welfare of his eternal soul has not committed the sin in view here. We agree with Cranfield who said:

We can say with absolute confidence to anyone who is overwhelmed by the fear that he has committed this sin, that the fact that he is so troubled is itself sure proof that he has not committed it.[10]

The view should be rejected, however, that would make it impossible for one to commit this sin. The argument for such a view makes a distinction between men today and the scribes here in this text on the basis that they had literally seen Jesus raise the dead and do many other mighty deeds, whereas men today "believe" that Jesus did such things, thus making THEIR blasphemy contrary to their own senses, contrasting with current blasphemy which is alleged to be only against what is believed. At best, such a view is unconvincing, for there are men who have said by their actions, and presumably within themselves, "Satan, be my god!"

An eternal sin ... This phrase is the key to unraveling the teachings of God's word on this subject. It identifies the sin under consideration as not a unique thing at all, but as one of a class of sins, suggested by the indefinite article, thus being one of a class that could be so designated. If we might be so bold as to identify the class, it is composed of the sins which cause the spiritual death of the sinner. It is the sin which is fatal spiritually and answers to the analogy in the physical world of the fatal disease. What is the fatal disease? It is the one the doctor writes on the death certificate. The sin against the Holy Spirit is therefore not a specific sin limited to any form or circumstance, but ANY SIN that destroys the spiritual life. It is the sin that "quenches the Holy Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19); the sin that ends in spiritual death (1 Corinthians 11:30); the sin that marks a condition of the sinner described as being "worse" than lost, the only conceivable state answering to such a condition being the state of being lost without possibility of recovery (2 Peter 2:20,21); the sin that makes the sinner "dead" while being alive physically (1 Timothy 5:6); the sin unto death (1 John 5:16); the sin from which "it is impossible" to renew the sinner (Hebrews 6:4-6); the sin which results in the condition wherein there "remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins" (Hebrews 10:26,27).

Once a person is dead physically, life cannot be renewed; and the same is true spiritually. And just as no dead person is ever concerned about his health, no person who is dead spiritually has any concern whatever regarding the commission of any sin, even an eternal sin.

Another question that arises in this connection is, "What about the man who has indulged every kind of sin for many years and then returns to God and lives out his days as a faithful Christian? It is clear in such cases that "an eternal sin" was not committed. However, he grieved and insulted the Holy Spirit, he did not "quench" the holy light within. Fortunately, the spiritual life is hardy and cannot be destroyed except in the most deliberate and sustained rebellion against God, that being exactly the conduct of the Jewish hierarchy with regard to Jesus.

This is not to take an easy or casual view of sin, any sin. Sin being what it is, and capable, when it is finished, of bringing forth "death" (James 1:15), should never be lightly viewed. No mother ever judged the danger of a splinter in a child's knee by the size of the splinter. What a blunder to classify sins as mortal and venial. Everyone knows that the tiniest lesion can produce disastrous consequences; and, in the spiritual life, any sin, however counted by men as unimportant, can if unchecked and unforgiven, lead to eternal death.

[9] John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV, 1:110.

[10] C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to St. Mark (Cambridge: The University Press, 1966), p. 142.