The Sin That Cannot Be Forgiven
Jesus came to reestablish God’s Kingship, whether Israel wanted to be a part of it or not. He prophesied. He quoted prophecies from the Old Testament. He performed miracles. He preached the good news to the poor. He declared what the Kingdom of Heaven was like. He even displayed power over creation, like when he calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, provided food for thousands from just a handful of items, healed sick people no one else could cure, and raised people from the dead. Yet, despite all these displays of His deity, the Pharisees, teachers of the law, chief priests, and elders all ascribed his power to none other than Beelzebul (i.e., Satan), calling him demon-possessed.
In Matthew 12:22-37 and Mark 3:20-30, Jesus explains just how imbecilic they sound by stating a house divided against itself cannot stand. Neither can a city, a nation, or a family, for that matter. Not even in the heavenly realms! Therefore, Jesus says, “And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason, they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:27-28; LSB).
Jesus gave them a choice. Either, He was driving out demons by the power of Satan, or He was driving out demons by the power of the Spirit of God.
And if Jesus was using Satan’s power, He wants to know whose power the religious leaders had been using all this time because their implication was simple: Only God and Satan can drive out demons. If Jesus was using Satan’s power, then apparently, so were they, or otherwise, they would be claiming to be the Messiah, which they were not. However, if Jesus was indeed using the power of God, then His words were true. He was the Son of God, the Messiah, and God’s kingdom was at hand. Therefore, the religious leaders’ “sons” were the answer to the question, and thereby “judges” as to the truth.
What a contrast! The sons of the religious leaders were apparently using Satan’s power to cast out demons (otherwise they would have had to claim to be the Messiah), while God’s Son was using the power of God (and He was claiming to be the Messiah).
Two Ironic Twists
At this juncture, the religious leaders were in an old-fashioned pickle, theologically speaking. Not to mention the fact that Satan would have to be a moron to drive out his own demons. Why would he do that? He wanted to possess as many people as possible and drag them away from God. Exorcizing demons out of people would have the opposite effect, and we all know Satan is not a moron. He is a wily, ravenous, conniving snake (Ephesians 6:11; 1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 12:9). He’s good at what he does, and he’d never chance someone believing Jesus was driving out demons by the power of God by giving Jesus the power to do so. This would be extremely counterproductive to his evil schemes.
However, if Jesus was using the power of God’s Holy Spirit to drive out demons, then it was evidence that He was who He said He was, and God was literally in the flesh, fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecies of 9:1-7 and 61:1-2 before their very eyes. By saying Jesus’s ministry was “powered by Satan,” the religious leaders of Israel were in effect saying the prophecies of Isaiah—particularly the one from chapter 61 that Jesus quoted as having been fulfilled by Him coming to Earth (See Luke 4:21)—were satanic in nature. Jesus said He came to preach the good news to the poor, and inherent within that mission, Jesus performed miracles to validate His claims. The religious leaders saw those validations as authorized by Beelzebul. That was the true blasphemy being spoken in this trial scene, and that’s the first ironic twist in this scene. In Satan’s kingdom of men, people call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20-21). There is a way that seems right to such men, but it only leads to death (Proverbs 14:12). The religious leaders’ twisted view of reality ran contrary to the Kingdom of Heaven…even when God Almighty was standing right in front of them. It was definitely the blind leading the blind (Matthew 15:14).
The second ironic twist concerns the sin of blasphemy itself. According to Jesus, God is willing to forgive every blasphemy except one. You may have heard it put this way: “God forgives every sin, except one - the unpardonable sin.” He evens forgives blasphemy spoken against the Son of Man. However, Jesus said the only sin that cannot be forgiven is “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 12:32; Mark 3:29). And that included the age in which Jesus spoke and the age to come, He said.
There’s been a great deal of confusion about what “the unpardonable sin” is exactly. However, we have an excellent example of it right here before us.
Jesus was asked if He was the Messiah. He claimed that He was. He said they would see Him—the Son of Man—seated at the right hand of God and coming on the clouds of heaven (Matthew 26:64).
When Caiaphas heard these words, he stood up, tore his robes, and proclaimed that Jesus had committed blasphemy by claiming to be the Son of God. The truth was, Caiaphas—and all the religious leaders with him—were the ones who had committed blasphemy, not Jesus. And, their blasphemous act classified was the “unpardonable” kind.
How so, you ask?
They had denied the work of the Holy Spirit.
The evidence was before them—literally, face-to-face—with them. They had seen Jesus’s miracles. He had performed thousands of them. They had heard His sermons. They had heard Him tell parables. They had talked with witnesses who had been the beneficiaries of His healing ministry. There was a mountain of evidence, pointing to the fact that Jesus actually was “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The long-awaited Messiah had come. God was standing there, in front of them, face-to-face, but they didn’t believe it. Instead, they rejected Him. Again. They said He was not the Messiah, thus He was not The Way. They proclaimed Him to be a deceiver instead of The Truth. They said He worked under the auspices of Satan, the progenitor of eternal death, instead of being The Life. In essence, they had rejected and concluded that Jesus was not God and that His words were not true. The opposite was allegedly the truth, according to their reasoning.
When a person does this, what else can be done for him or her? It’s like a person who is handed the cure for their disease, but they see it as evil and throw it away. Oh, they try other remedies that don’t work and go to other doctors who cannot heal, but that one tried and true cure? They reject it as ineffective and thus useless. They have reasoned together in their human arrogance and determined the cure to be false.
Or this same person does not take the cure because he or she does not believe an illness exists. So, they reject the cure for themselves because they are “healthy.”
In either instance—a sick person rejecting the cure because they view it as ineffective and useless, or a sick person not believing he or she is sick—the person will die in their disease. Nothing else can be done. No matter how much the Holy Spirit tries to woo and convince, His redemptive work is rejected.
This is where the Pharisees, teachers of the law, chief priests, and elders had arrived. In their eyes, Jesus was not the cure for their disease because they didn’t think they were sick (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31). In their minds, Jesus was the sick one by claiming to be the Son of God.
Therefore, they committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and in this horrific scene, Rejection #3 was complete.
In 1 Samuel 8, the elders of Israel had rejected God as King, but to their credit, at least they just requested a new king to lead them. All they wanted was to make a switch.
In the Second Rejection, things became more serious. Someone attempted to kill the One born King of the Jews in Matthew 2. The religious leaders of Israel didn’t initiate it (King Herod did), but they didn’t try to stop it either. Instead, they were indifferent and complicit all at the same time.
However, in this Third Rejection of the King, in Matthew 26, the knives came out. The vitriol was real. It had been brewing for three years, and finally, they’d had enough. The vote was in, and even the crowds had spoken. They decided to have a convicted murderer and insurrectionist released from prison rather than allow “the one called King of the Jews” to go free. Instead, they cried out with one voice,
The chief priests’ response to Pilate is the last nail in their coffin, if you will. Pilate asked plainly, “Shall I crucify your king?” To which the chief priests replied, “We have no king but Caesar” (emphasis added, John 19:15-16; LSB).
Did you hear what they said? They pledged their allegiance to Caesar over God. Caesar was their king now. The same Caesar they hated for all the taxation and oppression was now their king? Does that even make sense? And remember, Caesar claimed to be deity, which they despised!
So, ask yourself, “Who was committing blasphemy now?”
As a result, God would
never be King of Israel ever again. The days of a nation Israel were over. In a
mere forty or so years later, in 70 A.D., another Caesar (who they lauded as
their king forty years earlier) would come to Jerusalem and lay siege to it in
an effort to end the Jewish war that had started in 66 A.D. The Temple would
eventually fall to the Romans, and all that exists until this day is a tower
and a wall, where Jews go to wail in remembrance.
Satan gladly accepted the religious leaders’ coronation, for ultimately, they had made Satan king of the Jews by fully immersing themselves in the kingdom of men. In glee, Satan watched Jesus’s dreadful march up the Via Delarosa. He knew his time was limited, but he’d never tell the religious leaders.
The ultimate act of blasphemy against the work of the Holy Spirit—the third and final rejection of God as King—cheered on by God’s chosen people.
This was the irony of all
theological ironies, for sure.
Thought for the Week
It’s a sad state of affairs at this juncture of Israel’s history. God wanted them to be His chosen people. He wanted them to be His witnesses to all the other nations. He wanted to use them to reach the rest of the world with His message of salvation in the Old Testament times.
In case you missed it, God had a message of salvation for Gentiles long before Jesus came on the scene. Remember Jonah? He preached to Nineveh, and the entire city repented, much to Jonah’s chagrin, I might add (Jonah 3). In 1 Kings 19-20, God had Elijah go back to Damascus and anoint some kings and announce his successor. This was the same region where he had just battled the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth and subsequently fled because Jezebel was murdering every prophet of God she could find. Naaman left the presence of Elisha praising God and claiming the God of Israel to be the only true God (2 Kings 5). God even taught Nebuchadnezzar a lesson and received praise in return from the king of Babylon (Daniel 4). The Old Testament is filled with stories of how God rescued lost Gentiles, like Ruth, a Moabitess.
However, Israel didn’t want to be part of that arrangement. They did not wish to be set apart, sacred, qadosh (i.e., holy). They wanted to be like the nations around them.
How do we fit into God’s redemptive plan? I mean, those of us who are believers…do we wish to be like the others around us and not be bothered with the things of the Kingdom of Heaven? Or do we wish to be sacred and set apart for the work of being used by God in His redemptive plan for those around us?
Only you and God know the answer to that question. And believe Me, He knows. Just like He did with Israel, sending prophet after prophet to warn them of the coming wrath, yet promising a remnant because of His covenant with Abraham. He knew they would eventually reject Him face-to-face three times, and each rejection would grow more and more indignant. For those who repented, they found redemption through His grace and mercy. For those who did not, weeping and gnashing of teeth await them. There are two roads: narrow and broad. There is “hot” or “cold.” Lukewarmness is not allowed into the Kingdom of Heaven Revelation 3:14-15).
So, what is your answer? Remember, He already knows.
NEXT
WEEK:
We conclude this chapter with one last twist.
Pictures courtesy of Pixabay and the following photographers/artists:
Truth by Gerd Altmann
Crucifixion by lbrownstone
Wailing Wall by stinne24
Narrow Road by Tama66
Wide Road by Schwoaze
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