(4) The reason for its unpardonahleness. — This does not lie in any limitation of the grace of Christ or of the forgiving mercy of God. It lies in the very nature of the sin as just described. The sin is unpardonable because the sinner has no desire for pardon ; it ' hath never forgiveness ' because it is not repented of. For when men for selfish reasons hate the light, and persistently shut their eyes against it and blaspheme it, they gradually put their eyes out. God's ' sov'reign vital lamp ' still shines about them, but they can no more see it, since they have extinguished their own power of seeing. Eternal darkness is the necessary consequence of eternal sin. It is quite true that a/jLapTri/jia genei'ally stands for an act, not a state But from the point of view of exegesis, little can be built upon this. For an act may be the revela- tion of a state ; and when the Pharisees said of Jesus, ' He hath an unclean spirit,' this particular piece of blasphemy, as we have seen, was really the expression of a settled attitude of mind.
2. In the Epistles. — There are two passages in Hebrews that bear upon the subject. In 6'''* the writer describes the impossibility of a renewal unto repentance for Christians who have fallen away from Christ after having once ' tasted of the heavenly gift ' and become ' partakers of the Holy Ghost.' In 1026-31 he declares that there is no more sacrifice for sins in the case of those who sin wilfully and persistently after they have received the knowledge of the truth. It is impossible to sup- pose that he means that a Christian cannot be forgiven if he falls into sin, however grievous, or that Jesus is unable to save men to the uttermost (cf. 2'" 4"^ lO'""'-). In the second passage certainly, and presumably in the first .also, he is speaking of a deliberate repudiation of Christ on the \y.'.rt of those who have tasted His blessings. Once they were enligliteneil, but they too loved the darkness r.ather than the light, an(l so shut the light out of their hearts, and trampled under foot the Son of God, and did despite imto the Spirit of grace. Thus we have here again, though now in the case, not of Pharisees, but of members oi the Christian Church, a manifestation of the .same kind of sin as before.* In I Jn 5'* the writer distinguishes be-
* The case of Esau (He 12iB- ''O, thoiiph often quoted in con- nexion with this sin, lias no nal licariiii; upon it. The repent-
788
UNPARDONABLE SIN
UPPER ROOM
tween ' a sin unto death ' and ' a sin that is not unto death ' ; and while urging Christians to pray for one another with respect to the latter, says that he does not bid them make request to God concern- ing the former. It seems evident that there is a reference here to our Lord's language in Mt 12^^*- 1|, but in itself the passage adds nothing to our know- ledge of vmpardonable sin.
3. In Christian experience. — The subject is of importance, not only exegetically and theologicallj', but because of its practical l)earings, and that in two different directions. ( I ) Bunyan at a certain period of his religious history (see Grace Abounding , §§ 96-230) is a type of multitudes who have suffered agonies of spiritual torture through the fear that they have committed a sin for whicli there is no forgiveness. But if the view taken above is the right one, thei'e is no specitic act of blasphemy in word or deed, standing by itself, that we are entitled to think of as 'the unpardonable sin.' The 2)hrase, in fact, is as erroneous as it is unscrip- tural, though the common use of it has helped to load thousands of sensitive souls with a burden of intolerable pain. There is no mysterious trans- gression which is sufficient of itself to put a man beyond the power of repentance, and so outside the pale of forgiveness. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit may find expression and come to its culmination in some specific way ; but essentially it is a settled attitude of mind and heart. It is a deliberate extinguishing of that inner light Avhich God Himself has kindled within us, and which ought to respond to His clear shining from without. Such compunctions as Bunyan had are the very best proof that a man has not committed any unpardonable sin, for they are the experiences of one who, tliough he has not yet realized the all- sufficiency of Christ's grace, is possessed at least of that contrite spirit which trembles at God's word, and so may rest upon the prophet's assurance that unto him the Lord will look (Is 66^). 'Sell Him ! sell Him ! sell Him ! ' was the urgent persuasion of the Tempter in Bunyan's ear. But though at last in his distraction he felt the thought, ' Let Him go if He will,' pass through his mind, the true intention of his heart was always, ' No, no ! not for thousands, thousands, thousands ! ' (op. cit. § 139).
(2) But if anxious and fearful souls need to be reminded that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not some mysterious sin into which a man may fall against all the promptings of his better nature, the case of the Pharisees and Jesus conveys to all a message of serious warning. No one can stumble suddenly into ii'remediable sin ; but men may drift into it after the fashion of the Pharisees. Selfislmess and pride, and not least religious selfish- ness and pride, may slowly harden the heart and sear the conscience and ::;eal the eyes, until men come to call good evil and light darkness, and are ready at last to say, even of one who manifests the Spirit of God and of Christ, ' He hath a devil.' The special monition of the incident in the Gospels is against that loss of vision which comes from the hardening power of sin, that continual resistance of the Spirit which leads at last to hatred of the Spirit. Poor Francis Spiera, whose case seemed to Bunyan so like his own (op. cit. § 163), may not himself have been guilty of unpardonable sin (cf. Martensen, Chr. Eth. ii'. 128) ; but there is deep significance for all in his solemn sentence, ' Man knows the beginning of sin, but who bounds the issues thereof?' See, further, artt. Blasphemy, Forgiveness.