Every so often Fathers Ignatius and Donald held an “Any Questions” evening at Parish Hall for the parishioners to gather and ask anything whether relating to the running of Saint Vincent Church or any religious question on their minds.
One evening a parishioner asked, “We were talking about this at work. The unforgivable sin that God will never forgive. Why is that and what is this sin? How do I know I did not commit it and when I meet God He’ll remind me and send me down?”
Father Ignatius smiled and said, “The fact that you are asking, Tony, is proof that you have not committed this sin.
“Sin is to deliberately go against the will of God. To disobey Him and His Commandments. To commit a sin we must know that what we are doing is wrong, that it is against God’s rules and wishes for us, and that we still willingly do it without any coercion of pressure from anyone else. We willingly decide to do wrong. That is a sin.
“All sin is forgiveable as long as we recognise that we have sinned, we confess that sin and ask for forgiveness, and we repent and promise as best we can not to repeat that sin.
“And yet …” the priest paused for a while, “And yet, Jesus does talk about the unforgivable sin. There are two references in the Bible … let me read them …” He searched in his Bible and said, “here, in Mark 3:29 Jesus says that ‘whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.’
“And also in Matthew 12:31-32 He says ‘And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 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’
“So what does all this mean?”
Father Ignatius waited a while and then added, “Let me give you some background to this story. It starts in Matthew 12:22 …
“A blind and mute man possessed by a demon was brought to Jesus and He healed him, He drove the demon out of him.
“When the Pharisees saw this, they said, ‘Only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, does this man drive out demons.’ In other words, they accused Jesus of being one of Satan’s demons.
“Jesus replied that a kingdom divided against itself would fall, and every city or house divided against itself would also fall, so how could it be possible that Satan would drive out demons out of a man? Surely his kingdom would also fall.
“Then Jesus adds, ‘If I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive out demons?”
Father Ignatius paused again as he closed his Bible. Then he added gently, “Jesus was driving out demons, and performing many miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. This is very important. Jesus was, and is, the Son of God. Every miracle and driving out demons that He performed was by the power of God.
“In the book of Acts Chapter 3 we read that as Peter and John went into the Temple to pray they met a man at The Beautiful Gate who had been lame all his life. The beggar expected money from the two apostles. Peter turned to him and said, ‘I don’t have silver or gold. But what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth get up and walk!’ and the man was healed.
“The important thing to note here is that Peter said ‘in the name of Jesus Christ get up and walk.’
“It is God, through Christ, who performs miracles and not the disciples or the apostles or any of us. Even today, miracles happen in the name of God through Christ.
“In the story I’ve just told you Jesus adds, ‘He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.’
“This is significant. Jesus explains that any sin is forgivable except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Let us consider who those people were, the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes. They were leaders of religion. They were not just common people, simple and ignorant. They were learned people.
“The printing press had not been invented, and the scribes were people who just copied and wrote down the old writings of the prophets in the Old Testament.
“These very people who had read and learnt from the old writings about God and the coming of Jesus, were actually denying that He was the Son of God and attributing His powers to the devil.
“And they did not do it once … it was not a one-off forgiveable mistake … it was a deliberate, well planned, well-thought out, intentional attempt to discredit Christ all the way to the Crucifixion on the Cross.
“That’s the unforgivable sin. To deliberately deny constantly that Jesus is the Son of God and that His power is from God through the Holy Spirit.
“And yes … I believe you can commit that very sin today. If you deliberately, every day, intentionally deny God and turn your back on Him; and deny Jesus as His Son, then at your death you will have wilfully committed the unforgivable sin … because you deliberately do not want to be forgiven.
“I think of a life as a tree. If a tree leans in one direction when it dies it will fall in that direction. It is not going to fall in the opposite direction. So, too, with our lives. If all the time we are leaning towards God, very likely, with God's grace we shall fall into His arms when we die. But if our lives never point to God, it is very likely that when we die we shall die in enmity with God.
"The only unpardonable sin is a persistent refusal to acknowledge the presence of God in Christ."
