“Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?”
XII.
The Sin Against the Holy Ghost
“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”
God is love, and the Holy Spirit is ceaselessly striving to make this love known in our hearts, work out God’s purposes of love in our lives, and transform and transfigure our character by love. And so we are solemnly warned against resisting the Spirit, and almost tearfully and always tenderly exhorted to “quench not the Spirit,” and to “grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby,” says the Apostle, “ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
There is one great sin against which Jesus warned the Jews, as a sin never to be forgiven in this world nor in that which is to come. That was blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
That there is such a sin, Jesus teaches in Matthew xii. 31, 32, Mark iii. 28-30, and Luke xii. 10. And it may be that this is the sin referred to in Hebrews vi. 4-6; x. 29.
Since many of God’s dear children have fallen into dreadful distress through fear that they had committed this sin, it may be helpful for us to study carefully as to what constitutes it.
Jesus was casting out devils, and Mark tells us that “the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth He out devils.” To this Jesus replied with gracious kindness and searching logic: “How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, it cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. No man can enter into a strong man’s house and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.”