Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come. Matthew 12:31, 32 (NASB).

The difficulty of this passage is a matter of understanding the nature of the sin which is described as being unpardonable. What constitutes blasphemy against the Holy Spirit or speaking against the Holy Spirit, and why is this sin considered unpardonable? If every other sin and blasphemy is pardonable, why is this one sin not pardonable? Why is it worse to speak against the Holy Spirit than to speak against Jesus Christ, the Son of Man?

Conflicts Between Jesus and the Pharisees—We need to begin by looking at the context of the passage, to see what Jesus was talking about, to whom, and under what circumstances. Our text in Matthew 12 and Mark 3:28–29 (the parallel passage) describes a conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. Matthew begins with the Pharisees confronting Jesus about plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath, which they held to be unlawful (Matt 12:2). From there, Jesus enters a synagogue and heals a man with a withered hand. Again, the Pharisees accuse Him of Sabbath breaking, and at the end of the incident they go out and take counsel against Him how they might destroy Him (vv. 10, 14). Jesus then withdraws and heals all the sick among the multitudes that follow Him, warning them against unnecessarily invoking the wrath of the Jewish leaders by making His deeds known (vv. 15–16). Yet when a demon-possessed blind and mute man was brought to Him for healing and was healed, the people were amazed and could not restrain themselves from asking, “Could this be the Son of David?” (vv. 22–23). By this rhetorical question, they were implying that Jesus was giving evidence that He was the promised Messiah. When this saying was rehearsed in the ears of the Pharisees, they retorted, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons” (v. 24 NIV). They could not deny the miracle, so they tried to credit it to demonic powers (cf. Mark 3:30). Jesus responded that it could not be so, since a house divided against itself cannot stand (vv. 25, 26). Instead, He credited His expelling of the demons to the power of the Holy Spirit, as evidence that the kingdom of God was present in their midst (v. 28), despite their rejection of it. “He who is not with Me is against Me,” Jesus declared (v. 30).

The Work of the Holy Spirit—The conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees is the context in which Jesus pronounces the words in our text. In Greek, these words begin with the expression dia touto, which means “because of this” or “for this reason.” It was their defiant and persistent opposition to Christ that was the reason why He felt the need to express Himself so clearly and forcefully to them about the dangers of their active resistance to the work of the Holy Spirit on their hearts. By attributing the power of Jesus to demons instead of to the Holy Spirit, the Pharisees were denying the work of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of Jesus. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment (John 16:8). If the work of the Holy Spirit is persistently resisted, there can be no conviction in regard to these essentials with reference to salvation. The Holy Spirit convicts people of sin when they do not believe in Jesus (John 16:9). In the face of indisputable evidence, the Pharisees chose not to believe in Jesus and sought every opportunity to defeat His influence and even to destroy Him. By so doing, they were rejecting the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They were hardening their hearts to His convicting voice, and the result was that they were increasingly insensitive to that voice. One cannot speak against the Holy Spirit while at the same time remaining sensitive to His voice and responsive to the conviction He attempts to instill.

“No one need look upon the sin against the Holy Ghost as something mysterious and indefinable. The sin against the Holy Ghost is the sin of persistent refusal to respond to the invitation to repent” (FLB 58).

Timothy 4:2 regarding those who have their consciences seared with a hot iron, i.e., rendered insensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. In Hebrews 6:4–6, there is a most serious warning against turning away from the truth after having been enlightened by receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are told that it is impossible to renew such persons again to repentance—although, as Jesus taught in Matthew 19:26, what is impossible with men is still possible with God—because they willfully, with full knowledge, participate as it were in crucifying again the Son of God and putting Him to open shame.¹ This is what is meant by the unpardonable sin.

The Nature of the Unpardonable Sin—The sin referred to in Matthew 12:31–32 is not an act of carelessness, ignorance, or mere unbelief, but a persistent, defiant refusal to accept the indisputable evidence of the work of God’s Spirit as good, speaking of it as if it were evil and resisting the Spirit’s work in the heart. Even speaking against Jesus is a forgivable sin (Matt 12:32), but one should beware of speaking persistently against the One whose work it is to bring conviction of sin. The only sin that cannot be forgiven is the one that is not confessed and forsaken and for which forgiveness is not sought. If one is concerned about having committed the unpardonable sin, that concern is in itself patent evidence that the Holy Spirit is bringing conviction to the heart and that the person has not done so, for the one who has already committed the unpardonable sin would never care about it. The appeal found in Hebrews 3:7–9 is pertinent here: “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years’” (RSV).

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”

(Colossians 3:4–10, ESV)