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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
‘And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not he forgiven.’
Luk_12:10
I. What is it?—It would seem to be from our Lord’s words the sin of deliberately rejecting God’s truth with the heart, while the truth is clearly known with the head. It is—
(a) The sin of combining light in the understanding with determined wickedness in the will.
(b) The sin into which many fell after Pentecost when they rejected the Holy Spirit and refused to listen to the apostles.
(c) The sin into which many hearers of the Gospel nowadays fall by determined clinging to the world.
(d) The sin which is commonly accompanied by utter deadness, hardness, and insensibility of heart.
II. Let us pray that we may be delivered from a cold, speculative, unsanctified head-knowledge of Christianity. It is a rock on which thousands make shipwreck to all eternity. No heart becomes so hard as that on which the light shines, but finds no admission. The same fire which melts the wax hardens the clay. Whatever light we have, let us use it.
Illustrations
(1) ‘The distinction drawn between “speaking against the Son of Man,” and “blaspheming against the Holy Ghost,” ought not to be overlooked. The explanation is probably something of this kind. The sin against the Son of Man was committed by those who did not know Christ to be the Messiah in the days of His humiliation, and did not receive Him, believe Him, or obey Him, but ignorantly rejected Him, and crucified Him. Many of those who so sinned were pardoned, we cannot doubt; as, for example, on the day of Pentecost, after Peter’s preaching. The sin against the Holy Ghost was committed by those, who, after the day of Pentecost, and the outpouring of the Spirit, and the full publication of the Gospel, persisted in unbelief and obstinate impenitence, and were given over to a reprobate mind. These especially grieved the Spirit, and resisted the ministration of the Holy Ghost. That this was the state of many of the Jews appears from several places in the Acts, and especially Act_28:25-28. See also 1Th_2:15-16.’
(2) ‘That those who are troubled with fear that they have committed the unpardonable sin, are just the persons who have not committed it, is the judgment of all the soundest divines. Utter hardness, callousness, and insensibility of conscience, are probably leading characteristics of the man who has sinned the unpardonable sin. He is “let alone,” and given over to a reprobate mind.’