“I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemies the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”
Mark 3:28-29
This one has always bothered me. An eternal sin? Will never be forgiven? So serious, final. This initially strikes me as Jesus saying there is something you can do that, once done, puts you in a place outside of God’s grace. What is this thing? If I have done it, is it all over? No salvation, no second chance, just eternal sin and unforgiveness. That does not seem to jibe with the rest of scripture, God’s character, or Jesus’ life, but there it is, said by Jesus himself. I want to take Him seriously, so I can’t just throw it out or explain it away.
So, that throws a wrench in the works of my belief system, and I had better figure out what this sin is so I don’t do it. The trouble is that Jesus does not just come right out and say what it is. I try to place what Jesus says in context, but in a quick read of the passage it seems that He slips that warning in at the end of a passage which is unrelated. An eternal sin that is unforgivable, yet He does not name the specific infraction against the law that we can avoid. Clearly something important is communicated here, but what are we to make of it?
Another part of Mark used to throw me for a loop, something in the scriptures that just seemed out of place. Before continuing with the troublesome passage above, I would like to jump ahead to Mark chapter 8 and consider a miracle that seemingly goes awry. This may seem unrelated, but will help illuminate what Jesus is communicating above.
A blind man is begging Jesus to touch him, Jesus leads him out of the village and spits in his eyes. Jesus asks him what he sees and he replies “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Wait! The Messiah, Son of God, Creator, tries to heal someone, but it only partially works. Jesus touches the man’s eyes again, and now he can see. Okay, the second try works, and I suppose I should be glad of that, but what does it mean that it didn’t work the first time?
Immediately following this exchange Jesus asks the disciples who they say that He is. Peter answers “You are the Christ.” He sees who Jesus really is, but only partially at first. He tries to dissuade Jesus from following the path that the Father has set before Him. Peter sees He is the Christ, but still sees Christ as a conqueror, not as one who will suffer. So we have a blind man with partially recovered sight followed by Peter’s partial seeing of who Jesus is, and just as the blind man can fully see in the second attempt, so too does Peter fully see who Jesus is after He is resurrected.
This helps me remember that Mark wrote the narrative in a certain way and he is using the structure to communicate to us. Now we can go back to the troublesome passage and read it in a similar way. Actions leading up to His statement about an unforgivable sin play an important part in helping to understand the meaning. So what has been happening beforehand? Jesus goes into a synagogue on the Sabbath and heals someone. Healing is work, so it is against the Holy Law on the Sabbath. After that Jesus is out and about healing people and driving out evil spirits. A little later some people are claiming that He has an evil spirit, that it is by the power of Satan the He is doing these things.
People who are supposed to know God, to be His people, are calling something good, something that God is doing, evil. In light of this, Jesus mentions an unforgivable sin. Calling what is good evil and what is evil good—that this blasphemy is against the Holy Spirit, and it is significant. The Spirit is closely related to our conscience, to the way that we know good and evil.
It reminds me of an experiment in which people were given glasses that turn their field of vision upside down. They were to wear them all the time and for many days this caused terrible disorientation and headaches. This continued for several days until the brain was able to compensate and right the vision. The mind was able to make an upside down world right again. But, off come the glasses and the compensation becomes the distortion.
It is this reordering of reality, so that we see what is good as evil, which Jesus is warning against: not a one time deed, but a willful turning of the light that is within in us into darkness. And when that is the case, the darkness is very great.
