How do we define the umpardonable sin?

[marco]

In Matthew 12:31 we have: “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.�

Was Jesus just being dramatic here, trying to frighten his listeners? What on earth is "blasphemy against the Spirit"? Did Jesus, somewhere, elaborate on this dramatic statement?


And in what way is such blasphemy worse than, say, mass murder?

[ttruscott]

But if they still have free will, they should still have the capacity to repent.

Ahhh, me aculpa, I forgot I needed to be expansive. I do not believe that sinners have a free will but rather than say that outright I referred to the reason they have no free will, As enslaved by the addictive power of evil they cannot save themselves, expecting all would recognize the reasoning.

We had a free will until the moment we chose to sin, then our minds and desires were slowly overcome by the pleasure and profits of sin and we lost our free will to its addictive power. It is the rebirth of the elect that frees them from this bondage but their memories of the pleasures and profits of sin must still be trained into righteousness before the person will properly use their free will to perfectly never choose sin again.

And the question is still there: if the first Adam's sin precipitated the sin of others and the last Adam's atonement doesn't supercede what the first Adam did, how does grace abound more than sin as Romans 5:20 says?

My answer was:
1. Adam's sin did NOT precipitate the sins of ANY others.
2. The last Adam DID supercede [To supercede is to take something or someone's place, to take someone else's position.] for the sinful elect for their atonement in the face of their judgement so they never were condemned, that is, in the promise of election to salvation He superseded them before they even sinned.

He did not stand in the place of the goats, the reprobate people (weeds) of the evil one sown into the world by the devil; their sin was unforgivable. Two different kinds of people, two different responses to their sin by GOD with NO need speculate upon His inability.

Don't accept that the question was answered as you will, but it is an answer whether you accept it or not.

[Athetotheist]

But if they still have free will, they should still have the capacity to repent.

Ahhh, me aculpa, I forgot I needed to be expansive. I do not believe that sinners have a free will but rather than say that outright I referred to the reason they have no free will, As enslaved by the addictive power of evil they cannot save themselves, expecting all would recognize the reasoning.

We had a free will until the moment we chose to sin, then our minds and desires were slowly overcome by the pleasure and profits of sin and we lost our free will to its addictive power. It is the rebirth of the elect that frees them from this bondage but their memories of the pleasures and profits of sin must still be trained into righteousness before the person will properly use their free will to perfectly never choose sin again.

And the question is still there: if the first Adam's sin precipitated the sin of others and the last Adam's atonement doesn't supercede what the first Adam did, how does grace abound more than sin as Romans 5:20 says?

My answer was:
1. Adam's sin did NOT precipitate the sins of ANY others.
2. The last Adam DID supercede [To supercede is to take something or someone's place, to take someone else's position.] for the sinful elect for their atonement in the face of their judgement so they never were condemned, that is, in the promise of election to salvation He superseded them before they even sinned.

He did not stand in the place of the goats, the reprobate people (weeds) of the evil one sown into the world by the devil; their sin was unforgivable. Two different kinds of people, two different responses to their sin by GOD with NO need speculate upon His inability.

Don't accept that the question was answered as you will, but it is an answer whether you accept it or not.

If Adam's sin didn't precipitate the sins of others, how did judgement come to all men "through one man's offense" as per Romans 5:18? Would all men have been sinners without Adam? If so, why is everything blamed on him? (Notice that Romans 5:18 also says that one man's righteous act brought the gift of justification to "all men", not just to an "elect".)

According to Romans 4:15, "where there is no law there is no transgression" and 10:4 tells us that Christ is the "end of the law". Colossians 2:14 has it that Jesus "wiped out the handwriting of requirements against us" and "nailed it to the cross". For there to be any "unpardonable" sin, there would have to be law which didn't end with the last Adam's sacrifice and which he didn't nail to the cross. The believer in Jesus would thus be left still living under a law unmitigated by anything the last Adam had done. How does that square with these verses?

[Sojournerofthearth]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

The answer is long and complicated, but in its simplest form, what is the unpardonable sin, is answered in Hebrews..

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.
(Hebrews 6:4-8)

It is a person who has received the Spirit of God, accepted the terms, "put his hand to the plow" and turned away. It is worse than mass murder because the mass murderer and the victims will receive another chance in the resurrection to live according to God's way and to inherit eternity. The one who blasphemes against the, Holy Ghost, or the Spirit of God, has committed eternal self murder unless he would repent, would find himself in the 3rd Resurrection facing a lake of fire, where he will be forever destroyed. It is sin that is willfully, knowingly, presumptuously committed and unrepented of, fully knowing and understanding the consequences.

Soj

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.
(Hebrews 6:4-8)

How would this make the sacrifice of Jesus better than the old sacrificial system? In the Jewish Bible, the God of Israel is always calling the people back no matter how often they fall away. How would it be an improvement to impose a "one strike and you're out" plan of salvation on fallible humans?

It is a person who has received the Spirit of God, accepted the terms, "put his hand to the plow" and turned away. It is worse than mass murder because the mass murderer and the victims will receive another chance in the resurrection to live according to God's way and to inherit eternity. The one who blasphemes against the, Holy Ghost, or the Spirit of God, has committed eternal self murder unless he would repent, would find himself in the 3rd Resurrection facing a lake of fire, where he will be forever destroyed. It is sin that is willfully, knowingly, presumptuously committed and unrepented of, fully knowing and understanding the consequences.

Jesus indicates a total unwillingness to accept repentence in this case, which again brings up the question of how grace is supposed to abound more than sin (Romans 5:20) if any sin abounds more than the grace of Christ. Is grace to abound more than sin, but only within certain limits? If so, how does grace abound more than sin at all?

[ttruscott]

If Adam's sin didn't precipitate the sins of others, how did judgement come to all men "through one man's offense" as per Romans 5:18?

My answer goes back to Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned. Death came because of Adam's sin and was passed on to all men who were sinners already.

My presupposition gathered from other scripture is that we all sinned before the foundation of the world and are sown, ie planted, not created here on earth in Adam as sinners as per Matt 13:36 Then Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples came to Him and said, “EXPLAIN to us the parable of the weeds in the field.� [Ie without any metaphor or spiritual types or hyperbole...]

37 He replied, “The One who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed represents the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The verse here in question tells us that all sinners born on the earth come under Adam's judgment of death so that Christ need only die once for all sinful elect and not once for each. It is written that Adam brought sin into the world but in light of his being the third to sin in the world, it is pretty clear that he brought his sin with him when he was sown, not created (especially as innocent), into the garden.

5: 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man... says we inherit death, the judgement which comes to all sinners.

Would all men have been sinners without Adam? If so, why is everything blamed on him? (Notice that Romans 5:18 also says that one man's righteous act brought the gift of justification to "all men", not just to an "elect".)

All men ARE sinners without Adam! Why blame him and behind him, GOD? I am committed to the belief that only by a free will decison to rebel against GOD, knowing HIS opinion of the consequences of choosing sin can a person become sinful and under condemnation. As such Adam cannot have caused our sinfulness and GOD would never have made innocents to be sinful by making them human anyway...

He is blamed for being the cause of our sin because we (generally) do not remember our pre-earth life and decisions and the church has squelched all thought about a pre-conception existence by declaring it to be a heresy and deciding that we were all created as new spirits either at conception or at our birth. Without this knowledge, blaming Adam seems to be the best way to understand how we come to suffer death as infants and as a foetus having had no chance to make a free will decison as a human. But now we are learning about our pre-earth existence and can loosen the grasp that the blasphemy of our inheriting Adam's sin has upon us.

According to Romans 4:15, "where there is no law there is no transgression" and 10:4 tells us that Christ is the "end of the law". Colossians 2:14 has it that Jesus "wiped out the handwriting of requirements against us" and "nailed it to the cross". For there to be any "unpardonable" sin, there would have to be law which didn't end with the last Adam's sacrifice and which he didn't nail to the cross. The believer in Jesus would thus be left still living under a law unmitigated by anything the last Adam had done. How does that square with these verses?

My best answer is that such things are solved best by the idea that there are two groups, as the parable calls them, the sinful people of the kingdom sown here by the Son of Man and the people of the evil one sown here by the devil and these are treated differently even though the language gives away no secrets.

This is the kind of thing that makes it imperative that we follow the leading of the Spirit for the language does us little good, hiding as much as it reveals. All doesn't always mean ALL but sometimes means some of every kind for instance.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

The answer is long and complicated, but in its simplest form, what is the unpardonable sin, is answered in Hebrews..Soj

Have you considered that this scenario may be a result of having already sinned the unforgivable sin, ie one who has sinned unforgivably may try to repent and come back to GOD but inevitably fails and turns away being unable to overcome their addiction to sin and having left, repudiated, GOD's grace of receiving faith fully.

That is, Hebrews is not describing the cause of the unforgivable sin but one of the consequences of that sin.

[ttruscott]

Jesus indicates a total unwillingness to accept repentence in this case, ...

Since it is beyond me to consider that IF repentance CAN BE GRANTED that repentance would not be granted for any reason. Therefore I insist that the unforgivable sin must remove the person from all GODly ability to bring the person to repentance or to negate the consequences of that sinful choice.

The only power I can find that would hold GOD back from saving someone by HIS loving mercy is their own free will repudiation of HIM as GOD and HIS claim that choosing sin is addictive and that sin needs a saviour as lies, forcing HIM to accept this decison by HIS commitment to our free will decisions being sacrosanct and unchangeable.

The elect are the only people who chose sin by a free will who can be saved from that decision because BEFORE they sinned they put their faith in HIS deity and in HIS Son as their savior, asking HIM (or giving HIM permission) to change their decision against their sinful will if they are/become in danger of hell.

This answer fits scripture much better than does the negation of the meaning of election and predestination.

[Sojournerofthearth]

[Replying to post 214 by Athetotheist]

As I said, it was a simplistic answer to a very complicated question. The sacrifice is better because, with it, comes the Spirit of God, a bit of God's own power to assist you to overcome human nature.

God never changed his plan. From Adam to now, it is God's purpose to save mankind from death. Adam was created to rule over the world, to rule over sin, to overcome... when he failed to do so, he set the foundation of the world to follow after the current one, placed in charge of the world, Satan... and thus Satan remained the ruler and god of this current world. Man remained subject to human nature, subject to sin, and subject to death. It set the foundation of the world and YHVH, Melchisadek, and later, Jesus, the Rock of Israel, put a contingency plan into place to save mankind from death. He made a deal with Abraham, that through his seed, God would save the world and bless the nations that would come from Abraham, through Isaac, Jacob... That has not changed.

He set a law in place that would govern a nation ruled by God and they rebelled before they ever got into the promised land. They never could, on their own power, overcome their human nature. It was part of the plan that they saw that as well, that outside of God's spirit, man cannot take on the nature of God and overcome sin.

Christ came as the second Adam to do what Adam had failed to do. He would overcome sin as a human being. He would be an Atonement for man's past sins and provide coverage for sins as mankind repented, and he would provide a way for man to attain the crown of rulership of the Earth as he was intended to have. He would provide those called with the Spirit of God to overcome human nature, sin and to learn the way of God, to teach those resurrected to life to have a chance to also do the same. He would put away the god of this present world, who is the prince of the power of the air, who whispers attitudes and thoughts. And the vast majority mankind would be born into the God family.

That is the better promise, instead of inheriting a physical land and physical blessings of fatness of the Earth, they inherit the universe and plant the heavens in Eternal habitations.

Its not a one strike and you're out, but if you are called, if you have tasted the heavenly gifts, if you really know and really understand... and decide that its not worth your time and effort, there is definitely a cost... but no one gets to that place without fully knowing and understanding what they are doing.

[Athetotheist]

Therefore I insist that the unforgivable sin must remove the person from all GODly ability to bring the person to repentance or to negate the consequences of that sinful choice.

If God has mercy on whom he will (Romans 9:18), is willing that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9) and takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23), how can any sin remove any person from all GODly ability to bring the person to repentance? Which is greater: the power of "addictive" sin to corrupt the human mind or the power of God to renew it?

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.
(Hebrews 6:4-8)

How would this make the sacrifice of Jesus better than the old sacrificial system? In the Jewish Bible, the God of Israel is always calling the people back no matter how often they fall away. How would it be an improvement to impose a "one strike and you're out" plan of salvation on fallible humans?

It is a person who has received the Spirit of God, accepted the terms, "put his hand to the plow" and turned away. It is worse than mass murder because the mass murderer and the victims will receive another chance in the resurrection to live according to God's way and to inherit eternity. The one who blasphemes against the, Holy Ghost, or the Spirit of God, has committed eternal self murder unless he would repent, would find himself in the 3rd Resurrection facing a lake of fire, where he will be forever destroyed. It is sin that is willfully, knowingly, presumptuously committed and unrepented of, fully knowing and understanding the consequences.

Jesus indicates a total unwillingness to accept repentence in this case, which again brings up the question of how grace is supposed to abound more than sin (Romans 5:20) if any sin abounds more than the grace of Christ. Is grace to abound more than sin, but only within certain limits? If so, how does grace abound more than sin at all?

It all depends on a person's attitude. If a person attributes an action of God's Holy
Spirit to the demons, that person is exhibiting a wicked belief about who is responsible for a certain action. If God's Spirit does something, like raising a person from the dead, and a man says that the demons did it, where is that man's heart? If a man attributes to the demons something that God has done, and he never repents, then he has committed the unforgivable sin. Sojourneroftheearth explained it pretty well, above.

Jesus and Jehovah would always accept true repentance. It is a wicked act WITHOUT repentance that is not forgiven.

Grace abounds when a person asks for forgiveness and is determined to never repeat his sin. It involves true repentance.