The Unforgivable Sin: Pre-fabricating Spirituality

Jesus makes this horrifying pronouncement that blaspheming the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin. This declaration is found in three variant forms in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. For a long time, I wondered just what is this assertion supposed to mean. On the face of it, the punishment seems excessively harsh and far out of proportion for the offense committed.

The following is an excerpt from a longer blog post that can be found on my personal website. If you would like to read the complete unabridged version, you can find it athttps://ceh3167.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/the-unforgivable-sin-pre-fabricating-spirituality/

For centuries, Christians have fretted and stressed out over the possibility that they might have committed this sin of no remission. Here is Mark’s version:

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.” Mark 3:28–30

Essentially the people have called the Holy Spirit “unclean.” Now that does not seem so overwhelmingly evil that it should be unforgivable. It sounds more like people being petty and presumptuous. A kind of “my spirit is better than your spirit,” trivialization. One would think moral crimes like genocide, forced organ harvesting, concentration camps, mass starvations, or death squads would be “unforgivable,” but apparently not. Insinuating that the Holy Spirit is “unclean” as the inexcusable sin seems oddly out of perspective.

And dear Christians, don’t worry, you’re safe, the Church has developed a nice piece of apologetics that absolves all Christians (at least Protestants) from the possibility of ever committing this most heinous of sins. According to the Church, it’s simply impossible for Christians to violate the sanctity of the Holy Spirit. So nice for you, but of course this makes me suspicious that this apologetic is another instance of self-serving theology. It is. However, my reflections have led me to a more significant spiritual conclusion. Follow me here. Let’s start with another story from the gospels: the story in which Jesus heals the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath.

Jesus entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. Mark 3:1–6

So, what are the Pharisees so angry about that they would conspire against Jesus? From the Pharisees’ point of view, Jesus violated the Holy Law of God from the Torah, in particular: The Fourth Commandment which commands Jews to:

Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work…For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it. Exodus 20:8–10a, 11

God’s law says do not work on the Sabbath. God wouldn’t violate his own law and work on the Sabbath. However, Jesus just worked on the Sabbath by performing a healing. For the Pharisees, he is not supposed to do that. Performing a miracle is fine; there is a long history in the Jewish Scriptures of God and the prophets performing miracles, just not on the Sabbath! In other words, Jesus did it wrong, and the Pharisees, who see themselves as the keepers of the Law are mad about that.

This is not the only time that Jesus stirs up the ire of the Pharisees by doing “unlawful” work on the Sabbath:

One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” …. Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27–28

In response to the Pharisees’ claim, Jesus declares that God didn’t make the Sabbath simply as a rule for humans to obey, but rather created it as an institution meant to support and protect humankind. Just as healing on the Sabbath is not prohibited, neither is feeding the hungry disciples or anyone else for that matter. People are not to be left hungry just because of the day of the week.

Once again, from the Pharisees’ perspective, Jesus is doing it wrong. For them, there is only one proper way to do something, the way that God commanded in the Torah for things to be done (according to their interpretation). Food preparation and eating customs had their proper protocols, and so did healings, at least when a miracle could and couldn’t be done.

Modern people also get obsessed with proper and improper ways of doing things, especially religious rituals and traditional cultural customs. For instance, Southern Baptists would scoff at any kind of baptismal practice that is not full immersion. Liberal churches look down on Pentecostal belief in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and its sign of speaking in tongues, because it’s an undignified way to worship God. Roman Catholics believe in the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the Saints, a practice, which Protestants consider heresy and a veiled form of paganism. And the Greek Orthodox Church uses icons and images as part of its worship and they get criticized for being idolaters. Some denominations are willing to tear each other’s eyes out over variations of ritual and worship customs. Churches have torn themselves apart over whether the priest should face the congregation or face the altar when offering the Eucharist, whether the priest should use two fingers or three fingers when making the sign of the cross when genuflecting, or whether the Church should use grape juice or real wine when celebrating mass.

It occurred to me, as I pondered the meaning of the unforgivable sin, that the so-called Beelzebul controversy (the context of this saying) could also be interpreted in the same light as the healing on the Sabbath. Here is the story from Matthew:

Then they brought to him a demoniac who was blind and mute; and he cured him, so that the one who had been mute could speak and see…. But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons that this fellow casts out the demons.”

He knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out? …. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you….

Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. Matthew 12:22–32

The Pharisees, once again, are accusing Jesus of “doing it wrong,” by using the wrong power, Beelzebul, rather than the power of God. This time, Jesus’ response to the accusation of “doing it wrong,” causes him to give his justification of the house divided against itself and utters his hostile reaction against the Pharisees.

As I was preparing to write this post, I realized I had conflated the story of the healing of the man with the withered hand and the Beelzebul controversy as both happening on the Sabbath. The Beelzebul controversy says nothing about the Sabbath, but the same concept of “doing it wrong” could still be constructively applied. This led me to an important insight about what the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit really means: it is when some authority, institution or leaders try to predetermine what the activity of the Holy Spirit should be like. It is when authorities try to impose their opinions, their pre-conceived ideas, on what they think the work of the Holy Spirit should accomplish.

In other words, it is when some opinion, doctrine, principle or theology essentially stipulates that there is only one acceptable way to worship God or only one proper kind of spiritual experience — the kind approved and dictated by the Church. Those who don’t abide by these dictates are subject to exclusion from salvation because they don’t conform to the approved method of salvation or haven’t had the approved kind of spiritual experience. To put it succinctly: they didn’t do it right! The Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and thus the unforgivable sin, is, in essence, to prepackage God’s action into a prefabricated spirituality. It is to deny God the ability to act in someone’s life in a way that you disapprove of. It is to tell God: “you’re doing it wrong.”

This, of course, has been going on for centuries in the historical Church. For example, in an early church writing called the Didache or the Teachings of the Apostles, this document seems to recognize the pitfalls of “predetermining” the work of the Holy Spirit. The Didache teaches that prophets who speak in the Spirit are not to be evaluated, but in the very next sentence, falls back into the same practice of “your not doing it right,” when it demands that all prophetic utterances have to be consistent with “the Lord’s way,” or else the prophet is a false prophet.

Also, do not test or evaluate any prophet who speaks in the spirit, for every sin will be forgiven, but this sin will not be forgiven. However, not everyone who speaks in the spirit is a prophet, but only if he exhibits the Lord’s way. By his conduct, therefore, will the false prophet and the prophet be recognized. Didache 11:7–8 (trans. J. B. Lightfoot)). J. B. Lightfoot, J. R. Harmer and Michael W. Holmes, Ed. The Apostolic Fathers 2nd Ed. Baker Pub Group, 1998.

In other words, the Church gets to determine if the prophet is speaking in the Spirit or not. This is an understandable reaction. In order for an institution like the Church to continue to function, and for individual believers to make sense out of their beliefs and faith commitments, there has to be some kind of consistency; some doctrines and practices have to be set off limits. In the ancient world, there were prophets pronouncing eschatological messages, teaching Gnostic doctrines, telling stories grounded in Greek mystery religions, and there were the mentally ill, the con men and charlatans looking for money and fame (and who are still with us today). However, all this does not mean we should be oblivious to imposing pre-determined rigid dogmas in order to stifle people’s own valid religious impulses and spiritual experiences.

Diversity may be a threat to the institution, (which needs to be periodically broken) but a lack of diversity can also become spiritually crippling to the faithful. I assert that religious institutions, such as the Church, should be open to diversity — open to the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives. This work may be different for different people, and the Church should refrain from attempting to pre-package people’s religious experience or trying to domesticate their religious stirrings, even if it leads people away from institutional dogma or out of the Church itself. Why should the Church be the judge of what the Holy Spirit is “doing wrong?”

On the matter of whether or not this “sin of blasphemy” is truly “unforgivable,” I would like to point out that many historians and Jesus scholars think that the story of the Beelzebul controversy was made up by Mark himself and embellished by Matthew who borrowed it. Further, Luke also created his own version from material he borrowed from Mark. Many historians don’t think Jesus actually said this, and it does seem out of character for Jesus who taught about God’s compassion and mercy, and his love for all humankind both righteous and sinners. This sin seems to be a development of Church doctrine. It does not seem to have its origin in the Jewish tradition in which Jesus lived and grounded his ministry.

If this is the case, that Jesus isn’t the originator of this pronouncement, then we have to attribute it to the early Christian Church. We will have to understand this “sin” from a Christian perspective; as a doctrine created by the early Church for its own religious reasons. The saying, once created by Jesus’ early followers is then attributed back to Jesus when the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are composed at a later date.

I think this is another example of a self-serving theology. I argue that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is a creation of the early Church for its own administrative needs and to control the activities of its members — especially the “false prophets and teachers” who expressed views that were contrary to the developing orthodoxy of the Church. This is exactly what we see in the excerpt from the Didache. In the gospels, the Pharisees were made the target and presented as “false teachers” who were to be avoided and rejected.

There must have been a significant enough problem with teachers proclaiming doctrines unacceptable to the authors of the gospels. The early Church needed arguments to suppress and condemn these teaching and develop some measures to keep early followers away from these unacceptable ideas. What better way then to make the adherence to such unacceptable teaching (or even just speaking these views) a sin itself: the prompting of an “unclean” spirit, grounded on the principle that the Holy Spirit would never say or do any such thing.

My point is the Church replaces God’s judgment with its own. The needs of the Church and its doctrines are placed ahead of God’s forgiveness. Limits are placed on the action of the Holy Spirit (who the Church perceives as “blasphemed;” the Church has now replaced the Holy Spirit). The Church now designates what the blasphemy is and withholds the action of the Holy Spirit from the lives of those who commit this “sin.” The Church decides, not God. In reality, it’s the Church who is feeling “blasphemed,” and is using its coercive spiritual influence to get its way. The Church wields the threat of damnation against those who are “not doing it right,” and not working through the Church’s salvation system: through baptism, confirmation, confession, Eucharist, or some other Church approved means.

The Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is ultimately a nice piece of self-serving theology with the aim of enforcing compliance on the Christian faithful. It’s self-serving because the Church essentially seeks to replace God with the Church institution. This goes way beyond the simplest interpretation of the unforgivable sin as deliberately labeling good as evil or publicly attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to unclean spirits.

What does all this mean for us, for people who are on their own spiritual search? Or for people who are simply looking to Jesus for some meaningful spiritual guidance? In this case, we have a negative example of what not to do; not to pre-judge others’ spiritual probing and discovery, not to let others tell us that we are doing it wrong, and to refrain from telling others that they are not doing it right. Jesus believed in the grace and mercy of God, grace and mercy that far exceeds the boundaries of our expectations-and often beyond our own comfort level. We should be as generous to others on their own spiritual journeys as we want them to be to us.

True, people believe in lots of kooky things, things that might not be good for them, but do I have the right to judge their path? I do think that some paths are better than others. Not everyone can walk the same path or even want to. There are greater and lesser paths, but they are no less legitimate for those who walk them. As far as blaspheming the Holy Spirit, I think God is far more forgiving than we want to give him credit. I wouldn’t worry too much. Let everyone walk to their final destinations, and don’t assume that you know where their path ends.

To see all the posts in this series
see my page Writing on Religion.

Originally published at http://ceh3167.wordpress.com on March 24, 2019.