From jfb@macsch.com Wed Nov 18 22:18:59 1992 Received: from rodan.UU.NET by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA21394; Wed, 18 Nov 92 22:18:59 EST Received: from relay2.UU.NET by rodan.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-mail-drop) id AA29972; Wed, 18 Nov 92 22:18:57 -0500 Received: from macsch.com (via DRACO.MACSCH.COM) by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA02990; Wed, 18 Nov 92 22:19:02 -0500 Received: by macsch.com (5.61/SMI-4.1-07) id AA20858; Wed, 18 Nov 92 19:18:47 -0800 Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Path: jfb From: jfb@macsch.com (John Baskette) Subject: Re: Lost Salvation Message-Id: <1992Nov19.031842.20820@draco.macsch.com> Sender: jfb@macsch.com (John Baskette) Organization: MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 03:18:42 GMT Apparently-To: soc-religion-christian@uunet.uu.net In article turtle@brahms.udel.edu (Anthony J Collins) writes: >Can I have the Book Chapter and verse to back up the statement, "It is >impossible for an Elect Son of God to blaspheme the Holy Spirit". YOU >WILL NOT FIND IT! > >Tony May I add my comments to this thread? For a good year and a half after I first became a Christian, I was very worried about this issue. I thought that I may have committed this sin and was therefore eternally lost. I thought that I was I Like Esau who sold his birthright for one morsel of meat and who, "when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." (Heb 12:17) I also once knew a teenager who, in an attempt to free himself from the moral strictures to which he felt bound, deliberately tried to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Later, after he repented and turned again to the Lord, he deeply regretted his attempt and feared that he too was one of those sons of perdition who desired repentance, but whom the Lord could never forgive. No Christians that I knew at the time (or since for that matter) believed that anyone could be in this situation. The belief was that "him that cometh to me (Jesus) I will in no wise cast out.". This conclusion I think was correct, but many accompanying arguments were not convincing to me at the time. These other arguments were along the lines of re-defining blasphemy of the Holy Spirit as being "final rejection of Christ" and assertions that once your are saved, your are always saved so it is impossible for a Christian to commit this sin. Since these other arguments were not convincing to me, I had a difficult time dealing with this fear. I think that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit was just what it says in the text. The Pharisees called the Holy Spirit through whom Jesus cast out demons an unclean spirit. My deliverance from this terrible doubt came about through a better understanding of repentance and faith. It seems clear to me now that no one can repent and believe in Christ apart from the working of God. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him" (John 6:44), and "him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). If me or my friend had actually committed an unpardonable sin, then the Father would not have drawn us to repentance and faith in Christ. We can conclude this because we know that Jesus will not cast out anyone who comes to Him. He would have to cast us out if we were guilty of an unpardonable sin. This is taught in Hebrews 6, "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 to repentance." Those spoken of here have not necessarily blasphemed the Holy Spirit, but they have knowingly rejected the gifts and power of God. Note that the passage does not say that these individuals can repent and cannot be saved. It says that it is not possible for us to renew them to repentance at all. The same can be said of any individual who blasphemes the Holy Spirit. Their sin is unpardonable, therefore they cannot repent and believe, period. What about my friend who says he really did it? He repented, therefore he could not really have done it. Mark 3:29 says, "he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation; because they said, He hath an unclean spirit." It would seem that one who "hath never forgiveness" is eternally damned, not in danger of eternal damnation. I interpret the passage to mean that while the Pharisees did call the spirit in Christ unclean, it is possible that they did not actually blaspheme the Holy Spirit. They were in danger of doing so, but they may not have recognized that it was the Holy Spirit who was in Christ. I conclude from these passages that only someone who knowingly and willfully blasphemes the Holy Spirit actually commits an unpardonable sin. Furthermore, a person who commits this sin will not ever repent and come to Christ. A person who has repented and come to Christ necessarily has not committed this sin. The Heb. 12:17 passage does not describe someone who is seeking repentance but cannot because he is rejected. Esau was not seeking repentance at all. He was seeking his lost birthright. The earlier verses read, "Follow peace with all men . . . lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. . .". The root of bitterness is a allusion to Deut. 29:18 which speaks of those who turn from God and worship idols. Esau is like Simon Magnus of Acts chapter 8 who sought to buy the gift of God with money. It is not the case that he was repentant, he did not find any place of repentance meaning that he did not repent. Is it impossible for an Elect Son of God to blaspheme the Holy Spirit? The answer to that depends on your theology. My belief is that if Judas was able to perform miracles and if the once enlightened of Hebrews Chap. 6 can fall away and never repent again, then it would seem that just about any one who in all other respects appears to be a Christian could one day blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Was such a person never really saved or elect, or was the person really saved but lost it through apostasy? This is a different issue than what I have addressed. I have asked, "Can someone desire to be a Christian and repent of sin, but still be damned because of a sin God cannot forgive?" No. "Can someone commit an unpardonable sin and continue to be what to all outward appearances is a 'real' Christian?" Again No. John From news@sol.uvic.ca Thu Nov 19 19:08:43 1992 Received: from rodan.UU.NET by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA14411; Thu, 19 Nov 92 19:08:43 EST Received: from relay2.UU.NET by rodan.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-mail-drop) id AA04776; Thu, 19 Nov 92 19:08:36 -0500 Received: from grolsch.cs.ubc.ca by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA15594; Thu, 19 Nov 92 19:08:06 -0500 Received: from sol.UVic.CA by grolsch.cs.ubc.ca with SMTP id AA16248 (5.65c/IDA-1.3.5 for uunet!soc-religion-christian); Thu, 19 Nov 1992 16:03:42 -0800 Received: from ra.UVic.CA.UVic.CA by sol.UVic.CA (4.1/SMI-4.0.3-UVic-2.37TMX) id AA16209; Thu, 19 Nov 92 16:03:40 PST Received: by ra.UVic.CA.UVic.CA (4.1/SMI-4.1-UVic1.0MX) id AA18323; Thu, 19 Nov 92 16:03:39 PST Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Path: uvphys.phys.uvic.ca!mpeever From: mpeever@uvphys.phys (Mark Peever) Subject: Re: Lost Salvation Message-Id: <1992Nov20.000336.18282@sol.UVic.CA> News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4 Sender: news@sol.uvic.ca Nntp-Posting-Host: uvphys.phys.uvic.ca Reply-To: mpeever@uvphys.phys Organization: UVic, Physics & Astronomy, Victoria, BC References: Distribution: world Date: 19 NOV 92 15:00:00 Apparently-To: uunet!soc-religion-christian@sol.UVic.CA >>Can I have the Book Chapter and verse to back up the statement, "It is >>impossible for an Elect Son of God to blaspheme the Holy Spirit". YOU >>WILL NOT FIND IT! >> >>Tony >I think that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit was just what it says in the >text. The Pharisees called the Holy Spirit through whom Jesus cast out >demons an unclean spirit. > You are exactly right here, there can be no doubt about what He meant by this. > >My deliverance from this terrible doubt came about through a better >understanding of repentance and faith. It seems clear to me now >that no one can repent and believe in Christ apart from the working >of God. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent >me draw him" (John 6:44), and "him that cometh to me I will in no wise >cast out" (John 6:37). If me or my friend had actually committed an >unpardonable sin, then the Father would not have drawn us to repentance >and faith in Christ. We can conclude this because we know that Jesus >will not cast out anyone who comes to Him. He would have to cast us >out if we were guilty of an unpardonable sin. > Exactly! I shan't add anything, because you have said it so well already. > >Mark 3:29 says, "he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath >never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation; because they >said, He hath an unclean spirit." It would seem that one who "hath never >forgiveness" is eternally damned, not in danger of eternal damnation. I >interpret the passage to mean that while the Pharisees did call the spirit >in Christ unclean, it is possible that they did not actually blaspheme the >Holy Spirit. They were in danger of doing so, but they may not have >recognized that it was the Holy Spirit who was in Christ. Maybe we should take closer look at the context of the passage. In this passage, the Lord is telling the people that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is, in fact, the unpardonable sin. There is really no way to get around it. The question is really in two parts: i) what exactly does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit ii)why is it so dangerous? The first question is really the crux of the whole argument in this bit of Scripture. When the Lord said these dire words, He was speaking in response to the accusation brought against Him that He did miracles by the power of demons.(Mark 3:22) "And the scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said,'He has Beelzebub' and,'By the prince of the demons he casts out demons" [Darby Translation] So from the context, it would seem to be that what is condemned here is the accusation that the work of the Lord, while He was on the earth, was perpetrated by the powers of darkness. I must agree wholly with John on this point. This leads to the serious question of whether this type of blasphemy is even possible in this present age. Certainly, the Lord Jesus Christ is no longer on the Earth, and so the circumstances under which the pronouncement was made are no longer applicable. This, I would suggest, is the reason that no such similar condemnation is repeated in the Epistles. To echo John's argument, the scribes were not told that they were to burn in hell, but that they were on the way. This leads us to the second question. The reason that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is so dangerous, is that without faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ in our behalf, there is no chance of salvation: "For God did not send His Son into the World to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. For He that believeth on Him shall not be condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only-begotten Son of God" [John 3:17-18] I John 4:1-6 tells us we know whether someone is saved by what they say about the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, salvation DEPENDS on acknowledging the Lord for who He is. This is not possible when we say He did not come from God, therefore, when we lie about Christ, we cannot be saved, not because of the sin of the lie, but because we CANNOT repent, as long as we continue in the lie. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is unpardonable, not because of the Blasphemy, but because it puts us into a position from which we cannot repent. So can a Christian blaspheme the Holy Spirit? No! Firstly, there is the question of whether it is even possible during our present time. Secondly, as believers, we have already acknowledged Christ as God, and we now have the Holy Spirit living in us, and He will not allow us to blaspheme against the Lord Jesus Christ. "Hereby ye know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit which does not confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh is not of God... ... Ye are of God, children, and have overcome the them, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world" I John 4:2-3,4 [Darby Translation] thus, we are told that as believers, we have the Holy Spirit, and He makes Himself known in that He always gives Christ His rightful place, and so it is not possible for a saved child of God to blaspheme against the Lord Jesus Christ, nor against the Holy Spirit, which is His source of power and authority. >Is it impossible for an Elect Son of God to blaspheme the Holy Spirit? >The answer to that depends on your theology. My belief is that if Judas >was able to perform miracles and if the once enlightened of Hebrews Chap. 6 >can fall away and never repent again, then it would seem that just about any >one who in all other respects appears to be a Christian could one day >blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Be careful here. The Lord Himself referred to Judas as a special case, he was the "Son of perdition" and had to be lost to fulfil the will of the Father (John 17:12). In this respect, he is very like Pharoah of old, in that he had a purpose to fulfill, and God used him to his own glory. In fact, Judas is one of the only two people that we are told ended up in hell, the other was the rich man who persecuted Lazarus. If you remember, when the Lord was annointed by the adoring woman, Judas said that it would have been better to sell the ointment and feed the poor; an idea which the Scriptures say were because he was a thief (John 12:6). This does not sound to me like the comment that the Holy Spirit would inspire about one who really followed the Lord. I think that the inference here is clearly that Judas was never in fact saved, but was always rebellious in his heart towards the Lord. The fact that he did miracles is entirely inconclusive. We can see many examples where the Lord did good through the actions of evil men. The most obvious of which was when Moses struck the rock in his anger, after being commanded to speak to it. The Lord honoured His promise to provide water for the people, even though Moses disobeyed, but Moses was punished for his crime by not being allowed to enter the promised land. The success of the Lord's purpose is not destroyed because of our disobedience, and Judas' case was no exception. Therefore, I believe that we can in no way lose our salvation, no matter what we do. We are saved of God, and that is not something that we can ever undo. Mark Peever MPEEVER@UVPHYS.PHYS.UVIC.CA Victoria,B.C Canada "The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding" Job 28:28