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Transcript 235A — What is the Unforgiveable Sin? [1 Jn 15:16-17]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. Would you please explain I John 5:16 and 17? What is the sin that leads to death that this verse is talking about? And is this death the death of a believer? Or is this the second death? And if you sin and then die before you can ask forgiveness, can you lose your salvation? What is the unforgivable sin, and can it ever be forgiven?
HC: All right. I'll try to get at those questions. Thank you.
The question that has been raised is a multiple question, and it is concerned with the matter of the potential possibility of a Christian losing his salvation. Is it possible, the question is asked, that there is some sin that we could commit that would be unforgivable? And this is suggested in I John 5, where it says in verse 16, "If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not unto death, he will ask and God will give him life, for those whose sin is not unto death. But there is sin unto death. I do not say that one should pray for that."
And a corollary question is: Supposing I committed a sin and didn't have time to ask for forgiveness. Would this sin in some way endanger my salvation? First of all, we have to get at a basic principle here. What is salvation? What have I been saved from? We have to understand this before we can get into these questions.
The fact is that before we are saved, we stand body and soul as sinners before God. We're under the wrath of God, and the Bible declares that "the wages of sin is death." And the death that God has in view is eternal damnation. It is to spend an eternity in hell, under the wrath of God. That is the ugly picture of where we begin.
Now Christ came to save us from the wrath of God. He came as our substitute in bearing the wrath of God in our place. We read in II Corinthians 5, in verse 21, "for our sake He [that is, God] made Him [that is, Christ] to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in Him [that is, in Christ] we might become the righteousness of God."
You see, for those who have become saved, Jesus became sin for me. He looked down the avenues of time, and He saw all of the sins that I would ever commit, from the day I was born until the day I die, the sins I would commit before I was saved, and the sins I would commit after I am saved. Every sin that I would ever commit (and there are thousands of them), He took upon Himself all of those sins, as well as the sins of everyone else who would ever believe on Him.
Now He went to the cross. And it is at that time that He stood before the bar of God's justice and was found guilty. He was guilty for my sins, not for His own sins. Christ in Himself was sinless. But He was guilty of my sins. And God condemned Him to the equivalent of an eternity in hell, which of course would be required in order to satisfy God's justice in relationship to my sin. And so God poured out His wrath on Him, in order that my sins might be paid for.
So now all of my sins have been paid for. I am a child of God. I am a citizen of God's Kingdom. Why then do I pray daily, "Oh Father, forgive my sins"? Is this in order to make sure that the sins I committed today were also covered by Jesus' blood? No. No, that can't be. All of my sins were covered by Jesus' blood when He went to the cross. The reason I pray, "Oh Father, forgive me," is to reestablish fellowship. Like a child is to the father, I have disobeyed. And so I go to my Heavenly Father each day, "Oh Father, I didn't do as well as I should have. Now I know my sins are covered by Jesus' blood. I know that I am your child. Oh Father, forgive me. I don't want to live this way. Strengthen me that I might live in accordance with Your will. Give me more desire than ever, a stronger faith than ever. Help me to desire to read Thy Word and feed on Thy Word, that I might be strengthened in living for Thee." And so on.
This is the conversation that the born again believer has with his Heavenly Father.
Now should I, in a rash act of anger, let's say, receive a stroke or a heart attack, become unconscious, and it was sinful anger, and I die without ever talking to the Lord about that last act of sinful anger, does that impair my salvation? Not at all. Not at all. That sin, too, was covered by Christ's blood.
There's no way, there's no way that anything can separate me from the love of God, as the closing verses of Romans 8 teach. "There is neither life nor death, nor principality nor power, nor things present nor things to come, nor anything in all creation that can separate me from the love of God."
And so if we have become a child of God, and really born from above, so we've experienced the resurrection of our souls, so that we actually have been raised with Christ, and have eternal life, we never never never have to fear hell again.
But then what is God talking about in I John 5? He's talking about a brother who commits a sin unto death. What can that be? Well, when we search the Bible, we find that there is only one sin for which there is no possible redemption. And that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. That is spoken of, for example, in Mark 3.
Now in Mark 3 God details for us what blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is. The scribes and some of the Pharisees accused Jesus, because they believed this to be so, of being under the power of Satan, under the power of the devil. And so they were really saying that it wasn't the Holy Spirit at all who was giving Christ the power. It was Satan who was giving the power. And Jesus said, "For this sin there is no forgiveness." This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
And that's the only sin that the Bible names for which there is no forgiveness. Now anyone who has committed this sin would never ask for forgiveness. They are so seared in their conscience, they are so antagonistic toward Christ that they would never want Him as their Messiah. These same scribes and Pharisees not only rejected Jesus as their Messiah, but they crucified Him.
Now were they brothers of Jesus? Yes. Yes, they were brethren in the congregation. They belonged to the same congregation that Jesus did. They went to the same temple, to the same synagogues that Jesus did. And so if we knew someone in the congregation who, up until this time, had been a Christian brother, and now he has come somehow under the teaching and the belief that Jesus after all was under the power of Satan, then we would know that this brother had committed a sin unto death, and there's no point in praying for that person any longer.
Now there are those who teach that the sin unto death spoken of here in I John 5 is the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now every sin in a sense is a sin unto death. Every sin is to be paid for by eternal damnation. The rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ is one such sin. It is a sin that will bring eternal damnation. It simply adds to all the other sins that person commits.
But the fact that a person commits a sin, outside of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which we've already talked about, or the fact that someone rejects the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, that does not guarantee at that point that there is no possible salvation for this person. Many people have rejected Christ again and again and again and again. And ultimately God has broken them down, and perhaps in their old age they have become born again believers. You may know of relatives in your own life, or maybe this has happened to you.
The fact is, the Bible teaches that there is all kinds of hope, even though a person for the moment has rejected Christ. That is not the sin unto death.
Then we would have the dismal, terrible picture of a loved one to whom we've witnessed, and they have said, "No, I don't want to be saved. I can't accept Christ. The salvation plan you offer is too horrendous for me. I don't want to go that way." Then we would have to conclude, there's no point in praying for this loved one anymore. He's committed a sin unto death. There is nothing else that can happen. He is destined for hell, and that's the end. What a terrible thing this would be, wouldn't it, when we think of all of our loved ones who have repeatedly turned a deaf ear to the witness of the Gospel.
But that is not the case. As long as that person is living, and as long as that person has not blasphemed the Holy Spirit, that is, has come to the conclusion that Jesus was under the power of Satan (and I've never met an individual who has committed that dread sin), and as long as this has not happened, regardless of how frequently they have rejected Christ, as long as they are living, there is still the hope of salvation. And we are to continue to pray and pray and pray and pray, and beseech the Lord that possibly salvation might come to our loved one. This I think answers the question.
The sin unto death is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and it is the only sin we're not to pray for. Thank you for that.