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Transcript 339B — The Sin that Leads to Death [1 Jn 5:16]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. I've got a difficult verse in the Bible here, I John 5:16: "If anyone finds his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask God, and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I do not say that he should make request for this." I don't understand about the sin that leads to death.
HC: The question is raised as to what we're to do with the language of I John 5, which speaks of a sin unto death.
Now the complicating piece of information here is that it talks of a brother, "If anyone sees a brother commit a sin unto death." Ordinarily in the Bible, when we read "brother," the first idea that comes into our mind is that it's talking about a fellow Christian, someone who belongs to our congregation. Again and again the Bible addresses itself to the congregation as brethren. And sometimes we get the idea that whenever God uses the word brethren, He's talking about born again believers.
We must remember, however, that God is represented on this earth by the corporate body, the organized body of Christ called the church, or the congregation, or the denomination, or the assembly of believers. Everyone who belongs to that is called a brother in the Lord. But that is no evidence of any kind that all of them are born again. The fact is, when we study the Bible carefully, we must come to the conclusion that in any congregation there is a good percentage of those who are members who are not born again. Now we don't know who these are, but God knows who they are.
Now what is the sin unto death? There are those who say that the sin unto death is to reject the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, actually, every sin in a certain sense is unto death. "The wages of sin is death," whether it's the sin of rejecting Christ or the sin of lying, or the sin of cheating, or the sin of being unkind, or whatever. It is a sin unto death in that general sense.
But that kind of a sin is not in view, because the Bible says here, don't pray for this one who has committed a sin unto death. Actually, everything else in the Bible says that we are to pray for those who are sinners. We are to pray for our unsaved loved ones. And yet all of them have committed sins that are going to lead to eternal damnation.
So we know that that kind of sin is not in view. It's another kind of a sin that there's no point in praying about any longer. Now when we search the scriptures we find there is only one sin for which there is no forgiveness. And that sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. We read about this, for example, in Mark 3.
Now the brethren of Christ, that is, the members of the congregation to which Christ belongs, had committed this sin – blasphemy – against the Holy Spirit. It was the scribes, the members of the temple in Jerusalem, to which Jesus belonged, who blasphemed the Holy Spirit. And then God tells us what this is. They accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Satan. In other words, they accused Him of being under the power of an evil spirit, or under the power of Satan rather than being under the power of God. And so they blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
And so then in that context Jesus said, "Every sin will be forgiven you, except for the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. For they had said, He has an unclean spirit." And so if a situation would arise in our congregation where a fellow member—and no saved person would ever commit this sin; that's an impossibility, because a saved person has eternal life—whom we thought was saved, somehow got around to the idea that after all, Jesus was under the power of Satan, that He really wasn't under the power of God, if he really began to believe that, he would have committed the sin unto death, and there's no point in praying for such a one.
Now it's interesting, of course, that these scribes never did want to be saved. They were terrible in their opposition to Christ. They not only rejected Him, but they crucified Him. And if someone in the church came around to the idea that Christ was under the power of Satan, then you can depend upon it, they never would want that salvation, either. They would want nothing to do with Christ.
Now I believe that's the only way we can answer this particular question.
CALLER: All right. I understand now. Thanks a lot.