What do folks here understand by the sin against the Holy Spirit? My question has been prompted by the discussion on ecumenism between Roman Catholics and evangelicals. If someone will not or cannot see the clear evidence of the work of the Spirit in the lives of other people or churches, and instead attributes it to satanic deception, is this in any sense a parallel with Jesus’ designation as the sin against the Holy Spirit the attribution of his exorcisms to the Prince of Demons? I had a very troubled young man in my youth group several years ago who was terrified that he had committed the unforgiveable sin. The most helpful thing I could manage was that if he was worried about it, he clearly hadn’t done it, because that sin is clearly about a very particular wilful blindness and hard-heartedness. Quite what relevance (if any) the sinagainst the Holy Spirit has outside of the particularities and instance of the gospel narrative, I have never really sorted out for myself. I’m interested to know if anyone else has done anything on this.
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Speaking against the Holy Spirit
Lawrence, I have a suggestion regarding how this text is to be understood within the framework of the gospel narratives. I am convinced that the narrative of religious and political crisis that emerges in Daniel 7-12 is crucial for understanding at least certain themes that are central to the gospel stories (and indeed to the later self-understanding of the early church). In Daniel’s vision of the conflict that will precede the coming of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven to receive the kingdom it is said that the arrogant little horn on the head of the fourth beast will ‘speak words against the Most High’ (7:25). The parable of the binding of the strongman before looting his house can be read as a retelling of the apocalyptic vision of the overthrow of the fourth beast before the kingdom is given to the saints of the Most High.
I think that Jesus may be warning the Jewish leaders not to associate themselves - wittingly or unwittingly - with the satanic power of the ‘fourth beast’, which is Rome. To speak a word against, or blaspheme against, the Son of man is to speak against the community of faithful Jews, represented by the Son of man; to speak against the Holy Spirit is to speak against the Most High himself - the Pharisees will become in effect mouthpieces of satan, the accuser of the faithful, and will be liable, therefore, to the same judgment that will befall this extreme enemy of the people of God (Matt.12:32; Mark 3:28-29; Luke 12:10).
Does this historical-eschatological explanation have any relevance for believers today? Well, obviously it is always possible for Christians to become in effect opponents of the Holy Spirit, to resist or reinterpret the nature of God’s being among us in weakness and suffering. I would argue that Jesus had a very concrete form of judgment in mind when he spoke of not being forgiven either in this age or the age to come: I think this was the judgment of AD 70, which in that respect anticipated the eventual judgment on imperial Rome. There was no forgiveness for pharisaic Judaism. I suppose, then, one could make the general argument that those who effectively oppose the work of the Spirit of God in the same manner that the world opposes it, will likewise be without hope: they have collaborated with an ideology which will not endure. I would regard this as a secondary application of the passage, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable.
Did Jesus' theology change after the resurrection?
Andrew, many thanks for this. It’s extremely helpful. I like the idea of reading these passages against a Danielic background, as it’s certainly part of Jesus’ self-understanding and his use of Son of Man. I will follow this up. Thanks for the tip.
I am less sure of any continuing relevance for today. I’m framing the question slightly tongue-in-cheek: did Jesus’ theology change after the resurrection? But there’s a serious question underlying it. I find it difficult to escape the fact that Jesus got his eschatology wrong. He states as clearly as possible (on any unbiased reading of the texts) that he believed that some of his listeners would not have died by the time the Kingdom came in all its fulllness.
Now of course, there are any number of sophisticated attempts to rescue the texts from just such a straightforward reading, but it seems to me that they’re motivated by a desire to rescue Jesus from rather serious error on this point. Yet we cannot escape the fact that one of the most serious and earliest crises in the fledgling Christian church concerned the non-arrival of the parousia, which Paul and others clearly expected, if not by the end of any given week, very soon thereafter. I think that expectation had its roots in Jesus’ own eschatological timetable. And it was mistaken.
I’m happy to take someone like Jimmy Dunn’s explanation as a working hypothesis: that the vision presents itself so powerfully and urgently that the seer is always in danger of interpreting the urgency and reality chronologically. On this reading, Jesus was so overwhelmed by his absolutely genuine vision of the future that he saw it as something just around the corner.
I do not have any christological problem with Jesus being wrong on that score (I have more with the sort of textual gymnastics that those wishing to rescue Jesus perform!). But it leads me on to a theologically (rather than textually) motivated question: is there any sin which, after Golgotha, remains unforgiveable?
I take Luke’s words of forgiveness from the cross. I don’t happen to think these historical. I think the earlier Markan tradition of the cry of dereliction to be historically authentic - not least because it is theologically more challenging and problematic! But I take Luke here to be telling us something true about the cross. I read it in this way. Luke alone has the kairos moment as Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Jerusalem has missed out on its hour of visitation from God in Jesus - the promise of the establishment of the Kingdom in grace and mercy. The logic of human sin reaches its zenith as the crowds call for the crucifixion of Jesus. This is humanity’s final “No!” to God. There is no room for God in our world.
Yet, on the cross, Jesus acts as the priest of the new covenant in praying for forgiveness. The words of Jesus in Luke are all gracious words. And the final death cry is a cry of completion - the work is done and Jesus commits himself to God. In other words, Golgotha becomes the new temple, where God and Christ are to be found together establishing the new covenant.
Now, if crucifying Jesus is not the greatest sin - the most eloquent and decisive rejection of God - and that elicited forgiveness rather than judgement - then I am at a loss to imagine what sin is, in principle, unforgiveable. That would lead me to suppose that there is no continuing relevance today, other than to illustrate a dynamic of wilful blindness to the work of the Holy Spirit that is enormously dangerous (we end up missing the kairos) but not the same thing as eternally unforgiveable.
The end of what?
I think we need to see two eschatologies in the New Testament: the end of the age of Judaism (the crucifixion, mission to the Gentiles, destruction of the temple) and the end of the age of the Church. Jesus could have looked ahead to either or both.
New Testament theology had to have “changed” after the Jesus’ death and resurrection, inasmuch as the old covenant was abolished and the new covenant instituted. Also, that’s part of the reason Jesus ascended shortly thereafter.
Yes, but did Jesus' theology change too?
Chris, I agree that NT theology had to change (though I’m happier with “early church” than NT in this context). I think it’s a far more interesting question, though, whether Jesus’ theology had to change. In other words, does our christology allow for a Jesus whose theology grows, develops, changes and undergoes some radical shifts? Could Jesus have got some of his theology wrong? That was behind the point about theological change.
Jesus - a consistent or developing theology?
Lawrence - I’m not totally sure where this thread is going, but on the subject of the imminence of the kingdom (as clearly reflected in a number of Jesus’s statements), Albert Schweitzer developed a whole theology on Jesus’s (apparent) failure to inaugurate the kingdom - ‘The Quest of the historical Jesus, a critical study of its progress from Reimarus to Wrede’, in which he saw Jesus as influenced primarily by the Jewish apocalyptists. This line of thought has only recently been taken up again by N.T.Wright in ‘Jesus and the Victory of God’ - but developed in a way which makes Jesus consistent in his theology. The focus here is on the A.D.70 events as the locus of Jesus’s ‘coming’ - and all this has been discussed at great length on the site.
I’d like to add another thought: that when Jesus talked about ‘the kingdom’, he had very much in mind the kind of things that happened when the Holy Spirit came. This makes sense of the language of Acts 1 - when he spoke with the disciples over 40 days about the kingdom. The culmination of these discussions is when the disciples say: “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” - which some commentators see as yet another example of their continuing stupidity, and Jesus has to say more or less ‘Just get in with world evangelisation’; other commentators see the question and Jesus’s response as pointing to a future restoration of a national, Davidic Israel, ie not a silly question at all (See especially David Pawson’s ‘Unlocking the Bible …’ - which I took as holiday reading to Greece recently. It’s a good read, provided you are happy to disagree with him in many places).
A far better way of reading things here (Acts 1:6-8 etc) seems to me to be that Jesus is talking about the restoration of a redeemed Israel through the outpouring of the Spirit, which happened at Pentecost. The language is of Isaiah, linking Spirit and kingdom. This would make sense of passages like Matthew 16:28, though this too could be linked directly with the A.D.70 events.
A very good discussion of the preterist interpretation of Matthew 24 and many of Jesus’s predictions can be found in ‘The last days according to Jesus’ - R.C.Sproul - which has precisely the kind of issues you raise in mind.
I don’t think these lines of thought are stretching things to make Jesus consistent in hie theology. But maybe the thrust of your remarks was that you would really prefer to pursue the idea that Jesus was not consistent!
Mistaken rather than inconsistent
Peter, thanks for the comments. I’m not surprised that the conversation takes us back and forth between areas already covered, because, of course, theology is like that! I was aware when writing of the problem of rehearsing areas and material already covered, but I guess that I would want to claim the validity of doing so on the model of Moltmann’s Theology of Hope and The Crucified God, in which he doesn’t so much deal with discrete theological topics as read the whole of theology first through the lens of eschatology and then again through the theology of the cross.
I’m not trying to argue that Jesus was inconsistent with his theology, so much as mistaken. Whether or not we accept the AD70 focus as a hermeneutical key for his eschatology (which I find very fruitful), the fact remains that there are enormous questions posed by the failure of Jesus’ eschatological predictions. And of course, that is a key christological question, ever since the Weiss/Scweitzer thesis that prepristinated eschatology as the key to understanding Jesus.
It’s the christological aspect that interests me. What if the AD70 thesis is wrong? I ask that as a hypothetical question, but one which I want to keep open because the history of theology is littered with eschatological theses about Jesus and, at the end of the day, we are thrown back on the most consistent theory - yet it remains theoretical!
So I take a worst-case scenario (as it were) and ask, “What if Jesus was genuninely mistaken?” That is a question that holds true both for the substance of his eschatological timetable and the detail in terms of the sin against the Spirit. Does christology then collapse, or at least take a serious blow? Or is it consistent to argue (as I want to do) that the Passion and resurrection were, in fact, of greater significance than Jesus himself could have known his side of Easter?
I find myself asking this question more and more in connection with issues of forgiveness and judgement - hence the raising of these issues in the context of the present thread. So, in summary, wrong rather than inconsistent.
Jesus mistaken, or right on track all the time?
Lawrence - I should have asked you first exactly what you meant before offering an opinion! So I would like to know more about what you mean by Jesus being mistaken (in his theology), and the passion being more than he realised. Are you saying that Jesus expected one kind of outcome from his mission and ministry, was mistaken about that, and subsequently a different kind of outcome emerged, which was greater than he had realised? (Sounds like Schweitzer - but I shouldn’t try to second-guess you, should I?)
Whatever - I suspect we will disagree - as the coming of the Spirit as the first instalment of the kingdom, and the judgement of Jerusalem and the temple as a kind of parousia and ‘end of the age’ seem to me to be outstanding explanations of Jesus’s prophetic predictions.
The issues are not so great for me, as the gift of redemption which Jesus gave, and the possibility of present and personal/corporate experience of this gift seem to me to outweigh puzzles about Jesus’s more cryptic utterances. I feel that these are realities which the United Reformed Church, and all other branches of the church, and this website, need desperately to grasp in all their multi-coloured splendour.
The obvious question to arise if Jesus was mistaken in something as central as the goal of his mission is whether we can trust him in anything else that he said or did. (This reminds me of a survey amongst young people I heard about which was referred to in a URC publication ages ago, in which a majority of young people said it made no difference to them whether Jesus rose from the dead or not - he would still be worth believing in. Sighs of relief all round then - we don’t need to preach something as inconvenient as the resurrection. Quite what these worthy folk thought they would be left with is unclear. Very little to do with your comment - but does indicate my confusion about what exactly the URC stands for).
This is a theology site!
I’m not sure, Peter, that the site or this thread is actually the place to try and sort out the URC! I suspect that you may get several different answers to that question - probably as many as the people you ask. But then, that will be equally true of most non-sectarian churches, won’t it? (I say “non-sectarian” because it is a feature of sects that they have a very definite and univocal account of their goals)
I’m certainly with you about the gift of redemption outweighing cryptic utterances, but then, this being a theology site, exploring what is unclear or open-ended is precisely what I come here for. I’d hate to think that raising questions rather than ringing bells was a problem.
You’re right about what I’m exploring as a possibility about the significance for the resurrection of Jesus. I do think it was bigger than he knew or anticipated - otherwise why the cry of dereliction? It was worse than he anticipated. And I don’t think he knew the way in which his resurrection would change fundamentally the whole structure of human history, time and the fabric of the universe. But is this surprising if Jesus was truly human? Likewise, is it beyond the bounds of belief that Dunn is right when he suggests that the immediacy of Jesus’ eschatological vision meant that he conflated time? And if either of these is the case, are you seriously suggesting that this casts doubt on the reliability of Jesus? I suppose what I’m exploring - beyond the meaning of the sin against the Spirit - is precisely the “something more” of eschatology that is not exhausted by AD 70. And, in trying faithfully to interpret the Bible, I’m exploring also the implications for a faithful christology.
For what it’s worth, I believe in the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus. I actually do so because embodied existence - which human existence is - means that redemption must never be less than bodily. But it may be far more than merely bodily! I think it an unavoidable fact that there is a huge spectrum of belief about what happened on Easter Sunday within the Christian church, from those whose faith would remain unaltered if they dug Jesus up to those whose faith would be annihilated. Certainly, that is true of the URC, the Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and other churches. People unite on the meaning of the resurrection. I have far more in common with a Don Cupitt who used to turn up at 3am to do the graveyard shift on a night shelter I was running in Cambridge than I have with a christian who believes in the bodily resurrection of Jesus and supports clearing the streets of homeless people.
Darn! You suckered me into the personal stuff after all! Ah well.
A theology site
Lawrence - I’m still intrigued and interested to know whether you have pursued your thoughts about Jesus being mistaken (about his mission? Or what?) to any extent. And what the significance of this is for belief. If not - that’s fine! I’m just enquiring.
To me, the cry of dereliction on the cross does not indicate that Jesus was mistaken about anything. In Gethsemane, he knew the most momentous hour of his life was approaching, which he would have given almost anything to avoid. He knew well enough in advance that he was going to Jerusalem to be crucified - or at least, to suffer and be put to death. The last supper shows that he knew the covenantal significance of this event - the time and place of his death.
The agony, to me, of the crucifixion is the conflict, and I would say separation, which took place there within the godhead during those hours. That’s also why I was interested in what you said about Moltmann. That’s why it is for me futile to try to ‘untheologise’ Jesus - his deity is deeply inscribed into the historical narrative of his life - especially as it would have been apparent to his contemporaries - and why a trinitarian understanding of God is needed from the outset, not as a later accretion. (I’m referring to other conversations I have had on the site here - not with your particular posts).
Why connect this with the URC? Well, I guess there is some relationship between your theological leanings and your role as head of training in the church you represent. I’m interested to know how these work out.
My impression of the URC, based on my own childhood experiences (going back to the 1960’s), and my parents continuing involvement in it, is something like this: the perception was that the church was out of touch with the world; the prescribed remedy was to remove as much as possible of what the church believed the world might find difficult to accept, to make the church as close to ordinary people as possible. In so doing, in my opinion, the church removed the very distinctives which made it of any interest to the world. But please feel free to tell me that there’s much more to it than that!
As for Don Cupitt - probably the only place I’d want to meet him would be in a night shelter! (That’s very unfair - I think he is very misunderstood by many, and I’d love to discuss his views with him). But again, I’m sure you are not saying that the only section of the church which has a social conscience is that which shares his particular beliefs.
I’m also intrigued as to any connection you might perceive between Jesus’s references to the ‘unforgiveable sin’ and the possibility that he was mistaken. Was this an example of his mistaken theology? What do you think he meant? Are there other examples of Jesus being mistaken? I’m genuinely interested.
Oh dear, and I was intending not to get involved with this site after I came back from holiday!
This is my first post here
This is my first post here and normally can be found on Surefish.co.uk theology.
As I see it, the difference between Jesus and Paul, both sharing the imminent end, is that Jesus argued for a direct relationship with God and Paul for Christ as intermediary in terms of salvation. Jesus spoke of Son of Man with present and cosmic meanings, more likely/ more often the latter, in a last days context.
This is discerned with the attempt of critical reading of sources but is nevertheless a construction. Finding the historical Jesus (Paul is obviously easier) is a very difficult and perhaps impossible task. But the urgency of his message to change must be eschatological, it only makes sense in a last days context.
Well we have a different view about how the world will end today - without self destruction it will end when the sun flares up and the universe will end when all its parts are too far apart as it continues its relentless expansion. We do not have the supernatural cosmology or time-history of the ancients, including Jesus of Nazareth.
So in a sense a religion, Christianity, has to reform and recreate itself (if it has so much to offer). It can do so in uneasy relationship between historiography and postmodern criticisms of knowledge. It must do so with active engagement with other religious concepts as walls break down, as well as other academic disciplines, as these walls break down too.
Someone has suggested that this website is post-evangelical, but reading around it certainly seems to be liberal too by various definitions in the postmodern camp. As a matter of labelling, and a shortcut, I am in a postmodern liberal camp. Religion must be applied, and there is much that a critical approach to religion must be applied to in this increasingly dark world.
http://www.pluralist.co.uk
Unforgiveable sin
I would suggest that it is by making this a theologically motivated question that we create problems for ourselves. I would say that it is a really only a historical-eschatological question. Jesus addresses the religious state of first century Judaism: if the leaders of the people collaborate with the enemy of YHWH (the satanic power behind Rome as an oppressive presence), they will not be forgiven, they will not escape the reality of historical judgment. There is no reason why this shouldn’t be seen as an example of humanity’s ‘no’ to God, and clearly the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus are the supreme moment of collaboration between the Jewish authorities and Rome. But it is, to my mind, the historical context that circumscribes the relevance of Jesus’ argument about an unforgiveable sin.
This is a problem for us for much the same reason. There has been some discussion of this issue elsewhere on this site. The coming of the Son of man motif in Jesus and in Paul, in my view, invokes the vision of Daniel 7 which describes the defeat of the pagan aggressor, the end of suffering, and the vindication of the true Israel. These are historical circumstances, not theological projections. If ‘delay’ was a crisis for the early church, it was because they were anxious for an end to the persecution and vindication of the commitment that they had made to the one who died for them.
A pastoral-theological problem first and foremost
You say here that it is only a historical-eschatological question, and I agree with you. However, in your previous post, you said that you see possible connections with present resistance to the Spirit, which was what prompted my response.
It seems to me that the issue of the sin against the Spirit in our contemporary context is a pastoral-theological problem. It is a pastoral one because people worry about whether or not they might have committed the sin. It is theological because the underlying problem is that of the perception of God. We are still inclined to think of God primarily in terms of offended holiness, rather than grace. We are therefore continually vigilant less we offend through “ignorance, weakness or our own deliberate fault”. We needto counter the pessimism that permeates much of people’s relationship with God, and that is a theological task. I find it sad that there is still such a need for Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace?.
The Holy Spirit and Saving Relationship
Andrew, I can feel your frustration about a theologically motivated question. However, true Christian theology has its basis within the historical reality of Jesus. As such, I don’t believe we can really drive history and theology apart here. The one implies the other.
In terms of what this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is, let me make a suggestion, and I invite your feedback. Jesus juxtaposes blasphemy against the Son of Man with blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. One must ask what difference there could possibly be between the two? The difference must be sought in the difference between the work of the Son and the work of the Holy Spirit. Even those who rejected Jesus and ultimately crucified him can still be forgiven because Jesus’ atoning work on Golgotha is sufficient to pay for their sin. In other words, Jesus’ death makes atonement for all the sins of every person, even such a flagrant and heinous sin as killing the Son of God.
This means that the basis for judgement is no longer a person’s own works, for this has been taken care of in Christ’s death. Rather the basis for judgement is now their relationship with the Judge. If someone rejects the Judge, then they are not in relationship with the Judge. As such, they cannot be forgiven. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring people into relationship with the Judge. The Holy Spirit is, after all, the Spirit of sonship, by which we cry ‘Abba, Father’. If we reject the Spirit, then we are rejecting relationship with God, and therefore stand outside of a saving relationship with God, even though our sins have been dealt with. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to turn our backs on the finished work of atonement which the Son of Man has wrought.
John 3 is helpful in this regard, where Jesus says that no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born from above — of water and Spirit.
All this is just another of way saying that salvation is about relationship with God, and condemnation is about non-relationship.
-George Athas