In other words you would have crossed a line which in effect renders it impossible for you to repent of your crime. Repentence is in fact enabled in any human being by the Holy Spirit. It is not something we can do on our own human initiative until we have become, through God's Grace, already regenerate. It is not possible to blaspheme the Holy Spirit after regeneration has taken place in an individual. 1 Cor.12:3. .
This is a good response. To be honest I struggle to read that passage of Corinthians in the same way I struggle to fully comprehend the claim in 1 John 3.6. Another one to add to the study list.
Can you provide the reference, i.e., book, chapter and verses. Rather than look at those few sentences read what's before and after to put it into context.
The relevant passages are: Mark 3:28-29 Matthew 12:31-32 Luke 12:10 I am assuming that Matthew and Mark provide some context for the pericope; in Luke it is wholly separated from any discussion of Beelzebul and the exorcism of the demoniac (the latter of which is also not mentioned in Mark's account). Given the significant differences between the three Synoptic accounts, we may never know for certain what the original historical context of the pericope was; what we have now is the canonical context.
It is, I agree, difficult to understand what Christ is saying. For example, how can we be forgiven for blaspheming against the Second person of the Trinity but not for blaspheming againt the Third Person? I understand it is Christian belief that all sins can be forgiven.
Lets see we have two saints of the church and Martin Luther all agreeing basically on the meaning of this or we have you, and I mean that as no insult. Who do you think we should listen to? As Anglicans we look to the Church Fathers in our understanding of scripture. Do you have anything other than you own personal interpretation to back this up personally from a church father?
Martin Luther also thought the Jews were "miserable and accursed people," "truly stupid fools," and "nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury." He advised burning down their homes, synagogues and schools, and covering with dirt whatever didn't burn. Just sayin'.
With all respect, I didn't write the passage. It simply says (in Matthew's Gospel): To merely assume that the passage means what it says isn't some wild "personal interpretation" that needs to be "backed up". The question is not whether there are some sins that will not or cannot be forgiven; according to the plain sense this passage, at least one falls into that category. The question is what precisely "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" is. I am not saying that deference should not be shown to the Fathers or to the Reformers (though admittedly two Fathers and one Reformer is hardly an impressive or decisive array versus the many, many Fathers and Saints of the Church whom we commemorate). The Anglican Rule of Faith is to evaluate the sayings of the Fathers by their conformity to Scripture, not vice versa. A sin whose consequence cannot be undone "in this age or in the age to come" falls exactly within the purview of Article 6: The Church is also not a democracy, and mere majority opinion in any given era is often wrong. At some point, careful exegesis has to be done, and the Fathers were no more infallible in that regard than we are. Augustine and Chysostom (and Luther) were writing centuries after the events recounted in the Gospels, in a culture almost completely alien from that of 1st cent. Jewish Galilee, and they did not have at their disposal many of the tools and resources that we have today. That being said, I'm just a layman trying to figure all this out like everyone else. Being no expert on the subject, I would be very interested to see what some responsible modern commentaries have to say about these passages.
Really? Not a democracy? Doggone it. I was hoping to get a majority at my parish to vote for replacing the hosts with chocolate ice cream...
But you are arguing for the plain reading of scripture. If you go back several posts ago now I said it is how do you define this blasphemy. I pointed out how they did and you said well that is not what it says. You have yet to define it. They basically define it as a final refusal to repent. Martin Luther did the same. I can think of no church father who disagreed with them. The councils basically agreed with them also. They readmitted the Lapsi.
If this is exclusively from what you quoted before you have one saint. What you posted of what Augustine and Luther said does not contradict anything Invictus or I have said, you're stretching their claims to be exclusive claims, and ignoring Augustine's last statement which is broad and not specific. I considered what Chrysostom wrote shocking, but I haven't bothered to look into how he could make such an aberrant claim. Your Chrysostom quote does not support your claim blasphemy is exclusively defined as a hardness of heart, it rebuts it because he's clearly talking about a different type of blasphemy to Augustine. Which is further evidence Augustine's definition of blasphemy is not exclusive. Chrysostom's claim is that if you repent from a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit you will be forgiven. This is provably false. ‘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’ ~ Mark 3.28-29 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 12.31-32 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. ~ Luke 12.10 --- We have defined it. Both Invictus and I replied to your post. You replied to my reply.
If others are interested in an adjacent passage on blasphemy, it's not expressly talking only of unforgivable sin, or what has been discussed so far in this thread, but I found it illuminating reading this evening in light of our discussions around how blasphemy impacts God, the idea that Tiffy wrote about from 1 Corinthians, and on how blasphemy against the spirit disables one from accepting forgiveness. Wisdom of Solomon 1:1-11, in particular: For wisdom is a kindly spirit, but will not free blasphemers from the guilt of their words; because God is witness of their inmost feelings, and a true observer of their hearts, and a hearer of their tongues. (1.1:6) Essentially what I get out of the passage is a rejection of my analogy from yesterday, and that merely saying the requisite words one would consider a 'blaspheme' is not sufficient, regardless of their impacts. God looks inside our innermost emotions and witnesses what we truly feel. It's not enough to say "the Spirit is doing the work of Satan", you need to genuinely mean what you say. Perhaps this is self-evident to older Anglican's on this forum, but that's a new understanding of blasphemy no one has ever bothered to illustrate to me before. It's not the material component of your actions that is a sin, it's the spiritual component - and for blasphemy those concepts are far more detached from each other than a more comprehensible sin like murder is. If we were then to try and rationalise why speaking against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable, perhaps it's because, in order to reach a point where you truly mean your words, as Tiffy said, you "need to pass the point of no return itself, by definition". Although of course the pharisees could later perform all the visible outward actions of repentance and beg for forgiveness with their words (which is why I rejected Tiffy's claim yesterday), God would know they are not truly repentant, and they can never be, because if that was still possible to them they never would have genuinely blasphemed in the first place. As an aside, isn't it strange how often passages reveal themselves to us right after or before they're actively relevant in our lives? I imagine others on this forum notice it too. There's something in a lifelong chain of remarkable coincidences...
I have since consulted a number of exegetical commentaries, some more helpful than others. In some cases, one needs a commentary for the commentary. I have been unable to decipher some of Carson’s comments in both editions of the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, unless he was saying that the ascription of “blasphemy” to the “Son of Man” was so unlikely in the early Church that it simply had to attributed to Jesus himself (which I take to be the most likely interpretation of his comments). In any event, the more thorough expositions in the NIGTC volumes on Matthew, Mark, and Luke all raise the definitional questions of what (1) blasphemy and (2) Son of Man would have meant to the original audience, as well as the exegetical possibilities raised by early interpreters that the two different blasphemies referred to (1) two different ages of the Church, or (2) two different states of the (eventual) believer. The consensus seems to be that none of the solutions proposed so far is entirely satisfactory.
My favourite is turkish delight flavoured ice cream but I would avoid chocolate flavoured ice cream like the plague. .
https://northamanglican.com/exposition-of-the-thirty-nine-articles-article-xvi-part-2/ This seems the true explanation of the sin against the Holy Ghost, namely, obstinate, resolute, and wilful impenitence, after all the means of grace and with all the strivings of the Spirit, under the Christian dispensation as distinguished from the Jewish, and amid all the blessings and privileges of the Church of Christ. And this view of the subject does not materially differ from the statement of St. Athanasius, namely, that blasphemy against Christ, when His manhood only was visible, was blasphemy against the Son of Man; but that, when His Godhead was manifested, it became blasphemy against the Holy Ghost: nor from that of St. Augustine, that the sin against the Spirit of God is a final and obdurate continuance in wickedness, despite of the calls of God to repentance, joined with a desperation of the mercy of God.[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Browne This is who wrote the article Thought this would be a helpful update to this thread
Excellent quote. Browne's commentary on the 39 articles was a core textbook in Episcopal seminaries for a long time, as Burnet's had been before.