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Many years ago, NBC asked the famous orchestra conductor Arturo Toscanini to lead a concert tour to Latin America. It was a hot August afternoon in 1931 when Toscanini brought the musicians whom he had chosen together for their first rehearsal. They began with Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. All of the musicians were professionals, thoroughly familiar with the music. They knew when to come in and when to rest, when they could get up, take a walk and still be back in time for their next part. But that day under the baton of Toscanini something unusual happened. All could sense it by the end of the first movement. The musicians were rapt in their attention, and the music was exquisite. When the final movement ended and the maestro laid down his baton, the members of the orchestra as one body rose to their feet in applause. Toscanini stood there until the applause subsided, then he said to the orchestra, "That isn't Toscanini; that's Beethoven. You just never heard him before."

You understand, I hope, that it is something similar that the New Testament is saying when it tells us about Jesus: "This is what God is like. You've just never seen God before." When the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is told in the gospels, this clearly is what is being affirmed: in him we are looking directly into the face of God. We are seeing exactly what God is like. That's why the word "gospel" is used. It means "good news," and the good news is that Almighty God is like Jesus, infinite in mercy, compassion, and love. Ours is a seeking God, not wanting a single person to be lost, even the most rebellious person, but longing to bring all of us into fellowship and wholeness.

That is why the first word on the lips of Jesus and the early Christians was always "repent," spoken not so much as a warning but as an invitation to leave behind all that causes alienation, separation from God, and to be reconciled to our Heavenly Father, to others, and to ourselves. And that's why the key concept in the Gospels is always forgiveness, for forgiveness is God's way of bringing wholeness to human life. Not punishment, but forgiveness - an offer forever extended to us by our loving God.

Do you need to be reminded how central that message is to the Christian faith? When a paralytic was brought by his friends to Jesus for healing, our Lord's first words were, "Your sins are forgiven." When an adulterous woman was dragged through the streets and flung at his feet with the declaration that she should be stoned, Jesus did not wait for her sorrowful confession; he simply said, "I don't condemn you. Go, and sin no more." When the nails were driven that impaled him to the cross, Jesus did not require an impassioned repentance from his executioners. Without a word on their part, he said: "Father, forgive them."

What, then, is God like? Jesus said God is like a shepherd who, when one sheep has strayed from the flock and is lost, goes out to find it and bring it back. "There will be joy in heaven," said Jesus, "over one sinner who repents." Our God is one who longs to forgive his children - all of them - so that they can be in fellowship with him. "Nothing in all creation," said the apostle Paul, "can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." That's the good news of the Christian faith. That is its central theme and message.

But there is another word in the New Testament that we dare not ignore - a devastating, chilling word. And it is spoken by the same Jesus who revealed that divine love always reaches out in mercy and compassion to God's sinful, rebellious children. According to our Lord, there is a sin which cannot be forgiven. It is described in Matthew 12 where these are recorded as the words of Jesus:

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.


If that statement brings any of us up short, causing us to catch our breath, have no doubt that such was Jesus' intention. I know that there are those who suggest that it is not to be taken literally but should be understood as an example of overstatement, a teaching device that our Lord used on occasion to get people's attention and to emphasize the importance of his message. You remember how he said one time, referring to the necessity for his followers to undergo a radical change in their allegiances, that no one could become his disciple who did not hate their father and mother. Or the other occasion when, referring to the insidious nature of sin, Jesus said, "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, and if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out." Those statements are clearly exaggerations meant to emphasize the importance of the principle involved.

But Jesus' statement about an unforgivable sin seems equally clearly to be of a different nature. There can be no doubt that for our Lord it was not a case of exaggeration. There is indeed a kind of sin that even God, who is more eager to forgive than we are to seek forgiveness, cannot forgive. The question is: What did Jesus mean when he referred to "blasphemy against the Spirit," which, he said, will not be forgiven?

The answer, of course, points us to "the Spirit," and raises another question: What, or who, is the Holy Spirit? What is it that the Spirit does in our lives and in the world? Is it not at least part of the function of the Holy Spirit to bring God's truth to human life, to enlighten where there is darkness, to convict where there is sin, to empower where there is weakness, and to inspire and encourage where there is doubt and fear? The Holy Spirit is God present with us to enable us to walk in the ways of truth and righteousness.

But God the Holy Spirit does not compel! The Spirit leads. The Spirit encourages. The Spirit nudges, and may even push a bit, yet we always have the freedom to resist and to reject God's leading. We always have the liberty to deny God access to our lives. And what if that is exactly what we do? What if we do it so habitually that it becomes a pattern? And now, instead of being open to God's way and feeling guilty when we fail to walk in it, we are closed to it. What if what God wants in our lives and in the world no longer matters to us in the least? So absorbed are we with what we want, fulfilling our own desires, and doing our own thing, that anything else does not even enter into our considerations. Now the promptings of the Holy Spirit fall on ears that no longer hear or accept the truth. When that happens, I believe, a person has committed the unforgivable sin.

It is unforgivable, not because God could not forgive it if we repented, and even before we repented, but because we are not in the least concerned about any sin and we are not going to repent. For us there is no sin involved. There is no wrongdoing of which we are guilty. So long has the wrong been part of our lives that it seems right, good, and natural. There is nothing for which to repent, and, hence, there can be no forgiveness.

Do you see it - why sin against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable? We no longer see an action, a motive, a desire, a failure as sinful. God's will in the matter, God's desire, God's purpose, is not important to us. So long have we persisted in doing what we want that nothing else matters. We won't repent because we're convinced we have not sinned.

If you understand that that's exactly how sin sometimes works in human life, then you will understand why Jesus said something so drastic as, "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off!" Of course! Wherever there is sin, get rid of it immediately and at all costs, lest, persisting in it, you become calloused, hardened. Then even Almighty God is rendered powerless. For how can the One who longs to bring the healing of divine forgiveness to our lives give us something we refuse to accept?

Have any of us here today committed the unforgivable sin? Ultimately, of course, only God knows that. What I know is that if in you now there is a sense of need for God, a longing to be closer to God, and an earnest desire to have anything that blocks fellowship with God stripped from your life, not only is the forgiveness of God still available, but in this very hour it will be given you as a gift. You need only accept and then rejoice in the newness it will bring!