28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—30 for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.” Mk 3:28–30.
We all know people who were kind, polite and generous and we would hardly recognize today.
10 years ago, these people would have never justified pedophilia, ugly vulgarity, racism, masked thugs in the city.
And we wonder what happened? How can that sweet and kind man who meant so much to me tolerate and justify so much evil?
This will be a provocative post, and that is not at all my intention. My intention is far more serious than to simply provoke a reaction. My intention is to warn; and if even one person will jolt awake, it will be worth it.
I would like to take you back to a story that never made sense to me until recently. It is told in all the gospels.
Jesus is going from town to town treating everyone with kindness and dignity. He is casting out ugly demons, healing the sick, restoring the soul, giving water and wine to the thirsty, feeding the hungry, making friends with sinners.
And there are certain people who hate him more and more every day. He reasons with them, he shows them his works of kindness and beauty, and they find one excuse after another to reject his wholeness and beauty and attack him.
Their attacks become more and more illogical and ridiculous.
As a side note, the Bible assumes a supernatural worldview, which I accept. I believe that the demons that were being cast out were real. And they were evil and ugly and full of hatred, vulgarity and lies. Jesus said that they were full of murder and lies. But when he came, he conquered that ugly kingdom and took away their power.
Now he is going from town to town delivering people from that bondage.
And the ones who hated him came up with the most ridiculous and obviously ludicrous arguments to continue to hate. As long as the sinners were getting what was coming to them, they were OK with their own demons.
“He isn’t healing the right sort of people”
“He isn’t healing on the right day”
“He isn’t in our group and he will lead people away from us”
And the story that I’m focusing on now is this one:
“He is demon possessed himself and is using Beelzebub’s power to cast out demons.”
If you were there watching this, you would easily see how ludicrous that argument was.
People went from naked to clothed. From ranting and foaming, to sitting and in their right mind. From anger and twisted bodies to sanity and kindness. From hatred to love. From terrifying to safe.
Just a quick glance would demonstrate that Jesus’ work was not the work of a demon.
It didn’t even make sense. Why would Satan attack his own kingdom??
And then Jesus talks about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
This passage has caused much anxiety, mostly due to poor application. Almost everything I heard and read about this passage – even in the footnotes in most study bibles – it says something like this:
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is ascribing the work of the Holy Spirit to the power of demons.
Well, sort of. Except that it is a little deeper than that.
Jesus’ statement isn’t a statement about the one-time event that caused the scribes to say the stupid things. We all are guilty of making stupid statements.
I used to be so tied up in knots thinking that if I said a stupid thing, I might be guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
But then I looked at the whole passage in the context of the whole book.
Jesus isn’t talking about a one-time thing. He is talking about a progressive pattern.
Let’s talk about the Spirit. According to the Bible, the Spirit is the power of God bringing order to creation. He is also a person, the third of the Holy Trinity. He brings order, beauty, wisdom, skill, love and all of the gifts ascribed to him, and more.
Paul says that his “fruit” is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control.
Everything that is beautiful, everything that is orderly, kind, loving, gentle and good is from the Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son.
But hate entered the world through the fall of man. And hateful people reject those gifts over and over again, especially if they benefit the objects of their hatred.
Cain hated Abel and refused the wisdom from God, ending in the murder of his brother.
Applying the doctrine of the Spirit to the text, Jesus showed those gifts of the Spirit again and again. He was “filled with the spirit” and practiced the fruits of the spirit consistently and everywhere he went. And instead of rejoicing and celebrating that gift, his enemies were filled with hate, and this hatred caused them to reject the Spirit of Goodness every time.
If they accepted the beauty of Jesus, they would have to accept the humanity of publicans and sinners.
If they accepted the beauty of Jesus, they would have to accept the humanity of foreigners. Of women. Of slaves. Of Romans.
This they could not do. So they rejected the Spirit of wisdom, love, order, beauty and life.
Jesus’s warning was this: If you continue down this path, the Spirit will be taken away completely, and then what will you do? Your wisdom, kindness, beauty and love will be taken away from you. God will give you what you choose. You want ugliness, insanity and hatred, soon you will be incapable of anything else. It is eternal sin.
King David understood the problem. He rejected order and beauty when he raped Bathsheba but pleaded “Don’t take your spirit from me”. He listened to the prophet and turned away from the path he was on.
He could have easily blamed her, like the modern preacher. “Well, what was she doing bathing in public?” (which isn’t what happened, but reason doesn’t come into it.) But David knew what would happen if he continued to “blaspheme the Spirit.” Soon that Spirit would be taken away, and all that would be left would be ruin. When you choose hate and destruction against every prompting of the Spirit, soon that is all that you have left.
Since 2016, I have watched with anger and sorrow, wondering if there would be a bottom that our president could reach that would cause my formerly Christian friends to reject him.
Bragging about walking in on naked teenagers? Nope.
Grabbing women by the genitalia? Nope
Blatant racism? Nope
Mocking the disabled? Nope.
Daily, obvious lies? Nope.
I asked a hard core MAGA man if there was anything Trump could do that would lose his support. I asked it, because I knew that there was no depth that Trump would not go, and I was hoping to wake him up. But the frog boils gradually.
Trump knew this when he said at Dordt College in 2016 that he could murder a man on Manhattan Ave. and his base would still support him
And each day, we sink further and further into the black hole of blasphemy against the Spirit. The Spirit continues to call us back to decency, but so many continue to make excuse after excuse.
And each day, we reach a new low.
Pedophilia? Nope
“Quiet Piggy”? Nope.
Hosting Al Qaida in the Oval Office?
Enriching himself at the expense of the poor?
Breaking every covenant we’ve made with nations and people?
Breaking his vows to uphold the constitution?
Nope, nope and nope.
He isn’t even pretending to hide it anymore.
I now believe that Trump could rape a child on Manhattan Ave and his base would still support him.
“Perfect people are in heaven” said a MAGA representative today.
The Spirit has given us ample warning. He hasn’t kept his fruits a secret from mankind. Love, joy, peace? Are those evident?
Obviously not.
For 30 years, the church has inculcated hatred from the pulpits, from right wing radio, from Fox News. They started little by little.
Sure, Rush Limbaugh was crude and vulgar, but he hates the same people I do. He sure knows how to own the libs.
Sure, Trump is a rapist and pedophile, but Hilary was worse. But Biden and the laptop.
But ABORTION…
And when we will not give up hatred, we become more and more hardened, until soon we have no decency, no goodness, no love, no patience.
And no joy. There is no joy left any more. The Spirit has been blasphemed and is taking away his gifts.
There is a scene in the sitcom “Friends” where Ross is briefly dating Janice, an extremely whiny, nasally character. Ross was in a very dark place and was continually complaining about his life, when Janice dumps him for being too whiny.
Ross has a jarring awakening. “I’m too whiny for Janice?” And he changes direction.
This is what I pray for everyone who still claims to love Jesus and supports this president.
What will it take for you to turn around? or is it already too late?
I cannot imagine a further atrocity other than what he has already done, so what will it take?
This is a warning. It is for your very soul.
My Only Comfort 