Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 12:31

"Therefore I say unto you, Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven." — Matthew 12:31 (ASV)

The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost

A better translation is against the Spirit, as the word “Holy” is not found in any authoritative manuscripts. The question of the nature of this terrible sin, which is excluded from forgiveness, has naturally occupied the thoughts of many. So we ask, what is this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?

1. The context helps us understand something of its nature. The Pharisees were warned against a sin they were drawing dangerously near. To condemn the Christ as a gluttonous man and a wine-drinker, for breaking the Sabbath, or for blaspheming when He said, Thy sins be forgiven thee, was to speak a word against the Son of Man. These offenses might be sins of ignorance, implying nothing more than narrowness and prejudice.

   But to see a person delivered from the power of Satan to God, to watch the work of the Spirit of God, and then to attribute that work to the power of evil—this was to be completely out of sympathy with goodness and mercy. For such a person, there was no possibility of repentance and therefore no possibility of forgiveness. The capacity for goodness in any form was destroyed by this kind of antagonism.

2. We cannot say—and our Lord does not say—that the Pharisees had actually committed this sin, but they were drifting toward it. Regarding later times, we can say that this is the ultimate stage of antagonism toward God and His truth: when the clearest proofs of divine power and goodness are distorted into evidence that the power is evil. Human nature, in that utmost debasement, has identified itself with the nature of the devil and must share its doom.