Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Mark 3:29

"but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin:" — Mark 3:29 (ASV)

Jesus follows this story with a solemn pronouncement: forgiveness is available for all the sins and blasphemies of humans except for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. What is that sin? Verse 30 suggests an explanation. Jesus had done what any unprejudiced person would have acknowledged as a good thing. He had freed an unfortunate man from the power and bondage of evil through the power of the Holy Spirit, but the teachers of the law ascribed it to the power of Satan. To call light darkness or good evil or Jesus’ work satanic because of prejudice in one’s heart is the worst sin of all.

The words of v.29 have caused great anxiety and pain in the history of the church. Many have wondered whether they have committed the “unpardonable sin.” Surely what Jesus is speaking of here is not an isolated act but a settled condition of the soul—the result of a long history of repeated and willful acts of sin through hardness of heart (cf. 3:5). On the other hand, any who are troubled about this sin give evidence that they have not committed it. If the person involved cannot be forgiven, it is not so much that God refuses to forgive as it is the sinner who refuses to allow him.