BLASPHEMY

BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Matt. 12:31-32 ¶ “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

Recently, one of the leaders in the supposed evangelical community began attacking charismatics again. It’s the same old cessationist drivel, the day of miracles is over. The age of miracles ended with the apostles they say. The mouthpiece this time is John McArthur. He is ratcheting it up a notch saying that the works of the Spirit are actually demonic. This is nothing new. The Pharisees said the same thing about the ministry of Jesus. They said He was healing the sick and casting out devils by the power of the devil. In the time of Jonathan Edwards there were ministers making the same claims as McArthur and Pharisees of every generation. They were saying the Great Awakening was the work of the devil. Goen spoke about this in his study of Jonathan Edwards in Yale’s Great Awakening series. Here are some of his comments about Edwards’ sermon called Distinguishing Marks of Revival.

“Edwards warned against doing ‘anything in the least to clog or hinder’ the revival. To oppose it is not only to fight against God, thereby invoking on oneself many terrible penalties, but to fall in peril of committing the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. In hurling such a harsh warning against the anti-revivalists, he had in mind Matthew 12:22–32, which reports that Jesus performed a miracle and his enemies, recognizing that his work was of God but unwilling to confess it so, attributed it to the Devil. Jesus denounced their sin as unpardonable, not because it was wicked blasphemy against the Father or unknowing rejection of the Son—these were forgivable—but because it was a perverse refusal to confess the spiritual reality they clearly perceived. Edwards warned that men who contemptuously resist the present work of spiritual renewal may be coming dangerously close to such a judgment. “Those that maliciously oppose and reproach this work, and call it the work of the Devil, lack but one thing of the unpardonable sin, and that is doing it against inward conviction.'”

Actually I am not surprised by the attacks. Charismatic/Pentecostal Christianity is doing quite well in various parts of the world. The only thing that is unfortunate is McArthur’s attempt at throwing the indiscretions of a few as the norm and the evidence of heresy. There are bad apples in every movement. There are charismatic/Pentecostal missionaries and ministers living a godly life and ministering to the poor and suffering all over the world. I am proud to be Pentecostal. I am not ashamed of the power of the Spirit in my life and church.