Systematic Theology/Historical Theology Bundle

But when sin is punished, God is showing himself to be a righteous judge over all, and justice is being done in his universe.

Paul realizes that if Christ had not come to pay the penalty for sins, God could not be shown to be righteous. Because he had passed over sins and not punished them in the past, people could rightly accuse God of unrighteousness, the assumption being that a God who does not punish sins is not a righteous God.

The primary reason is that God’s righteousness demands it, so that he might be glorified in the universe that he has created.

First John 5:16 – 17, however, seems to fall in another category. That passage does not speak of a sin that can never be forgiven, but rather about a sin that, if persisted in, will lead to death. This sin seems to involve the teaching of serious doctrinal error about Christ. In the context of asking in faith according to God’s will (1 John 5:14 – 15) John simply tells us that he does not say that we can pray in faith for God simply to forgive that sin unless the person repents — but he certainly does not prohibit praying that the heretical teachers would turn from their heresy and repent and thereby find forgiveness. Many people who teach serious doctrinal error have still not gone so far as to commit the unpardonable sin and bring on themselves the impossibility of repentance and faith by their own hardness of heart.

not in doubting the truth, nor in a sinful denial of it but in a contradiction of it that goes contrary to the conviction of the mind, to the illumination of the conscience, and even to the verdict of the heart.

But Jesus’ statement that “every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men” (Matt. 12:31) is so general that it seems unwarranted to say it is only referring to something that could only happen during his lifetime — the texts in question do not specify such a restriction. Moreover, Hebrews 6:4 – 6 is speaking of apostasy that has occurred a number of years after Jesus returned to heaven.

The fact that the unpardonable sin involves such extreme hardness of heart and lack of repentance indicates that those who fear they have committed it, yet still have sorrow for sin in their heart and desire to seek after God, certainly do not fall in the category of those who are guilty of it

In such a case the hardness of heart would be so great that any ordinary means of bringing a sinner to repentance would already have been rejected. Persuasion of the truth will not work, for these people have already known the truth and have willfully rejected it. Demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit to heal and bring life will not work, for they have seen it and rejected it. In this case it is not that the sin itself is so horrible that it could not be covered by Christ’s redemptive work, but rather that the sinner’s hardened heart puts him or her beyond the reach of God’s ordinary means of bringing forgiveness through repentance and trusting Christ for salvation. The sin is unpardonable because it cuts off the sinner from repentance and saving faith through belief in the truth.

slanderously attributing the work of the Holy Spirit in Christ to the power of Satan.

willful rejection of the facts about Christ that his opponents knew to be true