Blaspheming the Holy Spirit

Hi Mrs. C, when you get a chance, could you please help me understand this? I randomly came across the scripture in my Bible study yesterday after speaking with a friend about the seriousness of blasphemy but why does it say that blasphemy against the son of man a.k.a. Jesus would be forgiven with every other sin IS forgivable, yet blasphemy against ‘the Spirit’ is unforgivable? My Dad used to teach us that blasphemy is the one and only unforgivable sin. Yesterday, I was sharing that with a friend of mine and then boom out of nowhere this scripture popped up in the middle of my Bible

Hmmmm……. Let me think this through…..

Jesus, described as son of man, is the human flesh incarnation of God. In becoming the son of man, however, he set aside some of his divinity for a time… specifically, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence.  He could have reclaimed any and all of those anytime he chose, but he chose to set them aside to fully live into his purpose for coming, to be the ultimate atonement for the sin of each of us, that we might have freedom from the penalty of sin, which is death.

Some believe in him, some don’t.  Some believe in him as a good teacher/prophet/moral example, while not accepting him as the divine incarnation of the Godhead.  Those who have doubted him can be forgiven for their lack of assurance, it would seem.

But belief in Jesus as The Christ, the Incarnate God, HOLY of HOLIES, Alpha and Omega, can only be known to one by the witness of the Holy Spirit, which is what Jesus said to Peter in Caesarea when Jesus asked ‘”who do you say I am?”  Jesus, still in his “son of man”human habitation on earth, knew that the Holy Spirit had come upon Peter for Peter to be able to give that answer,  the Holy Spirit having been  sent by God the Father upon Peter for that specific purpose – to testify to the reality of Jesus’ identity, just as the Holy Spirit came upon individuals throughout the OT, to serve God’s purpose in the moment, but not to reside permanently.  Jesus would appear to his disciples three times in this post-Resurrection theophany state. The first time, on the day of his resurrection, he himself breathed on them and said “receive the Holy Spirit.”  He had, it is clear, through his resurrection regained all of his divine power, including the power of granting of the Holy Spirit, upon his followers.  It would not be until after Christ’s Ascension and after the Resurrected and Jesus Christ had made himself known to his disciples in his new, resurrected theophany three times that they would experience, “something more”.  I can imagine that during those 10 days after the Ascension and before Pentecost they were being reminded by the Holy Spirit of all the things Jesus had told them in the light of their new understanding of the Resurrection.  It was then, at Pentecost, 10 days after the Ascension, that the fire of the Holy Spirit manifested and they all received activation of the gifts of the Spirit, the power to communicate the Gospel in languages that could be understood by all in attendance in Jerusalem and, in Peter’s case, the gift of interpretation and bold exhortation, evangelism, etc. To claim to have the  blessing of spiritual gifts  of the Holy Spirit, but deny the divinity of Christ means that one is operating under an unholy spirit, which is what Jesus said of the Pharisees, who were so hardened against him that they could not have had the true Holy Spirit.  He called them children of the devil.  To deny the divinity of the Resurrected Jesus- is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit —to abuse him, reject him, deny the reality of him, or misrepresent him to others for personal gain, whose primary work is to point one to the truth of Jesus as The Incarnate Christ.  If you are hardened against the truth of Jesus’ Incarnate nature, rejecting the Holy Spirit urgings, you will, ultimately also reject the divinity of Jesus Christ, though one may have a heartfelt affection for Jesus as a good teacher, prophet, and godly example and think they “believe in him.”