Sins against the Holy Spirit
So, since the sin is against the Holy Spirit, let’s consider what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit has been sent as a comfort and a teacher. It takes time and patience and practice for most of us to learn to hear the Holy Spirit. And one of the things that the Holy Spirit does is tell us to repent. How does the Holy Spirit tell us to repent? Sometimes the signal comes from outside of ourselves. It’s heard where there is suffering, oppression, and fear. When we see or hear people that say they are suffering, that is a sign that we’re getting something wrong and need to start looking for a better way of doing things. When we ignore those who are suffering, we are ignoring the Holy Spirit calling us to repentance. And just like in our own lives, we do not always know how to do what we know we should be doing, we at least need to recognize that it is sin. A solution may be a long way off, but in the meantime, we still need to repent. Other times the Holy Spirit tells us to repent by making us uncomfortable with what we are doing. Sometimes we know that our discomfort indicates sin. And we need to repent when that happens, even if you don’t know how to change or don’t think you can. God understands that even doing our best we will fall short which is why He declared sin a non-issue for those who repent. Unfortunately, many of us assume that our discomfort is something to overcome. We’ve been told that something is supposed to work a certain way, but there is something deep in us that knows its wrong. But because we think we know how its supposed to work, we ignore the Spirit deep in us that is screaming out “no!”
So, I would posit that the sin against the Holy Spirit is when we do something that we know is wrong or causes pain and suffering or support things that are wrong and cause pain and suffering but will not repent. If we know its wrong, and we do it anyways without repenting even in our own hearts, that is a sin that God can not forgive. For all practical purposes, we are choosing to do evil and are committed to it. It can’t be forgiven because it has been willfully held back from Jesus’ offer of forgiveness. And if we do it while pointing to God, don’t think that He will understand. God wants us to know Him and when we willfully reject His way which is love and ascribe it to Him, we rejecting Him as He is in favor of god as we would have Him be. The good news is that any sin can be repented of whether it can be fixed or not. There is no sin which is automatically a sin against the Holy Spirit. But we must beware because the sins we are least likely to repent of are the ones we commit when we blame God for our actions and attitudes. In order to avoid this sin, we Christians would do well to take the safe route of unconditional love for all people. When we get good enough at that, perhaps we can be trusted to try our hand at showing others the way to go. Because if we make a mistake out of an abundance of love, that is an easy sin to repent of. At least that’s my theory. 😉