SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/12/2022 8:58 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “The
Anathema”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
12:31-32
Message of the verses: “31 “Therefore I
say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy
against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 “Whoever speaks a word against the
Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy
Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age
to come.”
I believe that the best thing that I can do as I
begin this Spiritual Diary is to quote a couple of paragraphs from John
MacArthur’s commentary. I do this often
because I want those who read these Spiritual Diaries to understand the truths
that I am putting out there, and that these truths will bring glory to the
Lord.
“It was hard even for the disciples to keep clearly in
mind that their Teacher was indeed the Son of God. He ate, drank, slept, and became tired just
as they did. Not only that, but many of
the things He did simply did not seem to reflect God’s glory and majesty. Jesus continually humbled Himself and served
others. He took no earthly glory for
Himself, and when others tried to thrust it on Him, He refused to receive it—as
when the crowd wanted to make Him king after He miraculously fed the five thousand
(John 6:15). It was even more difficult
for those outside Jesus’ inner circle to appreciate His deity. Even when He performed His greatest miracles,
He did so without fanfare or flare.
Jesus did not always look or act like even a human lord, much less like
the divine Lord.
But to misjudge, belittle, and discredit Jesus from the
vantage point of incomplete revelation or inadequate perception was forgivable,
wrong as it was. As already mentioned,
the apostle Paul had himself been an ignorant blasphemer of the Lord Jesus
Christ of the worst sort and fierce persecutor of His church. And many of those who had denied and rejected
Christ during His earthly ministry later saw the truth of who He was and asked
forgiveness and were saved.”
Now
we must move into the heart of what we have wanted to understand from these
passages, and that is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the unpardonable
sin. So we realize now that it was wrong
but not unpardonable to blaspheme our Lord, but the blasphemy against the
Spirit was something more serious and beyond repair. It not only reflected unbelief but it
determined unbelief as the refusal, after having seen all the evidence
necessary to complete understand, even to consider believing in Christ. Once again we have to understand that it was
the Holy Spirit who was the One working through our Lord while He was on earth,
the same Holy Spirit that works in the hearts of unbelievers in order to give
them an effectual call for salvation and then comes into the new believer as a
down payment of salvation. It is the
same Holy Spirit that fills us and leads us and causes us to understand the
Word of God, the same Holy Spirit who directs us onto the things that were
planned for us to do before the earth was formed. I see this truth in Ephesians 2:10 “For we
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would
walk in them.”
This was blasphemy against Jesus in His deity, against
the Spirit of God who uniquely indwelt and empowered Our Lord while He was on
earth. It reflected determined rejection
of Jesus as the Messiah against every evidence and argument. This reflected seeing the truth incarnate and
then knowingly rejecting Jesus as condemning Him. It demonstrated an absolute and permanent
refusal to believe, which resulted in loss of opportunity ever to be forgiven…either
in this age, or in the age to come. Through
this age which is all human history, such rejection is unforgivable. Now the age to come implies that through all
eternity there will be no forgiveness.
In the age of human history and in the age of divine consummation, no
forgiveness.
This may not be the best place to stop, but what we
are looking at is no baby food when it comes to the Scriptures and so we can
only take a little bit at a time.
2/12/2022 9:28 AM
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