In Matthew Chapter 12 there is mentioned a sin which will not be forgiven. “Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven.” ¹. Doesn’t God forgive all sin though? Well, The Catechism teaches “There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.” ².
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not speaking of a singular act. Instead, it is talking about (for lack of a better term) a willful hardening of one’s heart. God in his perfect love has not only given us free will but also a choice. Compelled by the Holy Spirit we can accept the gift offered to us by Christ’s death on the cross or we can decide we’ve got this handle. We can decide that somehow our solution to our fallen nature is better than the creators. The one who knows our hearts better than anyone and why? Because when we follow our hearts we find the immediate goods of the world. We would rather have money, comfort, entertainment, etc. then find the ultimate goods of Christ.
That’s something that is lost on us. We get caught up in the easy joys of this world. We give money to a cashier or put in our credit card info and boom we receive an immediate good. With Christ, we are expected to pray, go to church, avoid sin, go to confession, read the bible, and a whole list of other things. It just seems like so much work. Here’s the catch though. Those immediate goods that we enjoy so much. They’re wonderful things. God would not create anything that didn’t have an inherent goodness to it. They don’t compare to his ultimate good and if you watch the news you know our world is broken. These things that were created for good we have in our fallen state twisted them towards evil.
That’s why following Christ is so difficult. The compulsions bestowed upon us by the Holy Spirit are not to make things difficult but rather to prepare us for the ultimate good. The good in which everything is rightly ordered as intended by God. Yet time and time again we blaspheme against the Holy Spirit by saying that’s too much work when we know what’s at the end is better than what we have now. We blaspheme against the Holy Spirit every time we choose our wants over what God knows we need.
Please don’t blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Christ died on the cross so that he could pay the wages for our sins. Accept the Holy Spirit’s gift to you so that you may be brought into the ultimate good. Not one that is fleeting as we have now but one that is eternal. The deadline is the day of your death. The day on which you will have accepted Christ or your heart has hardened to the point of eternal loss.
¹Matthew 12:31
²CCC 1864