Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

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Matthew XII. 31, 32.
self dark, and stands in connexion with other difficult doctrines,.
e. g. with the doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost. Nor can diffi-
cnltics such as these be removed by means of grammatical and phi-
each one solves them in accordance with his own
lological enquiries ;
fundamental views. The right explanation of such a passage neces-
sarily involves sympathy with the Spirit of Christ ; without this it
will be inevitably misunderstood. After a comparison of Heb. vi.
4, seq. ; x. 26, seq. ; 1 John v. 16, we must, in the first place, dis-
card aU such views as would limit the sin against the Holy Grhost
by such relations of place and time, as to render it impossible to be
either previously or subsequently committed.* In the second place
we must discard such explanations as weaken the moral import of
the words, by affixing to the words, " that the sin against the Holy
Ghost cannot be forgiven" (notwithstanding the addition, " neither
in this world nor in that which is to come") the meanmg : that it
can be forgiven with greater difficulty than other sins. Finally, the
Christian expositor must likewise discard every explanation of this
remarkable passage which understands, by the sin against the Holy
Ghost, an act detached from the whole moral condition of the in-
dividual sinning ; it must always be considered as the fruit of a
previous sinful course of life. As the first two modes of exposition
destroy the profound meaning of the word of God, and connect the
most important moral relations with special localities on the one
hand, and indefinite language on the other ; so the latter view
evidently leads into errors which perplex the conscience, inasmuch
as some unfortunate man, in an unguarded moment of his hfe, may
easily be plunged into a sin which somewhere, and at some time,
has been explained as meaning the sin against the Holy Ghost. As
regards, now, the biblical exposition itself, the passages already
quoted (Heb. vi. 4, seq. x. 26 ; 1 John v. 16) lead us to think of a
fearful progress in sin, in which man is as little inchned to believe,
as in that advance in moral goodness, which is taught in the doctrine
of Christian sanctification {diKacoavvr] rov Qeov). For although
the phrase : blaspheme against the Holy Ghost {(iXao(f)'qfjidv elg to
-nvevf^a to dyiov) is wanting in those passages, and in fact the matter at
issue is diflerent, the question being there of the loss of spiritual life
already received, here of the refusal to receive it ;t yet the compari-
* Who does not here recall to mind the strange definition which Reinhard gives of
the sin against the Holy Ghost, in his Dogmatik, S. 321 : Delictum quorundam Judaeorum
(I) qui summa pertinacia ducti, rairacula Jesu, quorum evidentiam negare non poter-
ant, a diabolo proficisci criminabantur. " The crime of certain Jews, who, in their per-
verseneti9, charged that the miracles of Jesus, which tliey could not deny, proceeded from the
deviV This exposition is so much the more unsuitable, as the gospel history does not at
all. tell that the Pharisees who used this language (Matth. xii. 24) had committed the sin
against the Holy Ghost ; it appeared only possible that they might commit it ; and it is
against this that Jesus warns them.
f Liicke remarks on 1 John v. 16 (S. 233) that the sin against the Holy Ghost is a
y