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

458
Matthew XII. 31, 32.
this impression. He who opposes himself to the melting power of
such a revelation, sins heinously ; yet by perfect holiness, and its
fear-inspiring impression, the hardening produced thereby may yet
be overcome ; but where this also is rejected, there is spiritual deatK
We wholly lose the point of view necessary to a right understanding
of the passage, in understanding the Holy Spirit {-nvevfia ayiov) only
of the general power of God manifested in miracles.*" It is incon-
ceivable how, in the non-recognition of such a power, creating
merely an impression of might, an unpardonable sin should be com-
and the more, as evil miracles also have been performed by
mitted ;
satanic! agency, and these so deceptive, that they would have de-
ceived, were it possible, even the elect (Matth. xxiv. 24). Nay, it
is here that forgiveness seems to find its appropriate sphere. The
TTvevfjba djLov in our passage is the highest revelation of God, as the
absolutely Holy and Perfect One. In so far, then, as in the per-
son of Jesus, the Godhead dwelt, and Father, Son, and Spirit are
inseparably united, the depravity of men, might, according to their
degree of culture, in sinning against him, sin against Father, Son,
and Spirit, according as they perseveringiy resisted the eifect of
divine power, love, and holiness which proceed from him. On the
other hand, purity of heart, coupled with an equal advance in knowledge,
might, through him, receive Father, Son, and Spirit. But
where the mind was wholly blind to that higher revelation of the
Divine in humanity, which appeared in Christ Jesus, there could
one still believe that he saw in Jesus a prophet or a righteous man
of the former dispensation, and receive from him the blessing which
was adapted to his grade of culture. Thus our Redeemer became
all things to all men ;
to the pure in heart, a dispenser of blessings
for every grade of their development ; to the impure a reproving
Judge, first, to lead them to repentance ; and then to judgment,
when their obduracy had closed the way to repentance (Luke ii. 34).
It is manifest, then, that the sin against the Holy Ghost can be
also committed now ; for since the Divinity in Christ manifests it-
self continually in the church, sin, in individual men, even where
there is the highest degree of knowledge, may oppose itself to his
beneficent influence. Otherwise either the period to which the possible
commission of this sin was confined, seems left in obscurity, or our
Lord deals with it with an extraordinary severity. But if, as fre-
quently happens with persons who are touched by the power of
grace, earnest repentance is accompanied with the idea that they
may have committed the sin againt the Holy Ghost, and be thereby
excluded from forgiveness—a thought which on sensitive spirits may
f Tlvev/ia liyiov has always a reference to what ia moral. The notion of mere power
occupies a subordinate place in it. But nvevfia by itself signifies, for instance in Matth.
xii. 28, power only with reference to its higher origin.