Blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:22-32; COD Head 5: Art 6; RE 4)

Jesus is confronted with a situation where He heals a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute. The Pharisees, seeing this miracle, accuse Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons.

The Pharisees are spiritually blind.  The pharisees  in their religious pride and self-righteousness, are unable to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ ministry. These men slander the work of the Holy Spirit by attributing it to Satan.  They do this despite the clear  working of God in their midst.  So they willfully, and consciously attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan.

The "unpardonable sin" is not a specific act but an ongoing, hardened stance of slandering the work of the Spirit when the Spirit’s work is overwhelming evident.The seriousness of this sin is attributing God’s work to evil, showing how it reflects a heart that is closed off to the Spirit’s transformative power.

Affirming the Sovereign God (James 4:11-17)

James wants us to consider our lives in light of who we are in the Lord.  We might think that this is obvious and something that we should all be doing.  However, the reality is that our temptation is to look at the areas in our lives that we think are ordered properly and then judge others in the community in light of our walk.  Why is this such a problem?  How does such an attitude remove God from the equation?  How are we then acting as if we are not even Christians when we judge one another?