THE BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
“Blessed is he whose strength and delight is in the Lord.”
(John 20: 30) “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
This Scripture is intended to open the eyes of law-keeping Pharisees evidence of the Divine Sonship of Jesus. The Pharisees were so pride-filled about keeping their 613 laws (which includes the ten commandments) they did not want to believe that this man Jesus could be their long awaited Messiah.
Jesus also performed many miracles for them so that He could prove ( beyond any reasonable doubt ) that He was the One who had been clearly spoken of by the prophets. BUT – still they refused to see the truth.
He was demon possessed they said, not just by any old demon, but by the prince of demons “Beelzebub” “The Lord of the flies”. “How could this man be the Messiah if He is demon possessed” they argued amongst themselves; and so, they rejected Him on that basis and thereby committed the unpardonable sin – The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
This was the judgment He pronounced upon the Jewish Nation that day.
LET IT BE UNDERSTOOD VERY CLEARLY – It was for that time in the history of the Jewish nation and not for us today. (Matthew 12)
Further John 20:30 does not make provision to engage in extra-biblical activity but confirms Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus Christ proved He was the Messiah by providing ample demonstration to the unbelieving Jews by way of His miracles. If you are accused of committing the unpardonable sin – the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit – when with Bible in hand you stand against extra-biblical phenomena, you can see it was a national sin and not an individual one. Today all sins can be forgiven (past present and future) to anyone who comes to accept Jesus as Lord over their lives. We are saved by faith in 1 Corinthians 15: 1-4 through God’s grace – plus nothing.
To excuse extra-biblical activity (John 21:25) has also been used to validate varied extravagances of mystical experiences.
….”Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”
It was interesting to discover that following the arrival of this particular manuscript in the British Museum it was subjected to ultraviolet ray treatment. This has revealed beyond dispute that the scribe who wrote the manuscript originally omitted this verse and brought his writing to an end after verse 24. Later he erased the concluding ornamental colophon, added verse 25, and inserted a fresh colophon after it. There is evidence that the scribe who copied the original manuscript inserted verse 25 and the opinion is that it is from another authority. It is considered to be unlikely that the original omission would have been accidental. see 26
As there is evidence that the Gospel may have circulated for a time without this verse, it may be, that it was added by the scribe who first copied and bound the four Gospels together in codex or book form. When he had come to the end of his task it may be he would think the Gospel of John and the other Gospels contained only fragmentary selections of the doings and sayings of Jesus. He may have been moved to give playful expression to his observations in the somewhat grandiose statement of this verse.
Surely the person who made the decision to add (V 25 to John 21) wanted to demonstrate by forceful description a demonstration of our Saviour’s life and provide further confirmation He was the Son of God. 27. It is an “hyperbole” a word whose Greek roots give us clear understanding, meaning “an overshooting, or excess”. An extravagant overstatement used for emphasis and not meant to be taken literally.
When looked at this from either perspective there was never was any intention by John the Apostle that people would use this Scripture to justify the excesses of experience.
The bottom line should be – “Is this spiritual experience biblical or not biblical?”
If God’s people in John’s day had trembled and shaken and fallen over backwards this would have been recorded. It has not been recorded and this has to be our protection.
The happenings of the establishment of the church at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was released to the whole world (both to Jews and Gentiles) fifty days after Jesus was resurrected and ten days following His ascension provided a dramatic background to address an international audience with the prophetic word; spoken by the prophet Joel and to be fulfilled during the Great Tribulation and the confirmation that all that Jesus said about Himself was true. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). The Holy Spirit evidenced His presence by enabling those present to speak in languages unknown to them “Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotania, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs – we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:10-11).
Peter confirms also (Acts 2:33) that Jesus provided the authority for the release of the Holy Spirit which resulted in the expression of true ethnic languages (Acts 2:6) which were understood by a huge international assembly.
So began the birthday of the church age . We are still in the age of the Church and this will end with the Rapture of the church saints (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). The Rapture will come at some time prior to “the day of the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 5). Jesus will arrive in the atmospheric heavens and all born again believers will rise and in a moment of recognition we will be with Him in the clouds.
Do not confuse the great hope of Christians’ with 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11 for this Scripture refers to “The day of the Lord” or Great Tribulation.
The cultural diversity of faithful men and women provided the colour and spiritual depth under the control of a Mighty and Awesome God to faithfully record the powerfully precious Words contained within the pages of the Bible we know today. They must be taken as authoritative direction for our very lives.
(Psalm 1: 2-3)… “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. he is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.”
Note too that the first word is “blessed”. This can be seen as a Beatitude as in the Sermon on the Mount.
We are blessed if we keep His testimonies and seek him with our whole heart. If we put our trust in Him and He chastens us we know we are blessed because God disciplines those He loves.
What is the disposition of our heart? Jesus said, “The pure in heart……shall see God.”
Jesus promised that when we accept him as the Saviour of our souls, He will invade our personality in such a way that the central agency governing our emotions and intellect become pure and clean. For some it is an instantaneous transformation an immediate turning away from smoking, alcohol or any other human additions. However, for most of us it can be a daily struggle submitting to God’s work of sanctification and I do not wish to continue in what seems to be continuing spiritual schizophrenia where there is a battle raging within me. My sin nature elevating itself above the spiritual man who now indwells me. I must submit to God and trust Him to cleanse me and make me more like Jesus.
It was a considerable time before I realised what a “man-pleaser” I really was. I always tried to do as much as I could to please everyone. What wonderful freedom I have found when I just try to please Jesus and place His plans for me before man’s opinions and make Him my grace and sufficiency. Jesus tells us that it is for His sake alone we have been blessed. (Matthew 5: 11)
How blessed are we who have made clean by His blood. The precious promise in His ongoing work of sanctification is that no matter how difficult we find God’s saving work to be, we will be with Him in His heaven. We are assured of our eternal abode and Jesus has already prepared a place for us.
Our Eternal security:
The blessings appropriated when we were blessed with the gift of eternal life are written in the Beatitudes ( Matthew 5: 3-11) and when God says eternal life it means eternal. It isn’t something God gives on Monday, takes away Tuesday to give back Wednesday and to lose again on Thursday then receive it again on Friday – man that’s crazy! So said one earnest Christian to me to explain our eternal security. Nothing – absolutely nothing will ever separate us from Him. We are eternally secure. Our security is not based on how sinless we are, or how much money we give, or what we consider evidences our good works. Our security is based solely on what Christ did for us on that terrible cross. It is based on His perfect righteousness being exchanged for all our unrighteousness from the moment we believed and said: “Jesus I believe that you died on that terrible cross for me. I believe that you died and were buried and rose again in accordance with 1 Corinthians 15: 1-4. That is the gospel, and it is by no other that we are saved. Praise His Holy and wonderful name – Jesus our precious Lord and Master, Saviour and Friend.
Those whom God has accepted in the Beloved, He has called, He will sanctify by His Spirit and through His grace, which began in our hearts the moment we believed, were saved. It is only God’s continuing work in us which ensures we can never completely, or at the end, fall away from this state of grace. God will persevere with us by the work of His Holy Spirit to will and to do until the day we see Jesus in glory.
The very best gift we will ever receive is the blood of Jesus spilled for our sin. The wonderful sacrificial gift God’s Son, Christ Jesus who died and more than that raised to eternal life, intercedes for us (Romans 8:34) and provided us with life for all eternity. We are secure now and forever – eternally. Nothing, absolutely nothing, not even our own sin can ever snatch us out of our Father’s hand.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present time or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
It is so important to emphasise this truth for it was a very long time before I was set free from the terrible words uttered over me by a woman Pastor . It was not for many years after this event, when a television program was aired exposing the evils of the Stolen British Generation, that she wrote conveying her regret for the suffering I sustained under the guise of Christian ministry. How I regretted choosing her to be a counsellor for my sins.
“All of life counselling” was a must in this church. I simply longed to become closer to the way God would have me be. My sins were now to be dealt with in such a way I would never forget how God viewed sin and the damage sin does in the life of every individual. I must say I have considered – which was worse – my sin or hers? I praise God for His abundant “mercy not judgment” and “mercy not sacrifice” which He continually seemed to emphasise through His Word and in prayer. However, the devastating effects of this ministry into the lives of others would remain unchecked for many years. I hope it does not continue to this day.
Her judgments of me were based on an incomplete knowledge of my life or indeed of me. Rather her disgust and hatred of me were tangible. Something that could almost be held from the moment I entered the room. I sensed what I believed to be a profound jealousy of me rather than a hatred for my sin-riddled body. There was not one shred of mercy extended towards my grief and shame and pain. Nor did she ever seek to really discover the complex and deeper issues of my life. Superficial judgments were made which disclosed to me a complete ignorance of the procedure and effects of British law which had led me towards my current situation. In short, she really knew nothing about me except that which others had gossiped. Jesus and His love were totally absent. With a shrill voice she screamed her abuse over me as I wept on my knees in repentant agony. “Look at you – look at you – look at what you have become,” she screeched over me as I curled up, as instructed, on the floor of this so-called “counselling chamber”. Momentarily, I wondered in my brokenness, what she really meant by those hateful defamatory words. What had I become?
I beseeched her brokenly (with an all- consuming and ever increasing sense of worthlessness) to confirm to me I was saved. A shrill scream formed the terrifying words – “How should I know!” She then directed her assistant to take “the sword of the spirit” through me from head to toe. Never in my life have I ever experienced such excruciating surgical searing of my flesh. A sense of being completely severed in two – one part of me from the other in what seemed like minutes of time. In my profound ignorance I believed this satanic torture to be biblically based on Ephesians 6. I considered I was deserving of all my terrible suffering and so unworthy to belong to Him that God himself had designed its special application. For years, until I discovered and accepted the truth of my eternal life, I wept and begged and pleaded with God to forgive me for all my sins.
At that time, the effects of such an overwhelming experience of mind and body added to the already present trauma of an accumulation of truly enormous complex difficulties. Mercifully, these would now remain unspoken and therefore temporarily unresolved. Altogether this resulted in an emotional collapse that left me with terrible anxiety attacks and agoraphobia. For the first time in my life I discovered what PSTD post- traumatic stress disorder actually meant
The potential dangers of entering into any occult belief and practice will eventually lead to physical and psychological problems. I have never regained the emotional and mental strength that carried me through 35 years of full-time work in legal offices in Edinburgh, London, Nairobi and Canberra as well as bringing up five children, looking after a husband who bore the effects of the daily submersion of aircraft parts into baths of carbon tetrachloride in his employment as an aircraft technician. (This chemical is now banned).
God has His way in the whirlwinds and storms of our lives and He will transform our sin and ugliness into fruitful gardens for His purposes. The best decision I made for myself that day were to remove myself from this ministry. To place my reliance only on God’s Word for every circumstance in my life. To look only to Jesus, and believe in faith, for His provision for every aspect of my life and to surrender wholly, and only ,to the authority of God as revealed in the Scripture – to believe Him and accept His Word as final authority.
Never again would I ever look to some Pastor for any answers for my life and never again would I allow any one to exercise ungodly dominion over my person. My journey to recovery from my “awake nightmare” seemed to take forever -twelve years in fact. I can say now that I am an “overcomer” in Christ Jesus, not through the use of any drugs or worldly advice but only through the Lord and His Word.
The Lord knew when His pupil was ready. He directed my paths, and provided the teachers.