Matthew 12:1-37
Some people ADD the word AWAY when quoting this verse and subtly change the meaning. They say “Grieving AWAY the Holy Spirit is rejecting him over and over again, and that is Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.”
In this verse, the word grieve means to cause grief or sorrow or to make sad. Sure, blaspheming the Holy Spirit would make him sad, but the surrounding verses explain what Paul is saying here, and he is not saying that grieving the Holy Spirit is rejecting him, and he is not saying that grieving the Holy Spirit is blasphemy. He’s giving the Ephesians instruction on how to be “truly holy.” (verse 24)
Grieving the Holy Spirit, and Blaspheming the Holy Spirit are not the same thing. You won’t find that anywhere in the Bible, and there is no passage that says anything about Grieving “AWAY” the Holy Spirit. With that in mind, let’s see what the Bible does say.
In the book of Matthew, chapter twelve, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees because his disciples ate without washing their hands, then again for healing a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, and again for casting a demon out of a man on the Sabbath. Here’s what the Pharisees said then…
Matthew 12:24-37
There you have it. Blaspheming AGAINST the Holy Spirit is done by SPEAKING WORDS against him. Nothing else. In the case of the Pharisees, they attributed the Work of the Holy Spirit to Satan.
Mark shares this same story in his gospel, and at the end, he tells us exactly why Jesus said all this.
On a different occasion, Jesus was talking to his disciples; not the Pharisees. Look what he said about this to his disciples.
Jesus said to blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to SPEAK against Him. According to Strong’s Concordance, the meaning of blasphemy in both the old, and new Testaments is “TO CURSE, VILIFY, or SPEAK EVIL OF.”
Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is not just an act that only the Pharisees could commit, as some have suggested. Remember, Jesus was not just talking to the Pharisees in the book of Matthew. He said MEN, and that word means MANKIND, or PEOPLE. Then, there in Luke chapter 12, he was talking to his disciples. Don’t miss that.
For most Christians, it’s hard to imagine any situation where we would blaspheme the Holy Spirit, but we have example after example of people throughout the Bible who were following God, but slipped, fell, and even turned away from God. Adam and Eve, King David, Lucifer, King Saul, and Judas, just to name a few. By the way, the last three on that list turned away from God, and as far as we know, they are all lost.
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