Question: Please explain Matthew 27:44 with Luke 23:39-43.
Answer: Matthew 27:44 asserts that both the thieves joined with the priests in mocking and reviling the Lord.
Luke 23:39-43 witnesses that one repented and believed on Jesus, calling Him Lord, and owning that He was the true King of Israel, and asking a place in His Kingdom in the future when He would come to reign. His genuine repentance and conversion are seen in the way he condemned himself, and reproved the other, and in looking to the Lord for His forgiving love to bless him. The Lord’s answer bears it out. Jesus said unto him, “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” This was immediate blessing. He was sure to be in paradise that very day with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 12:2-4 calls the third heaven paradise: that is where the spirit of Jesus went, and that is where the thief went when the spirit left his body. Jesus said in verse 46, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,” then He died. The martyr Stephen, in Acts 7:59 said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
2 Corinthians 5:8 witnesses to the same blessed truth. It is not true that the spirit is unconscious after death. Nor is it true that the Lord went into prison when He died. His spirit went to the Father, but He did not ascend till forty days after He rose from the dead. Ascension is of spirit, soul and body, the whole man.
Question: What is the meaning of Matthew 12:31-32?
Answer: Read from verses 22 to 32. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost was the Pharisees’ saying that Jesus did His miracles by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of the devils (See also Mark 3:22-30). “Because they said He had an unclean spirit.” This showed the wickedness and malicious hatred of their hearts. They have “never forgiveness,” “neither in this world” (or age, dispensation of law), “neither in the world to come” (the dispensation that follows after the church is caught up).
Now we live in the period when God is dealing in grace. Now we preach the gospel to every creature, “Whosoever believeth in Him, shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43). There are men now living who once professed to believe on Christ, and have become apostates. They have not been born again. They have only a name to live, but are dead; and there are true believers who have sunk into worldly ways. To them, God calls, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from (among) the dead, and Christ shall give thee light,” not life, for every believer has eternal life. He may lose his happiness, and cease to enjoy his salvation, but the Great Shepherd will look after every blood-washed one.
This “blasphemy of the Holy Ghost” has no reference to true believers who have backslidden. 1 John 2:1 Says to God’s children, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” He maintains our place before the Father in all the blessed efficacy of His own finished work.