What is the unpardonable sin? The blessed Lord Himself distinctly answers that question in Mark 3:29-30: “But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation; because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.”
In Matthew 12:28 the Lord says: “I cast out devils by the Spirit of God.” They said, “This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of devils” (Matthew 12:24). So that in reality they were calling the Spirit of God the prince of devils! And this was the blasphemy for which there was no forgiveness, ascribing the miracles of Jesus to the agency of the devil.
Now, it is evident that if a man still wants Christ to be his Saviour, whatever his backslidings may have been, he has not committed this sin. How could he want the one he claimed was energized by the power of Satan, as his Saviour? If you knew such a person, you wouldn’t trust him with the charge of your pet for one day, much less trust him with the salvation of your soul for eternity!
But some troubled one may say, I have sinned very deeply, and my course of backsliding has been long and aggravated. We reply, you couldn’t possibly feel this too keenly. Nothing could be more sorrowfully humiliating than such returns for love like His. But even this hasn’t changed His heart. “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end” (John 13:1).
“’Tis this that humbles me with shame,
To find that Thou art still the same.”
We naturally inquire, after doing something, or saying something distasteful to a cherished friend, Whatever will he think of me?
And it is usually the case with a poor backslider. What must the Lord think of me now, he says, when I even condemn and hate myself for my God-dishonoring ways?
Well, He thinks about you as He always thought. “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11). He knew from the beginning how bad your history would be, yet He gave His precious life-blood to redeem you.
It was in view of all I was, and all that I should turn out to be, that He “loved me, and gave Himself for me.”