SINS AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE

SINS AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT

BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” (Mark 3: 28 -29)

TURNING AWAY FROM THE FAITH “The power of God the Father and God the Son is at work in the whole of creation. The saints are those who are fully receiving life in the Holy Spirit. Accordingly it is said, ‘No man can say that Jesus is the Lord except in the Holy Spirit. ’…But one who has once been counted worthy to share in life in the Holy Spirit and then finally turns back again in apostasy is by this very act and deed said to have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. ” (Origen, On First Principles 1. 3. 7) • It is by the Holy Spirit that man is connected to the work of God and receives life • To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit means to turn back against the life received from God

THOSE INDWELT WOULD NOT CURSE JESUS “No one who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit can imagine saying ‘anathema’ to Jesus. No one in the Spirit would deny that Christ is the Son of God, or reject God as Creator. No believer would utter such things contrary to Scriptures, or substitute alien or sacrilegious ordinances contrary to moral principles. ” (Novatian, The Trinity 29) • It is not possible for someone to deny Christ while living a life filled with the Spirit

THE SPIRIT OFFERS TESTIMONY “For it is the Spirit who through the apostles offers testimony to Christ, who in the martyrs manifests unwavering faith, and who in the lives of the chaste embraces the admirable continence of sealed chastity. It is the Spirit who, among the whole church, guards the laws of the Lord’s teaching uncorrupted and untainted, destroys heretics, corrects those in error, reproves unbelievers, reveals impostors, and corrects the wicked. ” (Novatian, The Trinity 29) • The power of the Holy Spirit gives us faith, chastity, and obedience to God’s commandments • The apostles and martyrs preach and suffer through the work of the Holy Spirit

THE SPIRIT IS GOD “He is the subject, not the object, of hallowing, apportioning, participating, filling, sustaining. We share in him; he shares in nothing. He is our inheritance, he is glorified, counted together with Father and Son. He is a dire warning to us, the “finger of God. ” The Spirit is, like God, a “fire. ” This means that the Holy Spirit is of the same essential nature as the Father. The Spirit is the very One who created us and creates us anew through baptism and resurrection” (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 31, On the Holy Spirit) • Whatever good we do, it is the Holy Spirit who does it, and shares His work with us

THE SPIRIT IS GOD “The Spirit knows all things, teaches all things, moves where and when and as strongly as he wills. He leads, speaks, sends, and separates those who are vexed and tempted. He reveals, illumines, gives life, or better said, he is himself light and life. He makes us his temple, he sanctifies, he makes us complete. He both goes before baptism and follows after it. All that the Godhead actively performs, the Spirit performs” (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 31, On the Holy Spirit) • Whatever good we do, it is the Holy Spirit who does it, and shares His work with us

REPENTANCE FOR BLASPHEMY “It is not that this was a blasphemy which under no circumstances could be forgiven, for even this shall be forgiven if right repentance follows it. ” (Augustine, Sermons on New Testament Lessons 21. 35) • The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit can be forgiven, but only through true repentance. • True repentance can only be fulfilled by the work of the Holy Spirit within us, which cannot happen if one has forsaken the work of the Holy Spirit. • This is the true meaning of the blasphemy

LYING TO THE HOLY SPIRIT “But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? ” (Acts 5: 3)

THE ONE WHO COOPERATES WITH SATAN IS CUT OFF “’Why has Satan filled your heart? ’ he says. If it was Satan who did this, why is the man responsible? Because he admitted the influence of Satan and was filled with it. He must be set right, he says. But he could not be set right. For the one who has seen such things and gained nothing from them, neither would he gain much by anything else. Therefore the matter could not simply be passed over, but, like gangrene, had to be excised to prevent it from infecting the rest of the body. ” (Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 12) • The one who allows Satan to enter his heart must be held accountable for what evil Satan will complete with him. • Ananias and Sapphira had seen the work of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles, still they turned back against Him.

THE SPIRIT READS OUR HEARTS “And of the Holy Spirit also, Peter says to Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart, to lie to the Holy Spirit? ” showing that the Holy Spirit was a true witness, aware of what Ananias had dared to do in secret, and by whom the secret was made known to Peter. For Ananias became a thief of his own goods, secretly, as he thought, from all people and concealing his sin. But the Holy Spirit at the same moment was in Peter, and detected his intent, dragged down as it was to avarice, and gave to Peter from himself the power of seeing the secret, while it is clear that the Spirit could not have done this had it not been able to behold hidden things. ” (Gregory of Nyssa, On Not Three Gods) • Why should we try to lie to Him who knows all things?

A HUMAN SOUL DRAWN TO MALICE “Here it must be noted that the soul and mind of a person can be filled according to substance by no creature but only by the creating Trinity, because only according to the operation and instigation of the will is the soul filled by those things which are created. Now Satan fills someone’s mind and the core of his heart, not, to be sure, by going into him and into his senses —if I may put it this way, entering the doorway of the heart—since this is a power of divinity alone. But like a crafty, wicked, deceitful and fraudulent deceiver, he draws the human soul toward dispositions for malice by thoughts and enticements of vices, of which he is full. ” Therefore Satan filled the heart of Ananias, not by his own entering in, but by the injection of the venom of his malice. ” (Bede, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles 5. 3) • Satan cannot enter our hearts uninvited. It is through temptation that we choose to ally ourselves to him.

WARNING TO OTHERS “For having made a vow they offered their money to God as if it were their own and not his to whom they had vowed it; and keeping back for their own use a part of that which belonged to another, through fear of famine which true faith never fears, they drew down on themselves suddenly the avenging stroke, which was meant not in cruelty toward them but as a warning to others. In fact, the apostle Peter by no means called down death upon them, as Porphyry foolishly says. He merely announced God’s judgment by the spirit of prophecy, that the doom of two persons might be a lesson to many. ” (Jerome, Letter 130. 14) • The example of Ananias and Sapphira serve as a warning to anyone who would lie to the Spirit of God

RESISTING THE HOLY SPIRIT “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. ” (Acts 7: 51 -52)

A HISTORY OF RESISTANCE “When it was not his will that there should be sacrifices, you sacrificed; and when it is his will, you do not sacrifice. When he would not give you the commandments, you dragged them toward you; when you received them, you neglected them. Again, when the temple stood, you worshiped idols; and when it is his will to be worshiped without a temple, you do the opposite. ” (Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 17) • The Jews had a history of disobedience and rebellion against God, who was continuously patient with them

BURNING WORDS, BUT AS A DOVE “Therefore when he sent the Holy Spirit, he manifested him visibly in two ways, as a dove and as fire; as a dove upon the baptized Lord, as fire upon the assembled disciples. . Here we saw a dove upon the Lord; there parted tongues upon the assembled disciples; in the one, simplicity is shown, in the other, fervor. For there are those who are said to be simple, and they are indolent; they are called simple, but they are lazy. Not such a one was Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit. He was simple, because he harmed no one; he was fervent, because he reproached the impious. For he did not keep silence before the Jews; his are those fiery words” (Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 6. 3. 1 -4) • Those with the Holy Spirit preach with simplicity, but also with fervor

BURNING WORDS, BUT AS A DOVE “Great vehemence! He rages, but as a dove without bile. For, in order that you may know that he raged without bile, they who were ravens, when they heard these words, immediately ran for stones [to use] against the dove. Stephen began to be stoned; and he, who but a little before was raging and boiling spirit, as if he had attacked his enemies, and as if he had assailed them with violence by those fiery and blazing words as you have heard, “Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ” so that he who heard these words might think that Stephen, if he were allowed, wished them immediately annihilated—when the rocks were coming on him from their hands, on his knees he said, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. ”” (Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 6. 3. 1 -4) • While the fire of the Spirit is undeniable, it is a fire of love, as shown by St. Stephen

“St. Paul, likewise, revealed that the Jews were guilty: While proclaiming that they lived according to the law of God, and defending their privilege of the worthiness of their fathers, they actually did wrong to the reputation of the grace of God, having taken lightly the promise that was presented to their fathers” (Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Paul’s Epistles, Romans 3: 2) • The hypocrisy of the Jews showed that they resisted the work of the Holy Spirit

QUENCHING THE HOLY SPIRIT “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. ” (1 Thessalonians 5: 19 -22)

THE SPIRIT IS HOLINESS OF LIFE “We can thus see why Paul, not wanting the grace of the Spirit given to us to grow cold, exhorts us, “Do not quench the Spirit. ” The only way we can continue to be partakers of Christ is to cling until the end to the Holy Spirit, who was given to us at the beginning. Paul said, “Do not quench” not because the Spirit is under the power of men but because evil and unthankful men certainly do wish to quench the Spirit. Demonstrating their impurity, they drive the Spirit away by their unholy deeds. ” (Athanasius, Festal Letters 4. 4) • By choosing to live a life of sin and ungodliness, we drive away the Spirit and His work.

FIRE AND FUEL “As fire requires fuel, so grace requires our prompt response, that it may be ever fervent. ‘I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God that is in you by the putting on of my hands, ’ that is, the grace of the Spirit, which you have received, for presiding over the church, for the working of miracles and for every service. For this grace it is in our power to kindle or extinguish. For this reason Paul elsewhere says, ‘Do not quench the Spirit. ’” (Chrysostom, Homilies on Second Timothy, 1) • By responding to the grace of God in our lives, we continue the burning of the fiery Spirit within us

MYSTICAL RECEPTION OF THE SPIRIT “Learn from the apostle that we are the ones who grieve the Spirit, extinguishing him in our hearts… We introduce these testimonies not as if to suggest that every man who has been baptized and obtained grace is henceforth immutable and no longer in need of repentance, but to say that through baptism, according to Christ’s gift, the complete grace of God is granted to us for the fulfillment of the commandments. Henceforth each one who receives baptism mystically and yet does not fully perform the commandments, is activated by sin in proportion to their failure—the sin not of Adam but of the one who is negligent. ” (Mark the Hermit, On Baptism, Response 5) • Though we have attained grace through baptism, we must still perform the commandments

GRIEVING THE HOLY SPIRIT “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4: 30)

ARROGANCE GRIEVES THE SPIRIT “This is a particularly awful and fearful saying. It reminds us of what he said to the Thessalonians: ‘Whoever disregards this disregards not man but God. ’. . . If you say an arrogant word, if you strike your brother, you have not merely hurt him but have grieved the Spirit. He contrasts such arrogance with the benevolence of God in order to sharpen the admonition. ” (Chrysostom, Homily on Ephesians 14. 4. 30) • Arrogance is contrary to God’s benevolence. The arrogant person cannot coincide with the Spirit of God, and grieves Him.

HOW THE SPIRIT GRIEVES FOR US “The Holy Spirit rejoices in our salvation not for himself, since he has no lack of blessedness. But if we have disobeyed the Spirit, we have grieved the Spirit. His work in us is cut short, just when he wishes us to belong to life. Yet he is not grieved in such a way as to suffer in a literal sense. For God the Spirit is invisible and not subject to physical suffering. When Paul says the Spirit is “grieved, ” he speaks metaphorically on our account to show that the Spirit leaves us to our own self-will when we have, so to speak, wounded him by despising his admonitions. ” (Ambrosiaster, Epistles to the Ephesians 4. 30) • The Spirit is not hurt, but leaves us when we neglect the commandments