What is Blaspheming the Holy Spirit?

Scripture:
“28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
Mark 3:28-30

Observation:
No forgiveness! Wow that is a hefty price tag. “All sins will be forgiven” with the exception of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. But what is blaspheming the Holy Spirit? Well let us look back through this passage to see what prompted this statement from Jesus. Jesus had healed a man on the Sabbath, was followed by a multitude, sought out by the sick, proclaimed as the Son of God by demons, and he appointed his twelve apostles. After all this Jesus went home only to be confronted by his family with accusations of insanity. Not only is he called a lunatic by his family, the scribes who came down from Jerusalem took it a step farther and said “he is possessed by Beelzebul.” Their aversion to Jesus and his ministry led them to accuse him of having an unclean spirit, and that it was the source of his power to cast out demons.
Before we answer the aforementioned question we must make two assertions. First Jesus did nothing of his own accord, but only what his father told him to do. Second we must also remember that Jesus’ power came from the Holy Spirit. Everything that Jesus did was the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit.
So from this passage of scripture what can we derive as the definition of “blaspheming the Holy Spirit”? Well in my opinion I would say that the above passage defines “blaspheming the Holy Spirit” as attributing the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit to unclean spirits, or demonic spirits as they are often referred. Notice how the two types of spirits stand in stark contradiction of each other. Holy, meaning set apart or clean, contrasts the unclean. The scribes were calling that which was clean and of God unclean.

Application:
It is very easy to be a skeptic of the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. We are programmed to expect things to operate according to certain normative laws and when they do not red flags are raised. The sad thing about this is that in the midst of the mundane we long to see the spectacular, but when we see it we are quick to stamp it out like a rhino and fire. As much as we expect something great to happen in the church today the moment things start to change we start to get leery.
Growing up in the Pentecostal tradition of Christianity I have seen the Holy Spirit work powerfully and was taught to expect that that was the norm. But I have to be honest, the older I became the more I watched with a skeptical eye.
A year or so ago I visited a church in Argentina. For the most part things seemed legit until the team I was with went to the church’s Friday night prayer service, which I was to speak at. We walked into a building, which the church called their prayer chapel, and people were doing all sorts of funky things, quote end quote, under the power of the Holy Spirit. Such things like foaming at the mouth while shaking, spinning around in circles, falling over, screaming, and talking in weird languages. Many members of the team were overwhelmed by what they were witnessing, not knowing how to process such dramatics, while others on the team went on with business as usual.
Now a discerning Christian would notice three things happening in that service. First, People desiring the sensationalism of the Holy Spirit were responding emotionally to what they perceived as acting like the Holy Spirit was doing something with them. Second, Unclean spirits were manifesting. Last, the Holy Spirit was also at work, helping us discern what was authentic and what was not.
I tell this story because the skeptic in us would naturally write off this experience as not of the Holy Spirit. But we would be wrong. We would be letting our perception of what is the normative Christian experience dictate how we judge this situation, making us no different than the scribes, who because Jesus was acting outside of what they considered normative, judged him possessed by an unclean spirit. I believe Jesus’ warning about blaspheming the Holy Spirit is really a call for us, who have the Spirit, to ask for discernment.

Prayer:
Holy Spirit, I pray that you will give me the gift of discernment. So that I may never find myself, in all my skepticism, trying to judge your work as profane. Amen…