IS THERE AN UNPARDONABLE SIN?

There’s a scripture that used to frighten the life out of me; it’s where Jesus referred to what we call the unpardonable sin. Over the years I’ve asked many people to help me understand it, but all I’ve ever got was, ‘Good question that,' with the exception of a handful of honest folk who admitted that they hadn’t a clue.

Jesus said what he said to the religious leaders who had just accused him, who is pure good, of working miracles by the power of Satan, who is pure evil. But if Jesus was saying that there’s absolutely no hope for anyone who commits that sin, don’t you think he’d have mentioned it more than once?

No, there is no unpardonable sin, for with love pouring out of him as he hung on the cross he cried, ‘Father, forgive them...’ – and that includes the unforgivable one.

Why, because everything changed at that cataclysmic moment in the relationship between God and men, so that Paul could say, ‘Nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God.’