Have I Committed the Unpardonable Sin?
I listen to your podcast sometimes. I grew up with a best friend that was Adventist, and I never really knew their doctrine until I was deceived from true Christianity into Adventism in 2022 for a couple months. We spent six hours on the phone going through a lot of things, and I had previously just turned from my outward sins and started to live for Christ, so I didn’t know much about the Bible. But I did know that I was saved by Jesus alone, and I just wanted to not live in my sin anymore.
That attempt to live for the Lord turned very quickly into, “I’m not reading my Bible enough for God,” and I would just randomly flip open the Bible and read verses out of context and would read until I felt that God was happy with my amount of time in the Word. …I found a comment that Adventists believe that going to church on Sunday was the mark of the beast, so I messaged my friend about it. I immediately turned to the Adventist organization because of my fear, and certain things made sense in my naivety. After a couple months, I was MISERABLE, and the Holy Spirit was showing me some of the wrong doctrine, so I came back to true Christianity, praise God!
Ever since I found out about the unpardonable sin, I have had horrible, blasphemous thoughts against the Holy Spirit for years, and last year, I was just sick of feeling convicted and condemned all the time —so I had an angry thought to call the Holy Spirit the enemy’s name.
That’s why I’m so sure that I committed the unforgivable sin, because in my mind I’ve had thoughts to call the Holy Spirit Satan’s name … I truly have never felt more evil than I do now. I keep getting worse and worse. Rarely do I feel assurance. Rarely do I feel like I love God. I want to because He is good and holy and not evil at all, but I just don’t understand why I’ve allowed myself to get to a place of feeling such contempt towards Him. I know it’s because I’m not trusting Him fully for salvation. I know it’s Jesus’ finished work alone that saves me, but I still feel evil, and it feels like God has rejected me because I was the one who chose to call Him that horrible name out of anger towards Him.
I get to the point of having slight joy in Him—and then I get a thought to call Him evil.
I just hate how far I’ve fallen from Him and don’t see a way out right now. I don’t see how He could forgive me for calling Him satanic after being saved.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: I understand your anxiety and compulsive thoughts about the unforgivable sin so well. These same thoughts and reactions dominated my life when I was a teenager and even a young adult. I couldn’t sleep at night for fear I might have committed the unpardonable sin, and I remember one night even saying something dreadful about the Holy Spirit and then being stricken with guilt and desperation.
First of all, I want to say this: if you are worried about this, the Lord has not rejected you. He is asking you to trust Him.
When Jesus speaks of the unpardonable sin in Matthew 12, I want you to notice how He defines it:
(Mat 12:22-32 ESV) Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Notice that the context for Jesus teaching about blaspheming the Holy Spirit is that the Jews were saying He was casting out demons by the power of the prince of demons. Jesus explains that this accusation is logically impossible—but then he goes on to say that if He was casting out demons by the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit) then the kingdom of God had come upon them—and they were rejecting God’s presence and provision for them. He ended this teaching by saying that the one sin that would not be forgiven is the sin against the Holy Spirit—and the context tells us exactly what that looks like: attributing to Satan the work of God!
In other words, when God clearly reveals Himself and His will and His power to us and we see His grace and mercy and saving call on our lives—if we dismiss trusting God because we don’t want to admit that He has ultimate authority over us and over evil and call the work of God the work of Satan—that is the unpardonable sin.
Those Jews are the biblical example of committing the unpardonable sin:
They saw Jesus doing what they KNEW only God could do.
They knew He was doing the work of God and casting out demons by the Holy Spirit
They did not WANT to believe in Him. He threatened their power and authority over the nation of Israel.
They looked right at Him; they KNEW He was God (because no man or demon could do what He did) and they refused to believe.
This account of the unbelieving and hard-hearted Jews is the biblical example of the unpardonable sin.
The unpardonable sin is not something that we accidentally do; it’s not something that we are driven to by desperation; it’s intentional and done with one’s eyes wide open. It is refusing to believe that God’s power is actually God’s power at work. It’s attributing the work of God to the devil while knowing that one is refusing to believe the truth right in front of them.
The Lord knows your heart! Your words to the Holy Spirit were not a rejection of the work of God but an expression of deep despair and frustration.
The unpardonable sin is not an accidental escalation into despair and lashing out. It is a calm, studied, persistent refusal to believe Jesus is GOD and your Savior. I don’t hear you persistently refusing to believe. Instead, you are afraid that you have done something that keeps God from reaching you.
If our works and deeds (including what we say and think and do) cannot save us, neither can they cause us to be lost. Our salvation is entirely an act of God. Whenever you hear His voice asking you to believe, believe Him TODAY. You are not hardened; you are anxious and despairing and believing that you yourself can cause yourself to be saved or lost. All God asks of us is to repent of our sin and believe Him!
Your feelings are not an indication of your condition of being worthy of salvation. Your feelings are your responses to Satan’s temptations to cause you to doubt God and to despair that He can save you. Yet He CAN and will. Give up your fear that you have driven God away. You haven’t. You are not that powerful!! And neither is Satan!
The unpardonable sin is hardened and cold and deliberate and refuses to believe. You are not that. You are fearing yourself, and by allowing Satan’s accusations to dominate your thoughts, you are not allowing yourself to read and hear what the Lord is saying to you. You are not the cause of your salvation! Your desperate words and thoughts are not the definition of truth and reality.
Remember this verse: in fact, memorize it:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.—1 John 1:9
Get your Bible out, and get a notebook. Begin copying John 1—the gospel of John—and copy the first 18 verses into that notebook today. Go slowly and ask God to show you what He wants you to know. Each day copy a few more verses, and ask the Lord to fill your heart and mind with the truth about the Lord Jesus. Ask Him to take away your self-condemnation that you are believing and to replace it with the truth.
Believe that God will not lie to you nor trick you. Ask Him to forgive you for doubting Him and for not believing Him. Ask Him to give you the faith to believe that the Lord Jesus has ALREADY done everything necessary for your salvation, and thank Him for sending Jesus for YOU.
God’s word is completely true and cannot fail. Those thoughts in your head are the enemy’s tactics to drive you to despair and to ignore the reality that the Lord God sees and knows what you are experiencing and that He is asking you to listen to His word and to trust Him. Nothing besides Scripture tells us the exact and absolute truth. The idea of the unpardonable sin is a teaching within a specific context—the context of a group of people who persistently and long-term knew who Jesus was and refused to believe. It was a sin or arrogance and evil, not an accident of swirling fear and despair.
The Lord came to rescue the broken-hearted. He will reveal reality to you and plant you in truth. But you have to put truth into your head.
Begin by memorizing 1 John 1:9, and begin copying the gospel of John. Ask the Lord to teach you and to rescue you and to fill your head with truth. And THANK HIM. Acknowledge that you have not understood Him and thank Him that He is giving you His word and is rescuing you from despair by filling your mind with reality. Ask Him to forgive you for not believing Him, and ask Him to change your heart and give you faith to believe. And THANK Him.
When the accusing thoughts come, replace them with the truths you are learning from copying John and from memorizing 1 John 1:9. Listen to praise music: you can find good praise music online. You can find groups like CityAlight, Keith and Kristyn Getty, Sovereign Grace, Shane and Shane, The Village Chapel, for example, and these groups have wonderful hymns and songs that tell the truth about God. When you fill your head with truth, the lies have to flee.
The Lord sees you—and only He and His word can rewire our tortured minds and bring truth and reality to us.
I am praying for you.
How Do You View the Trinity?
How do you view the Trinity? Does the Bible teach that it is made up of three separate beings, united in one purpose?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for writing. We believe that God is One, yet this One Being is expressed in three Persons. Jesus said that He and His Father are One (John 10:30). Then mystery of the Trinity is not fully explained to us mortals who cannot understand the nature of ultimate reality from our limited perspective.
I recommend that you listen to our Former Adventist Podcasts on the Trinity and on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We explain how Adventism teaches it, and we show from Scripture how the Adventist understanding is wrong.
The Trinity shares SUBSTANCE—and Adventism does not affirm this fact. “Substance” includes all the attributes of God, including omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Adventist teaches that Jesus no longer has omnipresence because he took a human body. Yet He is still God who is spirit (Jn 4:24), and He would not be God if He did not possess omnipresence.
Here is a link to access our podcasts on the Fundamental Beliefs of Adventism. You will see that numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 address the Trinity:
I hope this helps. †
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