Luke 12:8-10

The Recompense of faithful Disciples, contrasted with the Punishment of the Cowardly, and with that of Adversaries. “ Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God. 9. But he that denieth me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God. 10. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven. ” The profession of the gospel may undoubtedly cost the disciples dear; but if they persevere, it assures them of a magnificent recompense. Jesus, when glorified, will requite them by declaring them His before the heavenly throng, for what they did for Him by acknowledging Him their Lord below at the time of His humiliation. The gnostic Heracleon remarked the force of the prep. ἐν with ὁμολογεῖν. It expresses the rest of faith in Him who is confessed. Luke 12:9 guards the disciples against the danger of denial. This warning was by no means out of place at the time when they were surrounded by furious enemies. It is to be remarked that Jesus does not say He will deny the renegade, as He said that He would confess the confessor. The verb is here in the passive, as if to show that this rejection will be a self-consummated act.

Ver. 10 glances at a danger more dreadful still than that of being rejected as a timid disciple. This punishment may have an end. But the sin of which Luke 12:10 speaks is for ever unpardonable. This terrible threat naturally applies to the sin of the adversaries of Jesus, to which His thought recurs in closing. They sin, not through timidity, but through active malice. By the expression blaspheme against the Holy Spirit Jesus alludes to the accusation which had given rise to this whole conflict (Luke 11:15), and by which the works of that divine agent in the hearts of men (comp. Matthew 12:28, “If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God ”) had been ascribed to the spirit of darkness. That was knowingly and deliberately to insult the holiness of the principle from which all good in human life proceeds. To show the greatness of this crime of high treason, Jesus compares it with an outrage committed against His own person. He calls the latter a simple word (λόγον), an imprudent word, not a blasphemy. To utter a word against the poor and humble Son of man is a sin which does not necessarily proceed from malice. Might it not be the position of a sincerely pious Jew, who was still ruled by prejudices with which he had been imbued by his pharisaic education, to regard Jesus not as the expected Messiah, but as an enthusiast, a visionary, or even an impostor? Such a sin resembles that of the woman who devoutly brought her contribution to the pile of Huss, and at the sight of whom the martyr exclaimed, Sancta simplicitas. Jesus is ready to pardon in this world or in the next every indignity offered merely to His person; but an insult offered to goodness as such, and to its living principle in the heart of humanity, the Holy Spirit, the impious audacity of putting the holiness of His works to the account of the spirit of evil, that is what He calls blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and what He declares unpardonable. The history of Israel has fully proved the truth of this threatening. This people perished not for having nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. Otherwise Good Friday would have been the day of their judgment, and God would not have continued to offer them for forty years the pardon of their crime. It was its rejection of the apostolic preaching, its obstinate resistance to the Spirit of Pentecost, which filled up the measure of Jerusalem's sin. And it is with individuals as with that nation. The sin which is for ever unpardonable, is not the rejection of the truth, in consequence of a misunderstanding, such as that of so many unbelievers who confound the gospel with this or that false form, which is nothing better than its caricature. It is hatred of holiness as such, a hatred which leads men to make the gospel a work of pride or fraud, and to ascribe it to the spirit of evil. This is not to sin against Jesus personally; it is to insult the divine principle which actuated Him. It is hatred of goodness itself in its supreme manifestation.

The form in which Matthew (Matthew 12:31-32) has preserved this warning differs considerably from that of Luke; and that of Mark (Mark 3:28-29) differs in its turn from that of Matthew. It is wholly inconceivable, that in a statement of such gravity the evangelists arbitrarily introduced changes into a written text which they had before their eyes. On the contrary, we can easily understand how this saying, while circulating in the churches in the shape of oral tradition, assumed somewhat different forms. As to the place assigned to this declaration by the synoptics, that which Matthew and Mark give, immediately after the accusation which called it forth, appears at first sight preferable. Nevertheless, the connection which it has in Luke's context with what precedes and what follows, is not difficult to apprehend. There is at once a gradation in respect of the sin of weakness mentioned Luke 12:9, and a contrast to the promise of Luke 12:11-12, where this Holy Spirit, the subject of blasphemy on the part of the Pharisees, is presented as the powerful support of the persecuted disciples. There is thus room for doubt.