Years ago, when I was just a child, I read the verse in the Bible about blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. I thought about it a lot, and I ended up having a blasphemous thought against Him. Now I am very afraid. I don’t know what to do.
Dear Friend,
As you may have noticed, we don’t usually give advice about theology. There are many organizations, including churches, that spend almost all of their time dealing with that subject.
However, you are afraid and confused, so we will give you our advice. Keep in mind that everything we say is based on our belief in the principles of the Bible, God’s Word to us.
The Bible records many things that Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God, said when He lived on earth. When you were a child, you read what He said about the danger of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Blasphemy must have been a very difficult and uncommon word for you then, just as it is for many adults now.
Blasphemy is much more than the actual words that come out of the mouth. The words are preceded by an attitude of the heart. Just after Jesus Christ warned about blasphemy, He went on to say that the words that come out of a person’s mouth reveal what is in that person’s heart.(1) Therefore, when blasphemy against the Holy Spirit comes out of the mouth, it is because there is an unchangeable rejection of the Holy Spirit in the heart.
One of the Holy Spirit’s jobs is to convict us of sin.(2) He uses our consciences to get our attention. That is why most of us feel badly when we have done something wrong, whether we did it on purpose or not. When we pay attention to our consciences, we recognize that we need to ask for forgiveness from God and others. But if we refuse to pay attention, the messages from our consciences get softer and softer. Eventually some people don’t hear their consciences at all. Their hearts are filled with evil, and they purposefully reject the messages of the Spirit. At that point, they have shut out the Holy Spirit completely. They do what they want, whether it is right or wrong, and they don’t even feel guilty. Without guilt, they don’t ask for forgiveness, so they can’t be forgiven. And that makes their sin unpardonable, which is what Jesus warned would happen to those who blasphemed against the Holy Spirit.(3)
As a child, you certainly did not have the evil in your heart to completely reject the Holy Spirit. The proof of that is that you still feel badly for what you did. Feeling badly means you are hearing the Holy Spirit. So you can ask for forgiveness and be certain that God will forgive you. If you had committed the unpardonable sin, you would not feel any guilt at all about it because the Holy Spirit would no longer be convicting you of your sin.
We wish you the best,
Linda
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1 Mt 12:34
2 Jn 16:8-9
3 Mt 12:31; Mk 3:28-29