And for this cause God shall send them 
strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 
II Thes. 2:11,12 
 

Fellow Believers,

One of the most difficult passages, I find, is I John 5:16,17. It reads: "If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death."

I have read many commentaries on that, but have never felt comfortable with their views. First of all, some suggest that God is talking about a brother in Christ here. Since a child of God can never lose his salvation, they say that "the sin unto death" has to do with physical death, and they cite as an example those Corinthians who "sleep" for having abused the Lord's Table (I Cor. 11:30).

That explanation doesn't seem Biblical because God explains in the preceding verse: "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." That statement, though addressed to "my brethren" by Paul, has to apply to unbelievers within the church. Reason: The sin of every believer is covered by the blood of Christ. As far as the east is from the west, God says, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. And Romans 8:1 declares, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."

The I John passage, then, must also be talking about unbelieving churchgoers. For them and all other unsaved people, all unrighteousness is indeed sin and the wages of sin is death. Why, then, is there a sin not unto death? The common answer is that if that sin is committed by one of God's elect and that person is prayed for, God will at some point give him eternal life.

Against that background, we could conclude that the sin unto death must be that which Jesus spoke of in Mark 3:29, "He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation." The Lord made that remark after the Pharisees had accused Him of having driven out demons by the power of Beelzebub. Now, if that was the only unforgivable sin, why then does God even warn against that in an epistle written many decades after the event?

After much meditation, the passage from II Thessalonians in the box above came to mind. For God to purposely delude those people, they must have committed some sort of unforgivable sin. What were they  guilty of? They attributed ìthe working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wondersî to the Holy Spirit. Might that be the reason Jesus warns against blaspheming against the Holy Spirit?
 
 

Tom Holt, Editor

 
SecondQuarter, 1999

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