Unpardonable?

"When God the Father holds my hand, it's impossible to feel all that pride, shame, and guilt. There's only humility, glory, and freedom. There's grace - real steadfast grace!"

I think one of the most common questions I’ve heard myself asking is, “Have I actually done it? Have I disqualified myself from salvation this time?” It’s the worst fear I've ever felt. Oftentimes, I’d mull the thought, the words, the incident over and over through my anxious mind, scrutinizing it against all criteria, trying to judge if I’d really, truly done it. Those were horrible days for me, and so wrought with self-condemnation! “Have I done it?”

We’ve established that, if we believe in Jesus and ask Him for forgiveness, we will be saved and redeemed. We understand that someone who comes to Jesus for salvation has not actually blasphemed the Holy Spirit. And that should be the full stop, the long and the short of it, the end of the book, the end of the fears. But for me, it wasn’t. It’s great that those who come to Jesus in faith are saved - oh so very great! But if you’re like me, then the next question is, “Well, what if I don’t have real faith?”

I suppose that books often have a series of points that are presented in the most compelling way in order to compel the reader to accept a certain view on a given subject. In a way, this book will do that too, but slightly differently. As I’ve dealt with the issue of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it has not been a neat, clean, and tidy journey. It’s been more of a series of theological bunnytrails zig-zagging this way and that as one answered question leads to another. And so, for the remainder of this book, I’d like to lead you down the trails of thought, the questions, the doubts - and the Scriptures that have eventually cleared them all up.

Earlier, I mentioned that, although I’m all for orthodoxy and its various terminologies, the one term that I’m not fond of is “unpardonable sin”. It’s not because I don’t believe Jesus’ words about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit never being forgiven. It’s just that I think the word “unpardonable” makes it sound like God is limited.

My sisters and I were scattered from teen years down to cute girly chaos. The four of us, accompanied by my mother, were a bit of an amoeba in the grocery store: our long hair, constant chatter, and organized girly chaos.

If I’m being honest, most of my emotional breakdowns have stemmed from broken theology. Before we can venture to uncover what God has to say about the specific fear of disqualifying oneself from salvation, we need to break down what’s causing the break downs. All lies are based on a thread of truth.

As a young woman, age twenty-one, my childhood fear of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and consequential separation from God came back with a vengeance, worse than it had been as a child. I was dumbfounded because I thought I had gotten over that fear. I had experienced God in major miraculous ways through the grace of the Holy Spirit and the preciousness of the Bible. I was shocked when suddenly one day, that old terror just gripped me like some ugly, ancient fetter.

So how did I get from being nearly crushed under terror to sitting down relaxed, munching on a banana, writing a book about the "unpardonable sin”? Honestly, God used the love of my life to help me in the fight of my life.  My husband Matthias did not save me - Jesus did. But God used my husband to help me understand that Jesus had saved me. I remember our first deep conversation. We were in the same young adults’ Bible study. My sisters and I were hosting a games day for the group. Only girls showed up - all that is, except for Matthias. And, brave soul that he is, he decided to stay. That was a critical maneuver, because that was the day we had our first “real” conversation.

Over the next two years, I cried more tears than I had thought possible. I tasted an anxiety that made me sick to my stomach. Some mornings, I did not want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to start a day if I could not start it with Jesus. It wasn’t all horrible. I was still a kid in a loving family. I did have some fun. But always, there was an underlying sense that nothing mattered - not if I couldn’t have Jesus.

Writing about what many have taken to calling “the unpardonable sin” is a bit of an odd thing to do, and I acknowledge that. There are two kinds of readers for a book like this: the curious or the terrified. 

I used to believe that I was special - special in the negative sense. I was convinced that I had a unique problem, an overly tender conscience and an extraordinary weight of guilt. I was a conflicted mess while other Christians seemed to have never even thought about the issue that troubled me, and if I brought it up, it seemed to roll off of them effortlessly. Was I the only broken Christian, the only kid who ever felt sick to her stomach over the idea of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?