Have I Blasphemed the Holy Spirit? (Part 10)

Published on March 27, 2026 at 4:30 PM

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?”

Before we dive into this question, I’d like to offer you an out: if you’re worried you’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit, then you haven’t done it. The end. You can skip to the next chapter! That’s the simple Ken Penner version.

Who is Ken Penner? He is an older gentleman whose profound answer to my question has stuck with me, and will stick with me for the rest of my life. I can still see his emphatic expression, the light in his eyes, his cheery face and bright smile bursting through his bushy beard. And no, I’m not describing Santa Clause, but picture that kind of warmth with a zeal that matches an apostle from Acts, maybe Peter or someone like that, and you’d be getting a bit closer.

Then dress him in flannel, give him glasses, and place him in a small church lobby at the onset of a funeral for a sweet old man who everybody knows is in Heaven with Jesus - the kind with those egg sandwiches cut in half and piano hymns that are the trademark of small town Christian funerals. It was sort of Normal Rockwell esc and my sisters and I were doing the music. We had begun to privately call ourselves “The Funeral Singingers”. Our band hits were “It Is Well”, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”, and “Blessed Assurance”, an exciting repertoire for the so-called “Mennonite Sisters”.

Normally, our music group of four sisters had gigs like “dad is preaching in Houston again” or “they’re short some Christmas songs in the Kantada” or “interdenominal worship service - you wanna do the music?” But our most common gig was “can you do the funeral?” We felt slightly akin to the hired mourners in Biblical times, except, we kept it light on the wailing and heavy on the harmonies, mostly utilizing piano and violin. Sometimes, we didn’t even know the person who had died. And perhaps the highlight of our career was when a fully healthy woman in her early-forties told us that, when she died, she wanted us to sing at her funeral. We smiled, but what were we supposed to answer, “Thanks, looking forward to it?...”

But here we were, singing at another funeral, and I was chatting with the aforementioned Ken Penner. I told him what I was wresting through: same old, same old. He just lit right up and exclaimed in a booming inflection, “Then you didn’t do it! That’s what I say!” And as I left him to get up on stage, never was I so moved by “It Is Well”, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”, and “Blessed Assurance”!

But the rest of this section will not be the Ken Penner version - that’s the better one, so simple and wise! But instead, the rest of this chapter will be the Makayla version - the one that took years of a bruised brain and an uptight heart, but that, by God’s grace, produced fruit nonetheless.

I suppose it starts with election. In basic terms, election is God choosing His children to belong to Him. And I hear a big old, “Hold up! You said you believed in free will! You can’t believe in free will and in God’s election?!"

And I hear that interjection because it’s played through my mind countless times, like a nasty ringing in my ears. But it's not very biblical of me to see such a contradiction between the two. It’s a mystery! I can’t choose God unless He enables me to choose Him, and God draws near to those who draw near to Him. It’s both! It’s a beautiful both! And no, I can’t fully articulate it - because I’m not God. Maybe we are not meant to understand, because maybe, we’d begin to rely on our own understanding and try to be God instead of letting God be God.

I think the song “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” is an excellent example of how free will and election can be cherished as hand-in-glove concepts. The phrase “I have decided to follow Jesus” is a statement of free will, of desire, of volition - the cognisant choice to follow Jesus.

But the phrase “No turning back” is not, I believe, a statement that banks on free will so much as one that harkens back to perseverance of the saints - God’s ability to keep His children saved.

My husband’s missionary uncle once told him a story that illustrates this idea quite astoundingly. My husband’s uncle had a friend who was a believer in Jesus and he lived in South America. One day, a group of men surrounded him with the goal of forcing him to renounce his faith in Christ. They were in a rural setting by a river and they dragged this friend down to the bank.

Their strategy was basically the antithesis of baptism. They’d dunk this friend under the water and hold him down until he was completely out of breath and then some, and just when he was liable to drown, they’d bring him up and tell him to renounce his faith. The first time, he said “No”. Back down he went. While under the water, he thought to himself, “I can’t do this. When they bring me back up, I’ll deny Jesus”. They brought him up out of the river, gasping for breath, choking out the cold water. To his surprise, when they told him to deny Jesus, he heard himself saying, “Never!”

Back under the water he went, thinking to himself, “What am I doing? This time, I will most definitely deny Jesus.” But again, when he came up, gasping for breath, he heard himself declaring that he would never renounce his faith.

At that, the men pushed him back beneath the water until he was unconscious. They left him, presumably to die, but he did come to eventually, and he survived, marvelling at how the Holy Spirit had not let him deny Christ, but had preserved his life - not just on earth, but for eternity!

So all that to say, while I do truly believe in free will, I also truly believe in election and preservation of the saints, and as a Bible believing Christian, I’m free to cling to both.

Election has some major ramifications when it comes to that qualm: “Have I blasphemed the Holy Spirit?” In John 6, Jesus explained,

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:35-40).

Did you catch when He says “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me”? Later on, in verse 44, Jesus also said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day”. So this is clearly talking about election and the sovereignty of God to choose to draw someone to Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. And here lies something that occurred to me only after a lot of unnecessary turmoil regarding whether or not God would accept me. Would God waste His time drawing me to Himself if I was unsavable? If we can’t come to Jesus unless the Father draws us, then we don’t need to worry about coming to Jesus and then getting turned away.

If you or I have any inclination towards Jesus, that is the Lord softening our hearts. Why? Because He wants us to come to Him! I think that’s why when I shared my fear with Ken Penner, he could just exclaim, “Then you couldn’t have done it!”

I was not the only tortured soul to find comfort from Jesus’ promise in John 6. Author of Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan, was also stricken with the terrible fear of having committed an unpardonable sin. In his book When I Don’t Desire God, John Piper quotes John Bunyan as having confessed deep turmoil during his early young adult years.

“A whole flood of blasphemies, both against God, Christ, and the Scriptures were poured upon my spirit, to my great confusion and astonishment…My heart was at times exceedingly hard. If I would have given a thousand pounds for a tear, I could not shed one…Oh the desperateness of man’s heart…I feared that this wicked sin of mine might be that sin unpardonable…Oh, no one knows the terrors of those days but myself”(Piper, 2004).

I recall reading that quote with tears in my eyes, thinking, “but John, I know exactly what you are talking about - exactly! I know the terror of those days! I’m living the terror of those days!”

But this is the same John Bunyan who also wrote:

“But I am a great sinner, say you.