It Shall Not be Forgiven

First Series – Sermon Four

Original by George MacDonald

Paraphrase by Dale R. Howie

 

The previous sermon, the Higher Faith, ended with one of our Lord's most sobering statements:

"Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven."

George MacDonald now takes up that question. Rather than asking what particular act cannot be forgiven, he asks a far deeper question: What kind of heart cannot receive forgiveness?

As throughout these sermons, MacDonald is concerned first with relationship because God is, first and last, Father. He is less interested in defining the unpardonable sin than in revealing the condition of heart from which it grows. Murder may be the act of a moment's passion, but unforgiveness is often the settled determination of the heart to separate itself from another. It is the very opposite of the forgiving heart of God.

MacDonald sees all judgment as redemptive because God is first and foremost our Father. The sin against the Holy Spirit is not a single act beyond God's mercy, but a condition of mind and heart that continually resists His Spirit and refuses His healing love. While a person remains in that condition, forgiveness cannot accomplish its work—not because God is unwilling to forgive, but because the heart has closed itself to the very forgiveness He freely offers.

 

Outline

Sermon Question: What is the unforgivable sin?

P1 - Union and Power – Truth fulfills its purpose by uniting us to Christ.

      P2 - Meaning of Forgiveness – Forgiveness flows from the Father's restoring love.

                    P3 - Unforgiveness to Others – Unforgiveness destroys the very relationship God seeks to restore.

                 T - All Judgment is Redemptive – Every judgment of God serves the restoration of His children. 

          R3 – Resisting the Light – The Spirit cannot heal the heart that continually resists His light.

     R2 - Judas – No failure is greater than the Father's determination to redeem.

R1 - Hope in Revelation – The Father always has more light to reveal.

  

Luke 12:10 NLT

 "Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven."

 

Jesus had no intention of establishing a religious system built upon doctrinal formulas. The reality of each moment, in its living relationship to Himself, was the truth He spoke. His words came from revelation—a life that could never be fully captured by intellect or language alone. Truth must ultimately be revealed before it can be understood.

With vivid flashes of life and light, the eternal Word invaded our darkness. He awakened sleeping hearts with glimpses of a reality beyond themselves, calling us out of death and into the light that only He can give. This resurrection is not accomplished merely by words, but by union and power.

 

Union and Power

Question: Why isn't truth enough by itself?

How will truth advance among those who possess neither inspiration nor insight? Those who build intellectual systems from the words of Jesus or His disciples? Better a little child to interpret Plato or Paul than one of these. The inspiration within those who truly knew Jesus was too extraordinary to pass through such narrow doors. Whatever insight these theologians receive must first be reduced until it can fit within the limits of their own understanding.

Words, once separated from the heart that gave them birth, can come to mean almost anything the hearer wishes them to mean. How shall the man whose highest concern is the salvation of his own soul understand the heart of Paul, who was willing to be cut off from Christ for the sake of his brothers, the people of Israel? To those who are not simple, even the plainest words become the greatest riddles.

If we are determined to understand our Lord's meaning—and He certainly speaks that we may understand Him—we should be equally determined to reject any interpretation that seems unlike Him or unworthy of His character. Jesus Himself asks, "Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" To accept as truth something that contradicts what we already know of Him is to introduce conflict where there ought to be harmony. The purpose of truth is not merely to inform our minds, but to unite our hearts as one.

How then will we receive Him if we refuse discernment? If we cling to our favorite image of Jesus as though it were His complete likeness, might we one day close the door against the Master Himself, mistaking Him for an imposter? If I refuse to question my own assumptions with humility and love, who will question them for me? Better to refuse the truth for a time than to accept an intellectual creed that my heart cannot receive. To misunderstand God's character introduces hesitation into prayer, difficulty into praise, and misery into love. If something is true, we shall one day see it clearly—and when we do, we will love it. Truth is always lovely. Therefore, let us follow that part of ourselves that already loves Him. Let us trust its judgment while continually looking to the Lord, who is the Spirit, for greater light.

Better, I say again, to refuse the right doctrine for a season than to embrace a misunderstanding that denies the Spirit and the Truth within it. Which is more like the sin against the Holy Spirit—to misunderstand our Lord and grieve over it, or to believe something about Him that our best nature knows to be beneath Him; something selfish, cruel, or unworthy of His love? Surely the latter comes nearer to that sin. It is not merely disbelief in a doctrine, but unbelief in the Truth Himself.

Words receive their fullest meaning from the one who speaks them. A saying that appears ordinary may become extraordinary when we discover whose heart gave it birth. So it is with the words of God. Whatever a word may mean when spoken by a good man, it means infinitely more when spoken by God. As we come to know Him better—becoming more like Him—we begin to discover depths within His words that were always there, waiting for hearts ready to receive them.

I am less concerned with defining the sin against the Holy Spirit than with understanding what unforgiveness reveals about the heart. I believe that as we follow one, we shall better understand the other. I cannot believe there is anything in the words of our Lord too mysterious to explore. True, into many things I can see only a little. But even that little is the way of Life, for the depth of every mystery is God.

Answer: Because truth fulfills its purpose only when it brings us into union with Christ.

 

Meaning of Forgiveness

Question: What does forgiveness really remove?

To take our first step toward understanding forgiveness, we must first ask what divine forgiveness means. If there is any meaning in the Incarnation, it is that we ascend to the divine through the human. I do not think it necessary to begin with Greek or English definitions. Though forgiveness may mean "a sending away," or "a giving away," such definitions tell us very little unless we understand the heart from which forgiveness comes. Better, I think, to look at the feelings and actions we call forgiveness.

One man may say, "I forgive him, but I cannot forget. I never want to see him again." But to what extent has he really forgiven? Has he sent away the offense that stands between them? Has he removed the injury from the relationship? Surely not. The wound remains, and with it the separation.

Another may say, "He has done me a terrible wrong, but he has already done himself a greater one. I despise him too much to seek revenge. I shall simply ignore him. I forgive him because I no longer care." Again, there is no true sending away of the offense. There is no healing of the breach between them.

A third says, "I know I must forgive him, because if I do not forgive him, God will not forgive me." Such a man comes a little nearer the truth because he recognizes a common need for mercy. Yet even here forgiveness has not reached its goal. It remains more concerned with his own standing before God than with restoring his brother.

Then another says, "He has wronged me deeply. It grieves me that he has done this, but it grieves me even more that he has become the sort of man capable of such a thing. He has wounded me, but he has wounded himself far more. I will not add to his injury. Though my heart has not yet fully returned to him, I will do all I can to help him see what he has done, so that he may be freed from it. I will show him every kindness I honestly can, not for my own advantage, but because I love him and long to see him restored. I desire to remove what has come between us, hoping that he also will cast it away, and that together we may be reconciled, one."

Which of these comes nearest the divine idea of forgiveness? Which most truly removes the distance between two hearts? The distance that can become as great as the heavens are above the earth.

God created us, and His power to restore infinitely exceeds our own. Forgiveness originates in Him. His own life and love give shape to every act of human forgiveness. He takes up our wrongs, our sorrow, and our shame, removing them from between Himself and us.

Jesus Christ is God's forgiveness!

Before we go further into this great truth, let us first consider forgiveness as it appears between a father and his child. Though God is infinitely more than any earthly father, fatherhood remains the highest step by which our understanding can begin to climb toward Him. From there our hearts discover that He is not only near us—but even within us.

There are many kinds of wrongdoing, and each calls for a different expression of love. A child's sudden outburst of anger may scarcely require forgiveness at all. Such a fault calls more for guidance than correction. The father gently teaches self-control, never feeling that such a moment has built a wall between them.

But suppose he discovers a settled habit of deceit or cruelty toward younger brothers or the animals entrusted to his care. Would he respond in the same way? Would not such a wound require a different response of love? Love itself would demand whatever discipline might rescue the child from becoming that kind of person. To ignore such evil would not be love at all. It might arise from human weakness, but never from divine love. Forgiveness is never indifference. It is love reaching the unlovely!

Look more closely still at the father's heart.

When one child stumbles through weakness, the father may simply gather him into his arms. His tenderness itself destroys the offense, and nothing remains between them. Forgiveness is immediate because love has already overcome the fault.

Another child, however, may have surrendered himself to selfishness, deceit, or delight in another's suffering. The father may well say within himself, "I cannot forgive this—not because I love him less, but because this evil cannot remain." Even then his love has only grown stronger, for true love measures need rather than merit. From that moment forward, everything the father does is directed toward bringing his child home again.

Only when the child opens his heart to that love, meeting it with his own, is the barrier finally swept away. Then, and only then, can forgiveness be said to have accomplished its work.

God forgives us every day. He is always removing what stands between Himself and us—our darkness, sin, and blindness. The rising sun, the falling rain, and the gladness that still visits the human heart all bear witness that He loves those who do not yet love Him. Even while sin clouds our vision and hides His face from us, His love is already preparing a path by which forgiveness may reach our hearts. That forgiving love awakens repentance, scatters our darkness, and finally frees us to forgive ourselves. For some of us are too proud to forgive ourselves until God's forgiveness has first found us.

God looks at this as continuing contact between His heart and ours, destroying what lies between us. God's love always comes before His forgiveness. Love is the motivation from which forgiveness flows. Yet forgiveness cannot be completed without our participation. God loves perfectly even when we are not yet ready to receive His love. While our hearts remain closed, forgiveness cannot accomplish its purpose, because what lies between us has not yet been surrendered to His consuming fire.

Some sins are lighter than others, not because sin is ever unimportant, but because they have not yet consumed the heart. They have not crowded out the presence of God's Spirit or resisted His healing work. As His forgiving love continues cleansing us from within, we grow into the life that is truly our own, becoming willing participants in His will.

When, with our whole hearts, we cast away our sins, forgiveness has finished its work. Nothing remains between the Father and His child. Nathan said to David, "You are the man." David awoke from his moral sleep, and in that awakening discovered that God had never left him. "When I awake," he says, "I am still with You."

Answer: Everything that stands between two hearts.

 
Unforgiveness to Others

Question: Why does Jesus connect our forgiveness with forgiving others?

There are two sins, as I understand them, that are not merely acts but conditions of the spirit. They cannot simply be excused or overlooked, not even by the tenderness of God, because they prevent forgiveness from accomplishing its work. They close the heart against the renewing influence of God's love. While a person remains in such a condition, God is shut out in every way except His creating relationship, which, thank God, still holds him fast against his own will. One of these sins is against man; the other is against God.

The first is simply unforgiveness toward our neighbor—the shutting of another person out from our mercy, our love, and our world, as far as it lies within our power to do so. The murdering, as it were, of our neighbor. I believe it is a far less evil thing to take a man's life in a moment of passion than deliberately to refuse him forgiveness. Murder may be the act of a moment. Unforgiveness is the settled choice of the heart. It is spiritual murder—the slow destruction of another within ourselves. To hate, to cherish the thoughts that exclude, to dwell upon the injury until the image of our brother is driven from our heart—this is the greater evil.

We listen to the accuser within us, whether it speaks through wounded pride, rejected love, or cherished resentment. As far as we are able, we extinguish the relationship between ourselves and the one who has wronged us. We close the door against reconciliation. But in doing so, we also close the door against the very Life of God. How shall we receive His forgiving presence while refusing to forgive our brother? How shall we welcome the God who is restoring all things while we ourselves refuse restoration?

When God comes to us with forgiveness, how can He say, "I forgive you," while we stubbornly refuse to forgive another? Even if those words could somehow reach us, they would do us little good while bitterness continued to rule our hearts. They might even deceive us into believing that all was well while the disease of unforgiveness continued to consume us from within.

There is infinite life in our Lord's words: "If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

These are not words of condemnation but of profound kindness. God continues to hold the unforgiving one by the hand, though He seems to turn His face away. The moment that person turns again toward his brother, longing for reconciliation, he finds the Father's face already turned toward him. As forgiveness flows toward his neighbor, the assurance of God's forgiveness flows into his own heart. Even the first effort to release another prepares us to believe that God Himself has released us.

Suppose God were to say, "I forgive you," to the man who still hates his brother. What could such forgiveness possibly mean to him? Would it say, "Continue in your hatred; it matters little"? Never. God does not overlook the evil that possesses us. The greater the injury we have suffered, the greater our need to be delivered from the hatred it has produced. His purpose is always to restore His child to the loving person He created him to be.

A man may imagine that God forgives the sin itself. But God never makes peace with sin. Every sin carries within itself its own judgment, for every sin separates us from the life of God. Yet He loves the sinner so deeply that He will not cease His work until He has delivered him from the evil that enslaves him. His forgiveness is nothing less than the raising of His child out of the darkness that has taken hold of him.

Let no one imagine, however, that the one who refuses forgiveness today is therefore forever beyond redemption. That is not my meaning. While he remains in such a state, God cannot be with him as friend, not because God has ceased to be his friend, but because the friendship has become one-sided. Forgiveness is not merely love. It is love received as love by the one who has done wrong. Only then are peace with God and reconciliation with our neighbor made complete.

Answer: Because the same heart that receives forgiveness also learns to give it.

 

All Judgment Is Redemptive

Question: Why does God judge?

Let us return to our Lord's words. Does the refusal to forgive imply a judgment from which there can never be repentance? Would it mean that because a man has done wrong, and continued in wrong until wrong has become part of his very being, he must therefore remain forever what he has become? Strange justice indeed! Do not tell me that judgment consists only in condemnation, or that God forever abandons a man to the consequences of his own will by withdrawing His Spirit because that Spirit has been despised. God does not hide behind logic, philosophy, or theological systems. He is not first a schoolmaster or theologian. He is our Father.

If He were finally to withdraw Himself from His child, would He not become guilty of the very unforgiveness He commands us to forsake?

The only ground upon which such a doctrine can stand is the belief that God can do no more—that Satan has won—that Jesus Christ, God Himself among us, could not overcome the destroyer of His children. What then could I say of such a doctrine except that it is a doctrine of devils? Must we believe that even repentance itself would prove powerless because God could no longer forgive?

Let us look more closely at what is commonly called the unpardonable sin.

In one sense, every sin is unpardonable. No compromise can ever be made with evil. Forgiveness never leaves sin untouched. We pass through forgiveness only by becoming free, only by paying the "last penny," only by allowing everything opposed to the Life of God to be consumed.

The nature of these sins lies in their power to block the friendly approach of God to the soul. They resist His personal and spiritual influence. They close the heart against His presence.

Perhaps I have spoken too strongly. Perhaps even in the unforgiving man some hidden place still remains where the love of God continues its quiet work. Yet if unforgiveness is cherished long enough, even that opening grows smaller. One thing or the other must finally yield—to forgiveness or to hardness of heart.

The same is true of the one who knowingly rejects the truth. He resists what he knows to be right until he finally calls truth false, good evil, and evil good. He says that what comes from God comes from Satan, and what comes from darkness comes from God. In rejecting the Spirit, he closes himself to the very One through whom forgiveness reaches the heart.

Without the Spirit, who shall cast out evil? Without His witness within us, how could we know ourselves forgiven even if God Himself declared it? Forgiveness must become a living reality within us. It cannot be received while we are resisting the very Spirit through whom God gives it.

As far as we can tell, the religious leaders to whom our Lord spoke had reached such a fearful condition. They resisted the truth while knowing it to be true. Out of selfishness, envy, ambition, and love of power, they rejected the One whom they knew to be good. Rather than surrender themselves to the Light, they chose to extinguish it. In opposing Jesus, they were not merely committing wrong acts; they were setting the whole direction of their lives against the Truth they recognized.

Here, I believe, we begin to understand the sin against the Holy Spirit. "This is the judgment," not in the individual acts men commit, but in the condition of heart in which they choose to remain, "that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil."

I see no single act that constitutes this sin, though it may express itself in many acts. It is the settled condition of a heart that continually refuses the Light and therefore lives at the greatest possible distance from the heart of God.

But can a man truly fall into such darkness? That is my real difficulty. Wiser men than I have believed so, and perhaps they are right. But I cannot believe that such a condition is final. Why should it be more hopeless than the condition of the man who refuses to love his brother? And if you tell me it is worse still, I ask only this: Is it beyond the forgiveness of God?

Answer: To destroy sin without ever abandoning His child.

 

Resisting the Light

Question: Why is resisting the Holy Spirit so dangerous?

The Spirit of God most often makes Himself known by bearing witness to the truth within our own spirit. Yet is this His only way of reaching us? Is there no other voice by which He speaks?

The God who created us is always near every person who draws breath—not merely near us, but present within His creation. Though a man may close his heart against Him, he cannot remove himself from the One in whom he lives and moves and has his being.

Perhaps one terrible event may shake the very foundations of such a man's life. An earthquake rising from the hidden depths of his own darkness may finally break through the deafness of his soul. Then, after the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, he may at last hear the still, small voice he has resisted for so long.

And if even that does not awaken him?

Is there not still the consuming fire?

Shall we place limits upon the liberating power of God's fire?

The only serious argument I can imagine against such hope is this: that a man who has sinned so deeply against the truth might one day come to such utter disgust with himself that he would wish never to have existed—that non-being itself would seem preferable to life. Better for him if he had never been born.

Yet even there I cannot despair, for the God who could bring a man to such complete brokenness is surely able to bring him also to repentance. The one who has finally abandoned the prison of self will gladly spend eternity renewing his mind and beholding the beauty he once despised. Once self is surrendered, sin has lost its throne. It is enough that his portion is now in God, and that he may forever behold the One who is altogether lovely.

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Our Lord spoke these words, not after His enemies had finished killing Him, but while they were driving the nails into His hands. Before they sought forgiveness, He had already forgiven them.

His prayer was heard. For the Father and the Son are one.

When that forgiveness finally reaches the heart, it awakens sorrow, repentance, and faith. Here was humanity's darkest sin, yet our Lord found it easy to forgive. He even searched for reasons to excuse His murderers.

Thank You, Lord Jesus. That is exactly like You.

Answer: Because we resist the very One who can heal us.

 

Judas

Question: Why does George speak of Judas with hope?

Must we really believe that Judas, who at last came to repentance in bitter agony, found no mercy in God? Must we believe that the man whose own life became unbearable to him found no compassion in the One who came to seek and save the lost? I cannot. I do not know how, but I believe that when Judas fled from his hanged body, he fled into the tender arms of Jesus and found forgiveness there. I believe he stood in a more hopeful place than ever before, for perhaps, at last, Judas truly repented.

Jesus loved Judas even while he betrayed Him with the traitor’s kiss. He still believed Himself to be Judas' Savior, and I cannot persuade myself that His love failed at the very moment Judas needed it most. If someone reminds me of our Lord's words, "It would have been better for that man if he had never been born," I have not forgotten them. I offer only an opinion. Judas had never truly entered into the good for which he had been created. Though he walked beside the Son of God and called Him Master, he remained captive to himself, and everything therefore became empty. Perhaps it would have been better had he never descended into such darkness; or perhaps it simply meant that he must begin again in a lower school until he learned at last to love. But this I cannot believe—that You, O God, would refuse forgiveness to Your enemy once he truly repented, or that the holy death of Jesus lacked power to save even Judas.

Have we not seen His disciples learn to forgive their enemies because they first learned forgiveness from Him? Shall the Master's forgiveness prove less powerful than theirs? Look again at the words surrounding our text. "Whoever denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God." Does this mean, "You denied Me; away with you forever"? Surely not, for our Lord immediately adds, "Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man shall be forgiven." It is not denial itself that places a man beyond forgiveness, but the continual resistance of the Spirit by whom forgiveness reaches the heart. Let such a man experience what life is apart from the God he has rejected. Perhaps even outer darkness may become the road that finally leads him home.

Answer: Because he believes Christ's love is greater than human failure.

 
Hope in Revelation

Question: Why should we keep seeking truth?

My friends, I offer these thoughts only as a contribution toward understanding our Lord's words. If we ask Him, He Himself will lead us into all truth. Let us never be afraid to think, to question, or to wrestle honestly with His words, for He is not displeased with those who seek Him. Rather, He delights in those who hunger and thirst after a right relationship, leading them patiently into a fuller knowledge of Himself.

What I have said, however, can be only a small part of the truth. No searching of the Scriptures, no conclusions of theologians, nor even the discoveries of those who have walked before us can exhaust the riches that are in Christ. The greatest gift His disciples leave to us is not merely the truths they have discovered, but the encouragement to seek the Truth for ourselves.

Beyond all we have already learned lie depths of truth still waiting to be revealed. Even now we see only in part. Yet every new glimpse of His light assures us that there are greater discoveries still before us. What has been hidden becomes plain, and what is plain opens the door to mysteries we have not yet imagined. Such has always been the way of God's Kingdom, and such it will continue to be throughout the ages to come.

The fact that some things once hidden have opened to us—that great truths have proceeded from what once looked simple—gives us hope. That this process of enlightenment will be our experience through the ages to come. 

Therefore, let us not fear what we do not yet understand, nor despair because our knowledge is incomplete. Our greatest discoveries in this life are but the smallest beginning of the distance between ourselves and Christ—between our love and His love, our wisdom and His wisdom, our vision and His perfect sight. Every step toward Him awakens the desire for another.

To Him we shall all come. More His children than ever before, we shall receive from His hand the white stone, and upon it a new name written that no one knows except the one who receives it.

Answer: Because every new discovery reveals there is still more of Christ to know.

Sermon Answer: It is not a single act, but a heart that continually resists the work of God's Spirit.

 

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Continue your Quest . . .

Next Sermon - New Name

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CLIFF NOTES WITH MACDONALD’S ORIGINAL QUOTES

 

“Our Lord had no design of constructing a system of truth in intellectual forms. The truth of the moment in its relation to him, The Truth, was what he spoke. He spoke out of a region of realities which he knew could only be suggested—not represented—in the forms of intellect and speech. With vivid flashes of life and truth his words invade our darkness, rousing us with sharp stings of light to will our awaking, to arise from the dead and cry for the light which he can give, not in the lightning of words only, but in indwelling presence and power.”

 

Union and Power

 

“If we are bound to search after what our Lord means—and he speaks that we may understand—we are at least equally bound to refuse any interpretation which seems to us unlike him, unworthy of him. He himself says, "Why do ye not of your own selves judge what is right?"… To accept that as the will of our Lord which to us is inconsistent with what we have learned to worship in him already, is to introduce discord into that harmony whose end is to unite our hearts, and make them whole.”

 “Words for their full meaning depend upon their source, the person who speaks them. An utterance may even seem commonplace, till you are told that thus spoke one whom you know to be always thinking, always feeling, always acting. Recognizing the mind whence the words proceed, you know the scale by which they are to be understood. So the words of God cannot mean just the same as the words of man.”

 

Meaning of Forgiveness

 

“For the Divine creates the Human, has the creative power in excess of the Human. It is the Divine forgiveness that, originating itself, creates our forgiveness, and therefore can do so much more. It can take up all our wrongs, small and great, with their righteous attendance of griefs and sorrows, and carry them away from between our God and us.”

 “Christ is God's Forgiveness.”

“For although God is so much more to us, and comes so much nearer to us than a father can be or come, yet the fatherhood is the last height of the human stair whence our understandings can see him afar off, and where our hearts can first know that he is nigh, even in them.”

 “A passing-by of the offence might spring from a poor human kindness, but never from divine love. It would not be remission. Forgiveness can never be indifference. Forgiveness is love towards the unlovely.”

 “For love is divine, and then most divine when it loves according to needs and not according to merits. But the forgiveness would be but in the process of making, as it were, or of drawing nigh to the sinner. Not till his opening heart received the divine flood of destroying affection, and his own affection burst forth to meet it and sweep the evil away, could it be said to be finished, to have arrived, could the son be said to be forgiven.”

 “God is forgiving us every day—sending from between him and us our sins and their fogs and darkness.”

 “But, looking upon forgiveness, then, as the perfecting of a work ever going on, as the contact of God's heart and ours, in spite and in destruction of the intervening wrong, we may say that God's love is ever in front of his forgiveness. God's love is the prime mover, ever seeking to perfect his forgiveness, which latter needs the human condition for its consummation.”

 

Unforgiveness to Others

 

“The former is unforgiveness to our neighbor; the shutting of him out from our mercies, from our love—so from the universe, as far as we are a portion of it—the murdering therefore of our neighbor. It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him.”

 “The man would think, not that God loved the sinner, but that he forgave the sin, which God never does. Every sin meets with its due fate—inexorable expulsion from the paradise of God's Humanity. He loves the sinner so much that he cannot forgive him in any other way than by banishing from his bosom the demon that possesses him.”

 “Forgiveness, as I have said, is not love merely, but love conveyed as love to the erring, so establishing peace towards God, and forgiveness towards our neighbor.”

 

Judgement is Redemptive

 

“God will not take shelter behind such a jugglery of logic or metaphysics. He is neither schoolman nor theologian, but our Father in heaven. He knows that that in him would be the same unforgiveness for which he refuses to forgive man.”

“That Satan has overcome; and that Jesus, amongst his own brothers and sisters in the image of God, has been less strong than the adversary, the destroyer. What then shall I say of such a doctrine of devils as that, even if a man did repent, God would not or could not forgive him?”

“All sin is unpardonable. There is no compromise to be made with it. We shall not come out except clean.”

 “As far as we can see, the men of whom this was spoken were men who resisted the truth with some amount of perception that it was the truth; men neither led astray by passion, nor altogether blinded by their abounding prejudice; men who were not excited to condemn one form of truth by the love which they bore to another form of it; but men so set, from selfishness and love of influence, against one whom they saw to be a good man, that they denied the goodness of what they knew to be good, in order to put down the man whom they knew to be good, because He had spoken against them, and was ruining their influence and authority with the people by declaring them to be no better than they knew themselves to be.”

 “Of this nature must the sin against the Holy Ghost surely be. "This is the condemnation," (not the sins that men have committed, but the condition of mind in which they choose to remain,) "that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

 

Resisting the Light

 

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," said Jesus. Jesus was making excuses for His murderers, not after they killed Him, but at the very moment, He was suffering and dying at their hands. He had already forgiven them!”

 

Judas

 

“But I believe that Jesus loved Judas even when he was kissing him with the traitor's kiss; and I believe that he was his Savior still, even when he repented, and did thee right. Nor will I believe that thy holy death was powerless to save thy foe.”

 “But I will not, cannot believe, O my Lord, that thou wouldst not forgive thy enemy, even when he repented, and did thee right.”

 

Hope in Revelation

 

“The fact that some things have become to us so much more simple than they were, and that great truths have come out of what once looked common, is ground enough for hope that such will go on to be our experience through the ages to come.”