Will God Forgive Me, Can I Be Saved?

A Scriptural Examination of the Unpardonable Sin and the Saving Power of Jesus Christ

Jon Hunter

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781098084134
• eBook ISBN: 9781098084141
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Theology

Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus by night and confessed, "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." Jesus told Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3: 2–3)

This declaration that Jesus made to Nicodemus holds true to all who seek forgiveness and eternal life. If we want to see Heaven, then we also must be born again. Many fear they cannot be forgiven for one particular sin or a multitude and are afraid they are unable to experience this new birth, which is God's gift of salvation.

The purpose of this book is to share God's way of forgiveness. No matter what you've done, no matter what sin or sins you've committed, you can be forgiven. You can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and you can receive His gift of eternal life. God's Word is quite clear. Whosoever desires forgiveness and salvation can be saved, and whosoever means you.

Facing My Fears

My dilemma was that I didn’t understand how men’s explanation of what the unpardonable sin was fit into the scriptural context of the Bible verses in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Hebrews.

I determined that I was going to have to study each scripture and verse, word for word, to try to understand what the Lord was saying. I found that I needed to read not only each of the terrifying Bible verses but also the adjacent verses to fully comprehend what these scriptures meant.

My first goal was to prove to myself that I had not committed the unpardonable sin. I discovered that the terms unpardonable sin and unforgiveable sin are not found in the Bible. These are labels that men have given to these scary portions of Scripture, but they don’t necessarily reflect what God was wanting to communicate to the reader.

After a thorough examination of the frightening verses in the book of Matthew, I realized that these scriptures did contain stern warnings from God to motivate us to seek and cling to Christ, but they were not speaking of an accidental sin committed unwittingly by a person or even words of a blasphemous nature spoken carelessly by an individual. These verses speak of the deliberate act of turning away from and forever rejecting Jesus, and this warning was given specifically to the Pharisees who were falsely accusing Christ of casting out demons by Satan’s power rather than that of the Holy Spirit.

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. (Matthew 12:31–32)

One common mistake people make is to read verses in the Bible without studying the full context of the scripture. The first word spoken by Jesus in Matthew 12:31 is wherefore, tying verse 31 in with the previous verse. If we read Matthew 12:30, Jesus tells us:

He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

This scripture warns that when a person does not gather with Christ, they will tend to go astray, wandering away from Him and the Gospel, eventually scattering abroad—just like a lamb which is inclined to stray from a shepherd, determined to go its own way. Such a person desires to purposefully be loosed from any ties of being ruled by Christ.

The rulers of Israel were living in a time of expectation of the imminent arrival of the Messiah. Prophecies concerning the coming of Christ actually pointed to the time in history that Jesus was here in the flesh. The Pharisees also understood that the countless miracles done by Jesus verified His claims of Lordship. He restored sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf; Jesus calmed the raging storm. He fed thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread and small fish. He even raised the dead. No power under heaven, other than that of Almighty God, could perform miracles such as those that Jesus did. Nicodemus attested to this in the book of John 3:1–2:

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

This scripture tells us that the Pharisees recognized Jesus’s miracles as evidence that He was sent by God. This also reveals that not all the rulers in Israel were against Christ. Many of the Pharisees though had become quite prideful and self-serving in their hearts. They loved the glory and honor they received from men because of their status, so they would not accept or openly confess Jesus as the Messiah.

Jesus knew their pride and hardness of their hearts. Possibly the clearest example of the Pharisees’ deliberate rejection of Jesus is revealed in the parable in Mark 12:1–8:

And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled. And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some. Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, “They will reverence my son.” But those husbandmen said among themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.

In this parable, the landowner represents God the Father. The husbandmen represent the corrupt scribes and Pharisees, the rulers of the Jews. The servants represent the prophets, and the beloved son is Jesus. The parable shows that the husbandmen clearly recognized who the servants sent to the vineyard were and that these servants carried with them power granted by the landowner; but the husbandmen treated them cruelly, disregarding their authority, beating some, and killing others. When the landowner finally sent his beloved son, the husbandmen also recognized who he was, knowing he was the heir; and they believed that killing him would assure them possession of the fruits of the vineyard.

The parable reveals that the husbandmen recognized the identity of the heir when they took him captive and killed him. Even so, the rulers of Israel recognized that the evidence supporting Jesus Christ as being Lord and Messiah verified His claims; but they still rejected, arrested, and crucified Him.

This is where we begin to understand the gravity of the Pharisees’ false accusation concerning this miracle of Christ. By claiming that Jesus was casting out demons by any power other than that of the Holy Spirit was ludicrous. As Jesus said in Matthew 12:26, “And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?” It is also interesting that the Pharisees only made this accusation concerning Christ’s miracle of casting out demons and not about His many other miracles which were clearly God ordained. Though the powers of darkness do have some limited control or power over nature, which is seemingly miraculous (see Exodus 7:11–12 and Job 1:13–19), miracles of such great magnitude which were accomplished by Christ (e.g., calming the sea, feeding the five thousand, and restoring life to those long dead) involve supernatural power which emanates from Almighty God alone (Exodus 4:11 and 8:16–19).

These religious leaders had but one goal, and that was to create doubt in the eyes of the people of Israel regarding the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They were not only running in the opposite direction of repentance and faith in Jesus, but they were also attempting to lure the people of Israel away from following Him.

Whether these leaders had actually crossed a line of no return is not clear. But being in the position these men were in, seeing Christ’s miracles and His righteousness, and knowing the prophesies concerning the Messiah, they still not only rejected Him but fled from faith in Him and attempted to draw the people of Israel away from Him. This shows that repentance was quite unlikely. What more would motivate the rulers of Israel to repent and believe, knowing what they already knew and seeing what they had already seen? That is why their false accusations against Christ were so damning. Their allegations revealed the extreme hardness of their hearts. It was then most likely impossible for them to repent. Thus, there would be no forgiveness for this horrible sin.

It’s important to understand that whosoever comes to Jesus for mercy will be accepted and forgiven by Him, though the heart of a man can eventually become so hardened that they will never come to Christ for forgiveness. This is because they may never again have the desire to do so.

After reading this additional scripture in Matthew, I began to understand the purpose of Jesus’s warning. When the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of the Gospel to an individual, it’s a dangerous thing to deliberately delay accepting God’s gracious ...

Table of contents

• The Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit The Unpardonable Sin
• My Search for God, God’s Search for Me
• My Fifteen Years of Desperation
• When the Darkness Came
• My Search for an Answer
• New Hope
• Facing My Fears
• The Frightening Verses in Hebrews
• Will God Forgive My Willful Sins?
• Might It Be Too Late to Repent?
• The Way of Salvation What It Means to Believe in Christ
• Two Men and the Savior