The sin against the Holy Ghost, as it is commonly called, is also known as the “unpardonable sin,” and the “sin unto death.” See 1 John 5:16. As we before said, the answer to the question, Why is it unpardonable, lies in the very nature of the Holy Spirit’s relationship to man. Are we to suppose that it is some sin too heinous to be forgiven? or that God has decided that this sin is one that bears too heavily against his willingness to forgive? or, in other words, that his great love is not sufficient, were it weighed in the balance with this sin? Nay; that is not the light in which it is to be regarded. This is a sin that is different in its effects from other sins. It is one by which man unprivileges himself to be saved. He disconnects himself, so to speak, from all possible operations or strivings of the Spirit of God with him. He might blaspheme God, or the Son, and it would be the same as any other sin. But he blasphemes the Spirit whenever he takes action against (and casts out, so to speak) that inherent principle in him which tends to draw him to God. By so doing he places himself outside the realm of possibilities, as regards his own salvation: for he severs all possible communication from God to him, unless it be what is manifest by the presentation of awful fear of approaching damnation. It will be seen that in committing this sin a man by choice wilfully places himself in such a position, in reference to the inner dictations of the Spirit, that the latter is killed or destroyed. He can blaspheme God, and the convictions of the Spirit in him be unaffected, save that continual so doing might lessen them; but when he blasphemes the Spirit—it being so interwoven as to be, in a sense, a part of himself—he involves his own soul, by taking a stand against himself, as it were, thereby unfitting and unqualifying himself to be further affected by the Spirit. He drowns, dissolves, annihilates the inner strivings of the Spirit. If we examine carefully the quotation from Mark, we see by verse thirty that the reason Christ said what he did about blasphemy against the Holy Ghost was because certain scribes said he had an unclean spirit, and cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Now whether they thereby committed the blasphemy of the Spirit, we do not know; but from Christ’s words that followed, a strong inference could be drawn that they did. It was at least a close step to it, and depended on the degree of inherent knowledge they had that Jesus was the Christ. If they did it ignorantly, it was not blasphemy.