ODESSA, Texas (Tribune News Service) — Is there a sin that God will not forgive?

Permian Basin ministers say there is, but it’s none of the things that are punished by the criminal justice system.

Aubrey Jones, Russ Nebhut, Mark Woodruff, Mike Vestal and Mike Atkins say the question is one of the great theological issues.

Citing Matthew 12:31, the Rev. Jones said such a sin is committed “by those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit by seeing the power of God and knowing it is the power of God and yet continuing to claim it is something else.

“This Scripture refers to the Pharisees who saw that Jesus was clearly from God, but they said He was casting out demons by the power of Satan,” said the Chapel Hill Baptist Church pastor.

While he was an Army chaplain in Afghanistan, Jones said, he often counseled soldiers who despaired that they had done something unpardonable. “That gave me the chance to talk about grace,” he said, adding that he was particularly attentive to mentions of suicide.

“God’s grace is big enough to pardon our sin when we confess it and repent. The question is, will we confess and repent? I hear it all the time, ‘When I walk into the church, it’s going to burn down.’ If Christ could forgive the men who put Him on the Cross, I find it hard to say that He cannot use somebody like you or me.”

The Rev. Nebhut, pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church, said the only irretrievable error “is to die without faith.

“There is no sin that God is unwilling to forgive except to reject the work of the Holy Spirit and die in unbelief,” he said. “Paul was a murderer. Moses himself was a murderer. When Christ went to the Cross, He died for the forgiveness of all. But to reject the forgiveness God offers in Christ is a sin against the Spirit because the Spirit’s purpose in the world is primarily to work through the Gospel to bring people to faith and secondarily to lead and guide those who are Christians to help us mature in our faith.”

Nebhut said it is a common misconception “that God is angry and looking for opportunities to punish us.

“The opposite is actually what is true,” he said. “God doesn’t need a reason to punish us because we’re all sinful. His desire is to save us. He didn’t have to send Jesus.”

Father Woodruff, pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, said the only irredeemable sinner “is the one who denies that God would forgive him.

“The unforgivable sin would then be in not asking Him to forgive,” Woodruff said. “With sincere contrition, God forgives all sins.”

The Catholic Church once held that suicide was unpardonable but has changed its approach in the past half-century. “We would not say suicide is not sinful,” the priest said.

“But the church has accepted a lot of the insights into human psychology. God deals mercifully with people who commit suicide.”

Vestal, minister of Westside Church of Christ in Midland, said the New Testament “indicates that, through the blood of Jesus Christ, any and all sin is forgiven when one genuinely repents of wrongdoing, truly seeks to cease the practice and properly complies with the conditions set forth by God in His Word, for example, in Acts 2:38 and 1 John 1:7-9.

“The ‘sin unto death’ spoken of in 1 John 5:16 is a sin the Lord will not forgive because one, a Christian in context, has failed to confess it,” Vestal said. “In other words, there appears to be a stubbornness or blindness in ‘coming clean’ with God. Such a person displays a lack of love, humility and respect to the God of Heaven. As the old saying goes, ‘There is none so blind as he who will not see.’ ”

The Rev. Atkins, pastor of Kingston Avenue Baptist Church, cited Romans 8:31-39 to say nothing can separate a faithful Christian from the love of God. “The only unforgivable sin is in saying, ‘No, I don’t need Christ,’ ” Atkins said.

“God sent His Son to die on the Cross for us. If we deny His Son, then He has no alternative but to deny us. There is such a thing as quenching the Holy Spirit. We have salvation through eternity once we accept Jesus, but there are things like lying that can quench the Spirit. We may consider them little sins, but God doesn’t consider them little because they can hurt our fellowship with Him.”

©2017 the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas)

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