Are There Sins That God Will Not Forgive?

Last updated on: May 26, 2017 at 7:00 am by Jack Wellman

Are There Sins That God Will Not Forgive? 2017-05-24T13:00:33-05:00 Jack Wellman

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Are there any sins that God will not forgive for those who trust in Christ?

No Excuse

When someone asks if they can be forgiven of a sin they think is unforgiveable, they might not understand the depths and riches of God’s mercy, because the Apostle John wrote, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1st John 1:9). When Jesus mentioned the unforgivable sin, He was speaking to the Jewish religious leaders (Matt 12:31; Mark 3). They had seen and heard of His miracles. They knew He had raised the dead and made the blind to see, but their hearts were so hardened that they were going to kill Lazarus just because Jesus had raised him from the dead. They actually hatched a plot to kill both Jesus and Lazarus. Poor Lazarus; he could have died a second time, but such actions by the Jews were inexcusable. They had no excuse for rejecting Christ. They knew this was not a work of Satan, and so to say that Jesus was performing miracles by satanic power was to insult the Holy Spirit of God (Mark 3:29). That’s because the Spirit witnesses in all mankind, so we’re really without excuse to deny God’s existence (Rom 1:18-20). They went so far as to say, “He has an unclean spirit” (Mark 3:30), but inwardly, they knew better. They only wanted to destroy Jesus out of envy because the people believed that He was from God and their place of prominence and power was threatened (Matt 27:18), which it was.

Parent and Child

When my son was young and willingly disobeyed me by not taking the gum out of his mouth before bed, he paid the consequences the next morning when I had to use ice to freeze most of it out. It had become a tangled web overnight and I couldn’t get it all out, and he was not happy about that, mostly at himself because he knew he was paying the consequences for not listening to his dad. I never told him, “I told you so,” but rather I said, “I’m sorry it happened, but now it’s over. You’ve learned a valuable lesson. Let’s leave it at that. It’s forgiven.” The next day he came to me again and said, “Dad, I’m sorry about yesterday and I promise not to do it again.” I said, “What do you mean? Sorry for what?” When he reminded me of the gum, I said, “Oh that! That’s all over son. Don’t worry about it. It’s been forgiven, like I told you yesterday. You don’t have to keep bringing it up.” In the same way, some people just cannot forgive themselves. They keep asking for forgiveness over the same thing, but if they’ve already confessed it, my question is, “Why do you keep bringing up what God’s forgiven?” If my son came back day after day and asked for forgiveness, after a while I’d say, “Son, don’t you believe me? I forgave you and it’s over. Now you must forget it too.” That’s the way God may feel about our continually coming before Him for the very same sin, no matter how grievous it is. The children of God are promised that if they ask for forgiveness, God will grant it (1 John 1:9). Once it’s done, there is no cause to go back and ask for forgiveness again is there?

Unforgiveable

The only thing God will not forgive; in fact, He cannot forgive, is refusing to repent and trust in Christ. If you do not believe in Christ up to the point of your death or Christ’s return (at any given moment), you cannot be forgiven. There is no repentance in hell…only eternal regret. To hear the gospel and then reject it is to trample underfoot the Son of God and despise the shed blood of Jesus Christ (Heb 6). God will not forgive those who are not forgiven through Christ. Again, it’s not that He could not, but in His perfect justice He cannot. A person who I counseled once told me they had committed the unpardonable sin and came to me weeping and broken, and I said*, “Brother, if you have done that, you wouldn’t even be here. You wouldn’t care if you sinned at all!”* The Holy Spirit brought this man to repentance and faith and he responded to the Spirit’s witness about Christ, but those who reject this light are left in darkness because they’ve put Him to an open shame (Heb 6:4-6) by rejecting the only means by which they can be saved (Acts 4:12). If a person keeps rejecting the Spirit’s witness of Christ, which Jesus said He would testify of Him (John 15:26), then that person cannot be renewed, however as long as a person is drawing breath, there is time to trust in Christ and have all sins forgiven.

Conclusion

The person who feels condemned about committing what they think is the unforgiveable or unpardonable sin has surely not committed it, because a person who is not saved would never even care to ask that question. A person who doesn’t believe in God or Jesus Christ wouldn’t feel condemned by a God they don’t believe in, so if you feel you’ve sinned the unforgiveable sin, you don’t understand that our sin can never be greater than our Savior, and the blood of the Lamb is sufficient and efficient for all sins. How many of our sins were ahead of us when Jesus died on the cross? All of them, but Jesus paid it all, so all to Him we owe. It’s a sealed deal (Rom 8; Eph 1).

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is host of Spiritual Fitness and also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.

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