Sins against the Holy Spirit
The Bible warns of six sins one can commit against the Holy Spirit. Some of them can only be committed by nonbelievers, while others could be committed by believers.
A believer can lie to the Holy Spirit.
Lying to the Holy Spirit means to pretend to be something you are not—to go through the motions of living the Christian life without really meaning it in your heart of hearts. “These people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me” (Isaiah 29:13).
A believer can grieve the Holy Spirit.
Grieving the Holy Spirit means to make sad or sorrowful. When we allow bitterness to poison our lives or we slander others, we are grieving the Holy Spirit. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice” (Ephesians 4:30–31).
A believer can quench the Holy Spirit.
Quenching suggests extinguishing a fire. Unbelief can certainly hinder the working and moving of God’s Holy Spirit (see Mark 6:4–5). This sin is also committed when the Holy Spirit leads you to do a certain thing (share your faith, pray more, take a step of faith) and you flatly refuse. “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19).
A nonbeliever can resist the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit seeks to speak to the heart of the unbeliever and lead him to God. There are those who are convinced of the truth of the gospel, yet who refuse to yield their hearts to God. “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you” (Acts 7:51). These words were spoken by the early Christian martyr Stephen to the unbelieving Sanhedrin shortly before his death.
A nonbeliever can insult the Holy Spirit.
It is the office of the Holy Spirit to present the saving work of Jesus Christ to the unsaved. A person insults the love of God by saying that he does not really need God’s gift of salvation, or by insisting that Christ’s death on the cross was unnecessary or unable to save him. To resist the Spirit’s appeal is to insult God and to cut off all hope of salvation. “Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:29).
A nonbeliever can blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:31–32).
This is the most serious offense against the Holy Spirit, for there is no forgiveness for the person who commits it. The work of the Spirit is to convict us of sin and bring us to Jesus Christ. To blaspheme Him is similar to insulting, in that we resist His work altogether. This should not be the concern of any Christian, for this is not a sin he can or will commit.
