are left with the third alternative. 3.) The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. This sin, committed by the Pharisees, was a deliberate, open- eyed rejection of known truth. They ascribed the mighty works of Jesus, evidently done “by the Spirit of God” (Matt. 12:28), to the agency of Beelzebub. Such sin, Jesus said, would never be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come. He who commits it “is guilty of an eter nal sin” (Mark 3:29, RSV; cf. Matt. 12:22-32). It leads him inexorably into a state of incorrigible moral and spiritual obtuseness, because he has wilfully sinned against his own con science. In John’s own language he has “loved darkness rather than light" (John 3:18-21), and in conse quence he will “die in his sins” (John 8:24). His sin is, in fact, unto death. That is, the outcome of his sin will be spiritual ruin, the final separation of the soul from God, which is “the second death,” reserved for those whose names are not “written in the book of life” (Rev. 20:15; 21:8). But, it may be objected, if the sin unto death is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit committed by a hardened unbeliever, how can John call him a brother? To be ex-
pardon, while minor offences could be forgiven. This developed into the familiar, casuistical differentiation between “mortal” and “venial” sins and the specification of the “seven deadly sins.” But there is no New Testament warrant for such an ar bitrary classification of sins, and cer tainly “it would be an anachronism to try to apply it here” (Dodd). In deed, although the rendering is “a mortal sin” in RSV and “a deadly sin” in NEB, it is doubtful whether John is referring to specific “sins” at all, as opposed to “sin” (as in 1:8), that is, “a state or habit of sin. wilfully chosen and persisted in” (Plummer). 2.) Apostasy. The second sugges tion, favored among modern com mentators by Brooke, Law and C. H. Dodd, is that the “sin unto death” is neither a specific sin, nor even a “backsliding,” but a total apostasy, the denial of Christ and the renun ciation of the faith. Those who hold this view usually link these verses with such passages as Hebrews 6:4- 6,x.26ff. and 12: 16,17, and apply them to the false teachers who had, in fact, so clearly repudiated the truth as to withdraw from the Church (2:19). But can a Christian, who has been born of God, apostatize? Surely John has taught clearly in the Epistle that the true Christian cannot sin, that is, persist in sin (3:9), let alone fall away altogether. He is about to repeat it: “we know that anyone born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps Him, and the evil one does not touch him” (18, RSV). Can he who does not sin, “sin unto death?” Moreover, John has just written of having life (12) and knowing it (13). Can some one who has received a life which is eternal lose it and “sin unto death?” It seems clear, unless John’s theology is divided against itself, that he who sins unto death is not a Christian. If so, the sin cannot be apostasy. We
Dr. Samuel H. Sutherland (right), president of Biola. has a time for a get together with Mr. T. Carlaton Thompson who since 1922 has taken the annual picture of the Biola student body. Dr. Sutherland himself has been with the school for more than three decades.
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