What is the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
Mat 12:32, Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
The context is that the Pharisees were saying Jesus was casting out devils by a false god. They were resisting the message that the miracles were trying to communicate.
The Age To Come:
The age to come is not heaven. Jesus was born of a virgin, born under the Law... He is speaking of the age of the Law vs the age of the kingdom we live in today. This is NOT ABOUT heaven or hell.
To Speak Against?
The word "speak" is 3004 légō (originally, "lay down to sleep," used later of "laying an argument to rest," i.e. bringing a message to closure; see Curtius, Thayer) – properly, to say (speak), moving to a conclusion (bringing it to closure, "laying it to rest").
and "against" is... 2596 katá (a preposition, governing two grammatical cases) – properly, "down from, i.e. from a higher to a lower plane, with special reference to the terminus (end-point)" (J. Thayer).
Kind of like the word we have for minimize.
So Jesus said if they come to a final conclusion (laying it to rest) that minimizes what the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives or the truths he is trying to teach them about the good news...
THEN they will not BE forgiven. They will not experience forgiveness.
Forgiven Means What?
The word "forgiven" doesn't mean pardon. It means "to send away". Let me say this again... don't miss this point... the Greek word here does NOT mean being pardoned for a sin. Jesus already was the Lamb who took our sins away 2000 years ago. This means to send it away from their hearts.
In particular this was about the gospel and the witness of the Spirit of the truth of the gospel to unbelieving Jews, so in principle if they become stubborn and resist TRUTH (he is the Spirit of Truth) by demanding their opinion instead of yielding to HIS, then the Spirit can't WASH/CLEANSE or SEND AWAY the lie from their hearts.
So that was definitely a pre-cross, pre-AD 70 generation he was speaking to (under the Law) and technically because it was that final generation under the Law, you can't commit the "unpardonable sin."
But any application today is just a shadow of the original intent to that audience. We too can resist what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives, and in our heart, that guilt, or shame or unbelief won't be "sent away" from our hearts. We will keep on experiencing it. In other words, give up your opinion for his!
It's not talking about going to heaven. It meant their personal experience will be that they would keep living in shame and guilt and unbelief because their conclusions are different than HIS. And the reason it's the Holy Spirit he is talking about is because the HOLY Spirit WITHIN THEM is the one trying to convince THEM.
Get it?