By Chaplain Joy Le Page Smith, MA

“Many people fear they have committed some sin that God cannot or will not forgive, and they feel there is no hope for them, no matter what they do. Satan would like nothing more than to keep people laboring under that misconception. God gives encouragement to the sinner who is convicted of his sin: “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8). “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20). And the testimony of Paul is proof positive that God can and will save anyone who comes to Him in faith (1 Timothy 1:12–17). If you are suffering under a load of guilt today, rest assured that you have not committed the unpardonable sin. God is waiting with open arms. Jesus’ promise is that “he is able to save completely those who come to God through him” (Hebrews 7:25). Our Lord will never fail. “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2).”

For an understanding of what is unforgiveable, read on:

“According to Jesus, the unpardonable or unforgivable sin is unique. It is the one iniquity that will never be forgiven (“never” is the meaning of “either in this age or in the age to come” in Matthew 12:32). The unforgivable sin is blasphemy (“defiant irreverence”) of the Holy Spirit in the context of the Spirit’s work in the world through Christ. In other words, the particular case of blasphemy seen in Matthew 12 and Mark 3 is unique. The guilty party, a group of Pharisees, had witnessed irrefutable evidence that Jesus was working miracles in the power of the Holy Spirit, yet they claimed that He was possessed by the prince of demons, Beelzebul (Matthew 12:24; Mark 3:30).

The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day committed the unpardonable sin by accusing Jesus Christ (in person, on earth) of being demon-possessed. They had no excuse for such an action. They were not speaking out of ignorance or misunderstanding. The Pharisees knew that Jesus was the Messiah sent by God to save Israel. They knew the prophecies were being fulfilled. They saw Jesus’ wonderful works, and they heard His clear presentation of truth. Yet they deliberately chose to deny the truth and slander the Holy Spirit. Standing before the Light of the World, bathed in His glory, they defiantly closed their eyes and became willfully blind. Jesus pronounced that sin to be unforgivable.

The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, specific as it was to the Pharisees’ situation, cannot be duplicated today. Jesus Christ is not on earth, and no one can personally see Jesus perform a miracle and then attribute that power to Satan instead of the Spirit. The only unpardonable sin today is that of continued unbelief. There is no pardon for a person who dies in his rejection of Christ. The Holy Spirit is at work in the world, convicting the unsaved of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). If a person resists that conviction and remains unrepentant, then he is choosing hell over heaven. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), and the object of faith is Jesus (Acts 16:31). There is no forgiveness for someone who dies without faith in Christ.”

Please excuse the inconvenience using a link provided that no longer serves a good purpose. And, please continue to use my two websites:

Healing-with-Joy.com and Healingwithjoy.blogspot.com (The latter is my newest site., which carries more photographs than my first site.)

May God richly bless you as you read!

APOLOGY:

Unfortunately, the address given within the Todays-News Herald newspaper published on October 17, 2025 shows a “404 error” when reached. For that reason, the author of the column by Joy Le Page Smith in Todays-News Herald is providing words of help which will answer the question: “Have I committed the unforgiveable sin?

The following is copied from:

https://www.gotquestions.org/unpardonable-sin.html

“Many people fear they have committed some sin that God cannot or will not forgive, and they feel there is no hope for them, no matter what they do. Satan would like nothing more than to keep people laboring under that misconception. God gives encouragement to the sinner who is convicted of his sin: “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8). “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20). And the testimony of Paul is proof positive that God can and will save anyone who comes to Him in faith (1 Timothy 1:12–17). If you are suffering under a load of guilt today, rest assured that you have not committed the unpardonable sin. God is waiting with open arms. Jesus’ promise is that “he is able to save completely those who come to God through him” (Hebrews 7:25). Our Lord will never fail. “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2).”

For an understanding of what is unforgiveable, read on:

“According to Jesus, the unpardonable or unforgivable sin is unique. It is the one iniquity that will never be forgiven (“never” is the meaning of “either in this age or in the age to come” in Matthew 12:32). The unforgivable sin is blasphemy (“defiant irreverence”) of the Holy Spirit in the context of the Spirit’s work in the world through Christ. In other words, the particular case of blasphemy seen in Matthew 12 and Mark 3 is unique. The guilty party, a group of Pharisees, had witnessed irrefutable evidence that Jesus was working miracles in the power of the Holy Spirit, yet they claimed that He was possessed by the prince of demons, Beelzebul (Matthew 12:24; Mark 3:30).

The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day committed the unpardonable sin by accusing Jesus Christ (in person, on earth) of being demon-possessed. They had no excuse for such an action. They were not speaking out of ignorance or misunderstanding. The Pharisees knew that Jesus was the Messiah sent by God to save Israel. They knew the prophecies were being fulfilled. They saw Jesus’ wonderful works, and they heard His clear presentation of truth. Yet they deliberately chose to deny the truth and slander the Holy Spirit. Standing before the Light of the World, bathed in His glory, they defiantly closed their eyes and became willfully blind. Jesus pronounced that sin to be unforgivable.

The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, specific as it was to the Pharisees’ situation, cannot be duplicated today. Jesus Christ is not on earth, and no one can personally see Jesus perform a miracle and then attribute that power to Satan instead of the Spirit. The only unpardonable sin today is that of continued unbelief. There is no pardon for a person who dies in his rejection of Christ. The Holy Spirit is at work in the world, convicting the unsaved of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). If a person resists that conviction and remains unrepentant, then he is choosing hell over heaven. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), and the object of faith is Jesus (Acts 16:31). There is no forgiveness for someone who dies without faith in Christ.”

Note from Joy Le Page Smith. Within the few times I have used ttps://www.gotquestions.org I have found their research and knowledge of Scripture to be solid.

Please excuse the inconvenience using a link provided that no longer serves a good purpose. And, please continue to use my two websites:

Healing-with-Joy.com and Healingwithjoy.blogspot.com (The latter is my newest site., which carries more photographs than my first site.)

May God richly bless you as you read!

By Chaplain Joy Le Page Smith, MA

Phil, 14 was just a kid. He was quiet, polite and a good student. No one could know what was ahead or how he would change lives—until the day the call came. “Hello, Joy. Have you heard about Janet?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It is all over the news. Your friend Janet was murdered. Her kid killed her.”

I screamed and dropped the phone. As weeks and months came and went, grief took my days. A gnawing/griping depression settled in and required professional help before I could manage a semblance of normality.

Phil’s mother and I had been close friends for ten years. She was raising Phil alone, as his father deserted the two of them soon after Phil’s birth. This little boy grew up among us and was loved like one of the family. I remember hearing him pray at our Thanksgiving table. Janet had asked if Gary and I would raise Phil if she were to die. She had a dream that found her obsessing a bit with thinking she could not finish the job of raising her son.

That was not to be. Phil was sent to live out his teens at a closed adolescent treatment center. There, with the time, space and expertise available, he came to discover what was true about himself. Phil accepted responsibility for this violent crime. Locked gates forbid Phil’s freedom, but it was obvious how much more painful were the shackles of remorse, sadness and fear of himself. 

Our talks took place in four-way, phone conversations while a psychiatrist and a priest listened. It was intense—and difficult. Yet, his words brought a particle of understanding to a crime so hard to comprehend. Phil told me of how he grew to hate his mother, early in his teens. At first it was resentment over a decision she made that found him fuming. Next came small acts practiced to hurt his mother, like not listening to her, refusing to answer when she spoke. Then thoughts of how he could hurt her more. This grew into his desire to be rid of her.

Preceding the crime, books and music portraying bloody, abusive behavior produced a mental track through which Phil lost his way. Child that he was, he could not perceive the gate to evil he allowed his mind to open, which ultimately unleashed such extreme brutality.

Phil is not shifting the blame for what he did onto the media, or the games he gave himself to. He said, “I was the one who did it.” He is characterized by his therapist as “honest and sincere.”

As Phil and I talked, there was great pain. Yet, time and treatment brought change. He was grateful we could talk and seemed deeply touched with each offering of goodness about his mother that I could extend to him. He said, “Dreams of my mother at night bring both comfort and agony.”

Once Phil was released from the treatment center, he chose not to keep an appointment set for our meeting face to face.  Years later, I heard from a friend that Phil was able to build a healthy life in a different state. He married and had a family. This was helpful to my healing.

Words do not display the depths of this sorrow, or the gravity of the crime that many of us in our community felt. And, there is a principle at work here that applies to each one of us. Every action we take begins in the mind—starts with our thoughts. In Phil’s case, the mind’s fertile ground resulted in poison fruit for which he paid dearly, as did all of us who loved him and his mother.

The greatest of all facts is that Phil found God’s forgiveness. In the midst of this horrible thing, he found the foremost and best of all truths: God extends forgiveness to all who ask.

There are many kinds of sin. And God forgives them all when we “truly” repent and turn from them. It is difficult to admit it when we are on a wrong track. But with God’s help we can do hard things. Millions upon millions—even trillions of people throughout time have told their stories of how the Lord has instilled the power to break strongholds of many kinds, including anger, resentment, jealousy, pride and bitterness.

Scripture indicates there is only one unforgiveable sin, “ . . . 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). If you think you have committed a sin that cannot be forgiven, https://healing-with-joy.com/have-i-commited-the-unforgiveable-sin/ for words which hold power to end that fear.

Decades have passed since the tragedy. It took time to reach the ability to tell it. Doing so comes from believing, for some, relating it will serve to heal. (The names of individuals have been changed.)

By Chaplain Joy Le Page Smith, MA

Scripture indicates there is an unforgiveable sin. But, only one. 

Mark 3:28-29, “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; ²⁹ but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”— ³⁰ because they said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

They later part of that verse shows specifically what, within the claim of the Pharisees that comprised “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.”

I have encountered Christians who were tormented through believing they may have committed the unforgiveable sin. Yet, it is God who draws people to Himself. Consequently, if you have any inclinations to pray, this is because God is drawing you to Himself. Clearly, if you had committed the unforgiveable sin, a desire to pray would not exist. You can rest assured by letting that tormenting question go is a good idea. It holds no reality within your spirit.

John 6:44 assures us that, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” So, it is God who initiates prayer.

Below is an excerpt from GotQuestions.org website offering excellent commentary on this topic:

“The term blasphemy may be generally defined as “defiant irreverence.” The term can be applied to such sins as cursing God or willfully degrading things relating to God. Blasphemy is also attributing some evil to God or denying Him some good that we should attribute to Him. This particular case of blasphemy, however, is called “the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” in Matthew 12:31. The Pharisees, having witnessed irrefutable proof that Jesus was working miracles in the power of the Holy Spirit, claimed instead that the Lord was possessed by a demon (Matthew 12:24). Notice in Mark 3:30 Jesus is very specific about what the Pharisees did to commit blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: “He said this because they were saying, ‘He has an impure spirit.’”

There are three passages within the four Gospels that specifically address this matter. In (Matthew 12:24, we find what Pharisees specifically said: “‘This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.’”

God is not mad at people. God loves people! He inspires and enlivens us as we make our pilgrimage here on earth. We do encounter times of making choices contrary to God’s holy Word and beneath the goodness God is instilling in us. Yes, we make mistakes. Ideally, we learn from our mistakes. We discover what works and what does not work for our own good and the good of others. Life with God at the helm of our lives is a grand learning experience.

2 Corinthians 3:18, encourages us along the way to know there is glory ahead, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

We are given a lifetime to pull ourselves together for growing into all we can be–for the glory of God (not our own). John 6:44 promises that: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

However, we ought not to waste time, leaving our “doing business with God” for another era within life. For another pertinent truth is made clear in the very first book of the Bible in Genesis 6:3: “So, the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [is] flesh.” The rest of the versus assures us that our days shall be numbered, No one gets out of here alive. The fullness of life comes through answering the call of Christ who will then abide continuously with us through His Holy Spirit.

Revelations 3:20 makes it plain that Christ intends for us to respond to Him so He can enter our lives, “dine with us” as He abides within our souls. “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”

Jesus Christ walked on earth, lived, the died carrying our sins on a cross, Why? So that we might be free. He alone will be the judge over all the living and the dead in the last and final judgment of humankind prophesied in the Book of Revelations. Matthew 25:31-46 shows the picture of what will happen on that ominous day:

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’”

⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

John 5:22, tells us, “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” 

He has prepared the way for us to live in His love, having an inner peace that the world can observe, but never understand.

“At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children, (Matthew 11:25). 

It takes becoming as a little child to enter into the Kingdom of God (trusting and leaning on God’s provisions.) Matthew 18:2-5 explains: “Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, ³ and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.”

“For He says: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation, (2 Corinthians 6:2).

It is simple to talk with God. Speak your thoughts and let Him know what you desire.