Obduracy:

1. By nature everyone is guilty of hardness of heart. By nature we all resist the Holy Spirit and reject God’s Word.
2. Scripture teaches that there are degrees of obduracy and that this hardening is reversible in the early stages.
3. Obduracy begins with the sinner hardening his heart and concludes with the Lord hardening the sinner in his unbelief as an act of judgment.
4. Obduracy may be against revealed law, natural law, or the gospel.
5. With obduracy the issue is not the power of God, the sufficiency of Christ’s work or the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit. The issue is the sinner’s repeated rejection of God and his Word.
6. The doctrine of obduracy is given to warn us, not to enable us to determine whether someone is beyond hope. Though we may also warn people against this sin we will not treat them as though they have already committed it and are past the point of no return.

The Sin against the Holy Spirit:

1. The sin against the Holy Spirit is a willful, malicious, and blasphemous resistance against the work of the Holy Spirit in the gospel.
2. The sin against the Holy Spirit is more than impenitence or unbelief. The vast majority of people die in unbelief and they are not charged with this sin.
3. The sin against the Holy Spirit does not include every resistance to the Holy Spirit. By nature all are guilty of resistance (obduracy in early stages).
4. The sin against the Holy Spirit is committed not against the person, but against the office or work of the Holy Spirit. It is the willful and determined suppression of the inner conviction wrought by the Holy Spirit in the heart.

Note these quotations:

• The sin against the Holy Spirit is committed when, after the Holy Spirit has convinced a person in his heart of the divine truth, that person nevertheless not only rejects the truth he is convinced of, but also blasphemes it.  Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, I, p. 573
• The sin against the Holy Spirit is the malicious denial of divine truth which a person has clearly understood and approved in his conscience, a hostile assault on it, horrible blaspheming, and an obstinate rejection of all the means of grace, which lasts to the end.  Hollaz (as quoted by Pieper, CD, I, p. 573)
• Speaking against the Spirit was not merely a sin of the tongue. The Pharisees had not sinned only with their words. It was a sin of the heart expressed in words. Furthermore, theirs was a sin committed to his face. To commit this particular sin required the personal and visible presence of Christ on earth; to commit it today, therefore, would be impossible.  Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology, p. 406,407

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The following distinctions are helpful to note:

• The sin against the Holy Spirit is against the gospel; obduracy may be against with law (natural or revealed) or gospel.
• The sin against the Holy Spirit involves spite, malice, etc.; obduracy may or may not involve such actions and attitudes.

 Pastoral Application:

1. If a person is concerned that he has committed the sin against the Holy Spirit, he has not. By it’s very nature the sin against the Holy Spirit involves a lack of concern for—as well as an outright rejection of—the gospel. We can assure such a person that he has not committed the unforgivable sin.
2. What if we sense that someone has committed the sin against the Holy Spirit?

• Do not be hasty in charging someone with this sin. Luther warned: “Do not rashly charge anyone with this sin. There are poor, burdened consciences which the devil is driving to despair by causing them to think they have committed the unpardonable sin.”
• 1 John 5:16 teaches that the sin does occur and is discernible.
• Generally we will warn people against committing this sin rather than accuse them of having already committed it.

HT: Professor John Scheutze, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary