NOTES for Mat 12:30-37

Jesus' words about blasphemy against the Spirit seem mysterious. But they probably seem so to us because our perception of the Gospel text is often overlaid with theological models—in particular, Trinitarian models, especially when the text mentions the Holy Spirit. Yet in Gospel times no Trinitarian theology existed, of course, and God's Spirit was viewed more from a practical spiritual standpoint—as an element of concrete spiritual and mystical experience, and above all prophetic experience. In the context of prophetic experience, the Spirit is experienced as the entirely real breath of God entering the human heart and renewing a person from within. There could be no mistake here: either God breathed in the heart or He did not. Since that was the nature of the matter, there could be no question of confusion or misunderstanding.

When theological theories and concepts are involved, mistakes are possible, of course. One can even fail to recognize the Messiah in the Messiah. In principle that too can happen, and not necessarily through a person's ill will; the reasons may vary greatly. But when God's breath and its action obvious to everyone are involved, there can be no mistake. Only someone who does not want to see can fail to see this action.

If the refusal to see also becomes aggressive, so that a person begins to revile God and His works, such a position naturally becomes a spiritual dead end for him. This is not because God is easily offended, but because rejecting God's breath automatically means rejecting the Kingdom that this breath permeates from its center to its farthest reaches. And rejecting the Kingdom clearly leads to rejecting life and salvation—a rejection about which nothing can be done, because it is made freely, without any compulsion.