The Sin Against The Holy Spirit

Neville Goddard 02-19-1963

Tonight we have as our subject: “The Sin Against the Holy Spirit.” Undoubtedly you have heard unnumbered concepts of this statement from scripture. The most common interpretation is the violation of the sex act. But that is not my picture – not as it has been revealed to me. As I told you: the Bible is not something you can open up and read as you would a novel. It is a building on three levels. As you are told: “A three-fold cord is not quickly broken.” I personally cannot conceive that you will violate and blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. I will give you my reason for it afterwards. So, if I can comfort you, may I tell you: don’t be anxious, that you will simply sin. Yes, we all sin every moment of time. But all sins are forgiven, all blasphemies are forgiven.

The only blasphemy that cannot be forgiven is that against the Holy Spirit, as told in Matthew 12, Mark 3, and Luke 2. I find in the Book of Luke a more advanced development of the theme than I do in Matthew and Mark. Mark is the earliest revelation of this theme, but each statement is followed by the strangest, most irrelevant theme in the three books. That which follows in the Book of Luke gave me my cue. He made the statement that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven (Luke 12:8). You will think you are reading an entirely different chapter on a different theme. Then it goes right into this statement: “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” (Luke 11-12). That little word “ought” reveals so much. It implies you need not say what you should say. “The Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” – and that is the crux of the whole thing. Man is free and, because he is free he need not say what he should say. So, He will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.

First of all, you must understand what a synagogue is. It is a gathering, a community called by Jehovah. We think a synagogue is built with human hands, but the synagogue in the true sense of the word is a place of worship, a place of instruction, and the only worship in the synagogue is the reading of scripture, the word of God. No getting down and saying prayers. “And they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” (Nehemiah 8:8) Here, for almost 2,000 years, in the most populous of our Christian denominations, they read it in Latin, in a tongue not understood by anyone in the congregation. We are warned to “read from the book, the law of God, clearly; and they gave sense, so that the people understood the readings.” Were I in France and spoke only English, I could not go to any church and “hear” anyone who read to me in French. You would have to read to me in the English tongue, and with understanding, that I may understand. Here is the word of God. But if I understood some other tongue, read it to me in that tongue, read it with the sense so that I may understand it. This is the story all over the world. We will take one little passage, and we do not understand it and we criticize others. It has nothing to do with things taking place in the outer world. It is all about you.