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INTRO
As persecution intensifies. The real heart of the people will be magnified.
After pronouncing the Woes upon the Pharisees and Lawyer… Jesus shares the dangers of hypocrisy with the disciples.
Lessons in hypocrisy
Hypocrisy – v. 1
Playing a part (acting)
In NT times… religious acting
What I want to be known for – I am religious person.
It is like leaven
Spreads throughout
Purposefully, quietly and totally
How can we live free from Hypocrisy?
Realize our life is an open book – vv. 2-3
All will be known
God knows everything
Our mind, heart, actions
Live a life of Holy Fear – vv. 4-7
He judges
He cares
Great shepherd Psalm 23:1-6
Profess Him before men – vv. 8-9
Acknowledge
To profess Him
With my action/character
Personal holiness (Living out the Gospel)
With my words
Proclaiming the Gospel
The difficulty of confessing Christ is undoubtedly very great. It never was easy at any period. It never will be easy as long as the world stands. It is sure to entail on us laughter, ridicule, contempt, mockery, enmity, and persecution.… The world which hated Christ will always hate true Christians. But whether we like it or not, whether it be hard or easy, our course is perfectly clear. In one way or another Christ must be confessed.PHILIP GRAHAM RYKEN, LUKE, ED. RICHARD D. PHILLIPS, PHILIP GRAHAM RYKEN, AND DANIEL M. DORIANI, VOL. 1, REFORMED EXPOSITORY COMMENTARY (PHILLIPSBURG, NJ: P&R PUBLISHING, 2009), 651.
Deny
To refuse to know
Ultimately… within the heart (Not like Peter)
Respond to the leading of the Spirit – vv. 10-12
Reject
Blasphemes the Holy Spirit
Rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ
Denying the work of the Trinity in one’s life.
Father, Son, Spirit
Obey
Indwell us and Fill us
Guide and empower us (Words to say)
Those passages make it clear that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the attribution of the works of Jesus to the very prince of demons. According to Luke, therefore, if dishonoring the Son of Man is such a serious matter (vv.8–9), then total rejection of God by insinuating that his “holy” Spirit is “evil” is so much the worse. One may reject Christ and later, by God’s grace, accept him; but there is no remedy for absolute and complete denial of the one holy God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is what “blaspheme” (GK 1059) seems to mean here. KENNETH L. BARKER, EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE COMMENTARY (ABRIDGED EDITION: NEW TESTAMENT) (GRAND RAPIDS, MI: ZONDERVAN PUBLISHING HOUSE, 1994), 255.
To speak against the Son of Man is to speak against Jesus Christ without fully understanding who he is or what he has done. Obviously it must not be the kind of full and final denial that Jesus was talking about in verse 9. Nevertheless, it is still a sin—a sin of weakness that God can and will forgive. A good example of such forgiveness is the forgiveness Jesus offered the men who taunted him on the cross, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).Somehow blasphemy against the Holy Spirit must be a different and more serious sin. From similar passages in Matthew and Mark, it appears to be the sin of someone who knows that Jesus is the Christ, but attributes his power to Satan instead (see Matt. 12:31–32; Mark 3:28–30). According to one old commentator, the sin here “must consist in a conscious, willful, intentional blasphemy of the clearly recognized revelation of God’s grace in Christ through the Holy Ghost, a revelation which nevertheless out of hate and hostility is ascribed to the devil.” It is of the very nature of the case that such a person—hardened by sin—will not be forgiven, not because of any deficiency in God’s grace, but because such a person denies the only gospel that can ever save anyone. PHILIP GRAHAM RYKEN, LUKE, ED. RICHARD D. PHILLIPS, PHILIP GRAHAM RYKEN, AND DANIEL M. DORIANI, VOL. 1, REFORMED EXPOSITORY COMMENTARY (PHILLIPSBURG, NJ: P&R PUBLISHING, 2009), 652–653.