If this passage is read with the parallel passage in Matthew 12, it will be seen that the Lord had just healed one possessed of a devil, blind and dumb. The people were amazed and said “Is not this the Son of David” but the Pharisees said “This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.” This was the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which hath never forgiveness, as Mark 3:3030Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. (Mark 3:30) distinctly states.
The occasion was unique. The Son of God, who was Israel’s Messiah, was there in the midst of the people, and through Him the grace of God was displayed in delivering power. His mighty works were the witness to them as to who He was, and for the moment the people confessed Him, but the Pharisees, seeing His works, willfully and deliberately charged Him with being in league with Beelzebub. This was no passing thought, causing them poignant grief afterward, but their deliberate verdict after having weighed the evidence; and it proved the intensity of their hatred of Him. There was no mixture of the failure of the sinful creature in anything that the Lord did: in Him everything was absolutely perfect, and altogether of God; and yet they attributed that which was altogether of God, the manifest working of the Spirit of God, to the Devil; and that which was purely good they called unmixed evil. There was no other test for them: their doom was sealed by their own attitude towards the only One who could have saved them; and they manifested in this way an utterly reprobate state that would not bow to receive forgiveness.
Strictly speaking the commission of such a sin is impossible today, though the deliberate and final choice of evil in the known presence of good entails now, as always, consequences which are eternal and irrevocable. It was by words, not acts or thoughts, this sin was committed: certainly those of whom “Enquirer” writes “into whose minds blasphemous, thoughts have entered, unbidden and hated” have not committed it: their very grief because of these thoughts, which they hate, and which are attacks of the evil one, are proof of this. Let all such be assured that the grace of God is free and boundless. He will eternally forgive all who turn to Him in repentance. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin (1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)).