clause of this oath he denied the imputation cast upon him, that he
2. His desire is, that the wicked should turn and live. As in the first clause of this oath he denied the imputation cast upon him, that he had pleasure in the sinner's death, so, in this second part, he declares his wish that they should turn and live. This declaration is the expression of a thoroughly honest desire on the part of God. It is not the language of insincere profession, or of feigned earnestness. There is nothing here of exaggeration or random utterance. Each word bears the impress of ingenuous truthfulness. God means what he says when he affirms, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they should turn and live." It is to life,—life everlasting,—that he points your eye, sinner. It is of life that he desires to make you partaker. And surely it is life that you need. For what one word more fully or more terribly describes your present state than death? You are dead! Dead, not like the stone or the rock; that would at least be freedom from torment. Dead, not like the withered leaf or the uprooted tree; that would at least be unconsciousness of loss, and ignorance of what might have been won. But you are dead to all that is worth living for, and yet alive to all that makes life a burden and a woe. Yours is a death whose present form is the utter absence of everything that God calls peace or blessedness, whose future form is the undying worm, the weeping, and the wailing, and the gnashing of teeth. You are dead to that which you were created for, as well as to him who created you. You live in pleasure on the earth, yet you are dead! You smile, and sport, and dance, and revel, and make merry; yet you are dead! For the life in which God is not; the life of which he is not the spring and centre, is utter death! And that is misery to you,—misery now, misery in the long, long ages to come!
Ah! surely, then, it is life that you need,—such a life as will fill that soul of yours with gladness,—such a life as shall not merely shed sunshine around you, but shall pour its joyous freshness into every region of your spirit, and fill every recess of your immortal being with the joy unspeakable and full of glory.
It is such a life that God desires you to possess. It was to bestow upon you such a life that he gave up his Son. It is that such a life might find entrance into you, that he is striving with you by his Spirit. And it is that, without another hour's delay, you might become possessors of such a life, that he sends to you once more this message of life,—so unequivocal, so genuine, so pitiful.
Do you say, If God wants me to live, why does he not at once give me life? In other words, why does he not force life upon my acceptance, and burst through every barrier? I ask in return, Is God bound to take your way in giving life? I ask again, Do you really suppose that a person is not sincere in his kindness, because he does not carry out that kindness by every means, lawful or unlawful? Is it not possible that there may be a limit to that kindness compatible with the most perfect sincerity? You admit that God does not wish you to be ungodly; yet you are ungodly; might you not as well say, God must really desire me to be ungodly, else I should not be so? Nay, you admit that God wishes you to be holy, just as he wishes all his creatures to be holy. Should you think of saying, God does not desire me to be holy, else he would make me holy; God must have pleasure in my unholiness, else he would not permit me to remain in it. Surely this would be false reasoning as well as daring profanity: not less so is it when you argue, God cannot really desire to bless me, else he would bless me; God cannot desire me to live, else he would give me life.
There may be difficulty for finite man to reconcile the two things,— our want of life and God's desire that we should possess it; but there is no difficulty and no doubt as to the blessed fact itself. God's desire is, that we should turn and live! Not all the sophistry of unbelief, nor all the malignant falsehoods of the evil one, can shake or alter this mighty, this most glorious truth. God's desire, his undisguised and cordial wish, is, that the wicked should not die, but live! He has spoken it, he has repeated it; he has sealed it with his own most solemn oath; and woe be to the sinner who, giving way to the subtile suggestions of his own jealous heart, refuses to take God at his word,
hesitates to give him credit for speaking the plain truth when he lifts up his hand to heaven and swears, "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but rather that he should turn from his ways and live.
The expostulation, with which all this closes, is one of the most urgent importunity on the part of God, proving yet more fully his real desire to bless. It is like one vehemently enforcing an invitation upon an unwilling listener,—making a last effort to save the heedless or resisting sinner. He lifts up his voice, he stretches out his hand, he exhorts, he commands, he expostulates, he entreats, "Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" must not he who thus reasons and remonstrates with the sinner, repeating and rerepeating his entreaties, enforcing and urging home his message with every kind of loving argument, as well as with every form of solemn appeal,—must not he be truly in earnest? Is it within the remotest bounds of possibility or conceivability that he is insincere; that he does not really mean what he says?
The ways from which he calls on them to turn are named by him "evil ways;" and what he calls evil must be truly so,—hateful in his eyes, as well as ruinous to the soul. The end of these ways he pronounces to be death; so that sinners must either turn or die. It is the broad way which leadeth down to death on which they are walking, and there is no hope of escaping unless they retrace their steps. As certainly as their bodies shall return to dust, so certainly shall their souls have their portion in the second death, and their dwelling-place in the eternal tomb of the fiery lake; where, instead of the worm of earth preying upon their lifeless flesh, there shall be the worm that never dies, gnawing their spirits, and making them feel that all that has hitherto been known of death on earth,—its pangs, its throes, its horrors, its separations,—has been but a type of what is coming, and that the reality contained in that word DEATH had never before been imagined,—nor, indeed, can be,—till the Judge's sentence has cut them off from God for ever, and flung around them the darkness of
the endless midnight; till hell has closed its gate upon them, and made damnation sure!
But then there is another way, whose end is life; and the life, which forms the termination of the one, is as certain as the death which forms the termination of the other. It is on this way that God so earnestly desires to see them walking. However wide astray they have gone, and however near the confines of the second death they may have come, he beckons them back with his gracious hand, and beseeches them with his most loving voice, "Come now, and let us reason together." Nay, more, he commands them to turn. It is not mere liberty to retrace your steps that he gives you; he lays his command upon you; and it is at your peril if you disobey. "Am I at liberty to come to God?" you ask perhaps. At liberty to come! Is that the way you put it? At liberty to obey his direct command! Do you ask, Am I at liberty to keep the Sabbath? Am I at liberty to honour my father and mother? Am I at liberty to forbear swearing, or stealing, or coveting? Who asks such questions as these? And shall any sinner upon earth,—even the ungodliest that ever forsook God and walked in his lusts, and trampled on the cross, and quenched the Spirit,—shall any on this side of the second death presume to ask, Am I at liberty to return to God? At liberty! YOU DARE NOT DO OTHERWISE. There is all the obligation that a command can give; there is a necessity laid upon you, an immediate necessity, a necessity from which nothing can loose you, a necessity arising out of the very righteousness of that God who is commanding you to quit your unrighteousness, a necessity springing from the certain doom that awaits you if you turn not. Yes; there is a necessity, one of the greatest of all necessities, laid on you by God, to turn and live!
God expostulates with you, and asks, Why will ye die? Have you any reason to give for preferring death, or for supposing that you must just die, and that you cannot help it, and that the blame is not yours, but God's? Must you die? Must you really die? Is there no help? There was, indeed, once a reason for your dying, a reason which made dying inevitable,—the ancient law of the universe, "The soul
that sinneth, it shall die." But now the Son of God has come, and he has taken up that law, and has so fulfilled and honoured it by dying himself, that the same inevitable necessity for your dying no longer exists. It was once only righteous that you should die; now it is as righteous that you should live. Righteous death;—that was once your doom; now righteous life is the gift which God presents to you. Life upon righteous terms; life in a way that honours righteousness; life through a channel as holy as it is free: it is this that is now announced to you, and it is in reference to this that God asks, Why will ye die?
Is life not desirable? Can a soul be in love with death? Or is death so inevitable that it is vain for you to flee from it? Or is there some barrier in your way? Or is God not really willing to remove the death, and to bestow the life? Are these the reasons? Or what answer do you mean to make to God's question, so urgently, so importunately put and pressed home on you, "Why will ye die?"
SERMON XXXIX
THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST
"Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme; but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: because they said, He hath an unclean spirit."—MARK 3:28–30.
IT would serve no purpose to discuss or enumerate the various opinions that have been held respecting this sin. Let us just take the passage itself, and try to find out what the narrative really is meant to teach us.
The key to the passage is contained in the 30th verse,—"Because they said" (were saying), "He hath an unclean spirit." This is the Evangelist's remark for the clearing up of the statement; or rather, I should say, it is the Holy Spirit's own comment on a declaration made specially respecting himself. In the 28th and 29th verses, the Son is speaking of the Spirit, and of the sin against him; in the 30th, the Spirit interprets the words of the Son, and shews that the sin against himself is in reality a sin against the Son. In reading these three verses, in this connection, as spoken successively by the Son of God and the Spirit of God, we see how jealous the one is for the honour of the other. The Holy Spirit will not put upon record this testimony of the Son regarding himself without adding his own testimony to the Son, and shewing how sin committed against himself is committed against the Son, and dishonour cast upon himself is dishonour cast upon the Son.
It was in Galilee that these words were spoken; for Jesus was, at this time "going through every city and village preaching, and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God" (Luke 8:1). He was opposed,
reviled, and threatened, as he went along, teaching and healing. The opposition, however, did not come from the Galileans, but from the Scribes and Pharisees who came down from Jerusalem (Matt. 12:24, Mark 3:22). There might be among the inhabitants of that halfGentile region, ignorance and unbelief; but they did not go so far in their malignity as the more intellectual, better educated, and (in the common acceptation of the word) more "religious" citizens of Jerusalem, as represented by their leaders, the Scribes, and Pharisees, and Priests. These, though better read in the Prophets, and professing to be waiting for Messiah, were foremost in the rejection of Christ; setting themselves against himself and his Messiahship with a persevering and desperate malignity, such as we might have reckoned impossible.
Not only did these Jewish leaders shew their unbelief, in Jerusalem and Judea; but they went everywhere, tracking the Lord's footsteps, endeavouring to provoke and entrap him; misrepresenting all that he said and did; maligning him as a wine-bibber and a keeper of the worst company; nay, as possessed of a devil; nay, more, as doing and saying all that he said and did under the influence of this possession. In the present narrative we find them in Galilee, many days' journey from Jerusalem. What were they doing there? They did not come to listen, nor to be taught, nor to be convinced, nor to admire. They had travelled all this distance out of pure malignity. Like demons from hell, they followed the Lord in order to assail him or plot against him. They grudged no toil, no travel, no cost, in order to carry out their hatred of Christ. They watched, with hellish eagerness, every word and motion; misconstruing all his doings; abusing him both for what he did and for what he did not do; and seizing every opportunity for poisoning the minds of the people against him.
In the scene to which our narrative refers, we find him working a miracle; a miracle of no ordinary kind. The case is a very desperate one. The man is both dumb and blind,—perhaps deaf too; and more than this, he is possessed with a devil. He is a signal monument of Satan's power. He is one of Satan's best fortified and best garrisoned
fortresses. There could hardly be a clearer or more explicit exhibition of Satan's infernal enmity to man, and of his horrid character as the marrer of God's workmanship, the inflicter of darkness and disease. Seldom had the seed of the serpent been so exhibited in his hatefulness and enmity; and seldom had he been so directly and gloriously confronted with the woman's Seed, in all his loveableness of character and his kindness to man. If ever, therefore, human unbelief were utterly inexcusable, it was here. If ever man's enmity might have been expected to give way, it was here. If ever, in the awful halting between two opinions, a better choice might have been forced upon man, and even the Pharisee made ashamed of siding against Christ, it was here. God had brought heaven and hell face to face, before man; he had brought the Prince of light and the prince of darkness into close and direct collision; and that in circumstances most likely to enlist man's sympathies with heaven against hell, with the Son of God against the devil and his angels. It might have been expected that man would, at least for once, have taken the side of God; and that the Scribes and Pharisees, the most enlightened and best educated of the land, would have given way in their prejudice and hatred. But it is just here that the greatness of their hostility comes out; and as afterwards the cry arose in Jerusalem, "Not this man, but Barabbas," so here, in Galilee, a like cry is heard, from the lips of the same men, "Not the Holy Spirit, but the devil!"
Thus it was that these Scribes and Pharisees sinned against the Holy Spirit, by imputing to the devil the works of Christ, which he did by the power of the Holy Ghost in him. They did not do this in ignorance; for they were not half-enlightened Galileans, but men well-read in their Scriptures; they did it knowingly. They did not do it hastily, and under the influence of passing excitement; they did it deliberately, and resolutely, and continuously. They did it with their eyes open; they did it maliciously, in the desperate hatred of their hearts. They did it without one extenuating circumstance,—without anything either to excuse or to account for their malignity. This is the sin which our Lord here declares to be unpardonable. To have said that this marvellous universe was created by the devil, and not by
God, would have been a kindred crime; a sin of awful daring. To have said that the miracles of Egypt, the dividing of the Red Sea, the manna, the water, the healing of the serpents' deadly bite, the drying up of Jordan, the overthrow of Jericho, the arrest of sun and moon in Gibeon, were all the work of the devil, would have been sins like in kind to this of the Pharisees; but not, by many degrees, equal to it in dark malignity. For, in this miracle of Christ, thus misinterpreted, we have more of divine love and power,—more of God himself, than in all these other miracles together. One of the fullest and brightest manifestations of God's character, as our loving, healing, pardoning, redeeming God, is in this miracle; and hence the peculiarly aggravated guilt of those who reviled it as the work of the devil. It was a work done by the special power of the Holy Ghost,—a work in which might have been clearly read the Father's love and power, the Son's love and power, the Spirit's love and power. Yet this work of the Holy Spirit, this miracle of Godhead's love and power, is ascribed to Satan! It was calling God the devil, and the devil God; it was calling hell heaven, and heaven hell. It was not mere rejection of Christ; it was not mere disbelief of his miracles; it was not mere refusal of the divine testimony to his Messiahship. It was something beyond all these phases of unbelief. It was the substitution and preference of the evil for the good, of the darkness for the light, of the seed of the serpent for the Seed of the woman. Nay, more, it was the deliberate declaration, not that the works of God the Holy Ghost were unreal and untrue,—but that they were not his works at all, but those of the devil. It was the admission of their reality, but the ascription of them to the devil. It was carrying out hatred of Christ to such an extreme, as to be willing to acknowledge Satan as the worker of miracles rather than Christ; nay, it was so hating the Holy Spirit, because of his thus witnessing for Christ, as to call him "an unclean spirit," Beelzebub, the prince of the devils!
Such is the sin against the Holy Ghost; a sin which originates in very peculiar circumstances; which can only be committed by those who sin wilfully, daringly, and maliciously; and which, in all probability,
could only be committed when the Lord was upon the earth, working miracles by the power of the Spirit.
It is worthy of notice, that our Lord does not affirm that even these blasphemous Pharisees had actually committed the sin. The awful words regarding the sin that has no pardon are spoken as words of warning. In them the Lord is pointing to the horrible gulf which these Pharisees were approaching, and warning them off. He sees them like a vessel drawing nearer some raging whirlpool, and he speaks that they may be alarmed and turn back. In this there is a blessed mixture of grace and righteousness. He would warn even the Pharisees! He would sound the alarm even to those who were on the very point of plunging into hell!
The sin is thus a peculiar sin. It is not the same as rejection of Christ and final unbelief. It is not even blasphemy against Christ and his work. It is not simply sin against light and knowledge. It is not repeated, or prolonged, or outrageous backsliding. It is something special; something open and before others; it is something deliberate and malicious; it is something which would render the man's state quite hopeless, and seal his doom at once. It is something connected directly with the Spirit, and which involves daring blasphemy against him and his doings. It must, then, be a greater sin than that of Judas, for his sin was pardonable to the last. It must be a greater sin than scourging, buffeting, reviling, crucifying the Lord of glory. Oh, how unutterably hateful must that sin be, of which we thus read, "Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven him. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall never be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation; BECAUSE THEY SAID, HE HATH AN UNCLEAN SPIRIT!"
But, while this sin is a very peculiar one, and, possibly, only committed when our Lord was here, and that by those who ascribed to the devil the miracles which Christ did, by the Holy Ghost, there are approximations to it, in all ages, of which men need to be warned. The way in which many attack Revivals, and revile those engaged in them, and ascribe the conversions to mere excitement, or hypocrisy, or love of show, or to Satan himself, is a perilous approach to the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Let men beware how they speak of these religious awakenings. If you dislike them, or see no evidence for their genuineness, at least let them alone. Especially let those who, in their zeal for ecclesiastical order, have set themselves against such movements, and do not hesitate to throw out insinuations as to all these being the devil's work, beware lest they be found fighting against God, and reviling the Spirit of God. They may be nearer the sin of the Pharisees than they are willing to think; and their zeal for sound words, in which they pride themselves, only helps to identify them the more with these haters of the Lord. The dislike of sudden conversions looks very like a denial of the Spirit's work; just as the dislike of assurance looks like a questioning of the work of Christ,—a denial of its sufficiency to give immediate peace to the awakened conscience. Let the ungodly beware of scoffing at revivals; and let professing Christians beware of standing aloof from them, as if they were fanaticism, or excitement, or the work of Satan.
Let us gather, in closing, such lessons as these:—
I. Honour the Holy Spirit and his work.—As the the third person of the Godhead, equal with the Father and the Son, he is to be worshipped. Never let us overlook the Spirit, or undervalue either his power or his love. Nor let us lose sight of his great work in the Church and in individual souls. Without his almighty hand there is no conversion, no faith, no repentance, no light. Let those who deny his work, or explain it as a mere influence, or affirm that it is nothing but the effect of the word upon us, consider how much they are dishonouring the Spirit, and how near they may be approaching to the sin against the Holy Ghost.
II. Prize him as the gift of the glorified Christ.—He is the promise of the Father; he is the gift of the Son; and in him are wrapped all other gifts for sinners. He is in the hand of Christ for us, let us go to Christ for him; for he is exalted a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and forgiveness, through the shedding down of the Holy Spirit upon us. We need not fear a refusal from such a Saviour.
III. Beware of grieving and quenching him.—Israel's great sin was their "resisting the Holy Ghost" (Acts 7:51). "They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit" (Isa. 63:10). Let us beware of Israel's sin. O grieve not the Spirit, by your unbelief and hardness of heart! He will not always strive.
IV. Receive that Christ of whom he testifies.—His office is to glorify Christ; to show Christ. He is willing to do this for sinners. He wants to show you your need of Christ. He wants to show you Christ's sufficiency. He wants to give you true and high thoughts of Christ. Oh, turn not away!
V. Be not scoffers.—God's words are very awful ones—"Be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong." Do not ridicule religion; nor speak evil of Christians; nor circulate reports against the work of God; nor deny "sudden conversions." Beware of everything like irreverence, or levity, or flippancy, in speaking of the things of God or the transactions of eternity. Judge nothing before the time; or if you will judge, see that in your judgment you honour the Spirit of truth and holiness.
SERMON XL
THE SIN UNTO DEATH
"If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death."—1 JOHN 5:16, 17.
THE sin mentioned here is not the same as the "sin against the Holy Ghost." The persons spoken of, as respectively guilty, are very different from each other. In the latter sin, it is the Scribes and Pharisees. the malignant enemies of Christ, that are the criminals; in the former, that is, the case before us, it is a Christian brother that is the offender: "If any man see his brother sin." We must beware of confounding the two sins and the two parties. The sin unto death is spoken of as that which a believer could commit; but no believer could possibly be guilty of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
This clears the way so far, or at least it narrows the ground, and so facilitates our inquiry.
But while removing one difficulty, does it not introduce another? Does it not assume the possibility of falling from grace, and deny the "perseverance of the saints?" We think not. But, as much depends on the meaning of the expression, "a sin unto death," we must first take up this.
Death may mean either temporal or eternal death; either the death of the soul, or that of the body. In the passage before us, it seems to me to mean the latter. The sin unto death, would mean a sin involving temporal death; such a sin as God would chastise with disease and death, though he would not exclude the doer of it from his kingdom. The difference between these two kinds of sins may be illustrated by the case of Israel in the desert. The generation that came out of Egypt died in the wilderness, because of their murmurings; yet many of these were believing men and women, who, though thus chastised, by the infliction of temporal death, and deprivation of the earthly Canaan, were not delivered over to eternal death. Moses himself (we
might add, Aaron and Miriam) is an example of the same thing. In him we see a believing man suffering temporal death for his sin, yet still a child of God, and an heir of the heavenly Canaan.
But have we any cases of this kind in the New Testament? If we have, they will tend greatly to confirm our interpretation of the passage before us, and shew that, in all ages, God's way of dealing with his saints has been the same; and that, while in some instances there was chastisement, in the shape of pain, or disease, or loss of property, or loss of friends, in others there was chastisement in the shape of death. In the case of Moses, we have this paternal chastisement, involving death; in the case of Job, we see it involving loss of substance, loss of family, loss of health, but stopping short of death; but in the New Testament, we shall see it in the infliction of death upon the saint.
The most remarkable instance of the kind is in the Corinthian church. That church was in many respects noble and Christ-like, "coming behind in no gift." Yet there was much sin in it, and many of its members were not walking "as becometh saints." Specially in reference to the Lord's Supper, there was grievous sin, as the latter part of the eleventh chapter of the First Epistle to that church intimates. God could not suffer such sin in his saints. They are not indeed to be cast away, nor condemned with the unbelieving world; but they are not to be permitted to go on in evil, unrebuked. Accordingly, God interposes. He sends disease on some of these transgressing members, and death on others. "For this cause," says the apostle, "many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep" (1 Cor. 11:30). Weakness, sickliness, and death, were the three forms of chastisement with which the Corinthian church was visited. Some were sinning sins which require to be visited with weakness; others were sinning sins which required to be punished with sickness; while others were sinning sins which needed to be chastised with "death;" for this the word "sleep" evidently means (1 Cor. 7:39, κοιμηθη,— 15:18). Against these sins unto disease, these "sins unto death," the apostle warns these Corinthians, when he says, "If we would judge
ourselves, we should not be judged;" that is, we might have been spared these chastisements. If we had judged ourselves, and condemned our own sin, we should not have been thus judged by God. And then he adds, that even this judgment was in love, not in wrath: "When we are thus judged, it is the Lord chastising us, in order that we may not be condemned with the world."
We find the same solemn truth in the Epistle of James (5:14, 15): "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." Here sickness is spoken of as the consequence of sin,—sin in a saint. The sick and sinning one is to be prayed for; and if his sin and sickness be not unto death, God will have mercy on him. The sin shall be forgiven, and the sickness taken away.
We find the same truth in 1 Cor. 8:11, "Through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died" where the "perishing" is the infliction of temporal death.
These passages shew the true meaning of our text. The sin unto death is a sin such as God chastises by the infliction of disease and death.
What this sin is, we do not know. It was not the same sin in all, but different in each. In the case of the Corinthian Church, unworthy communicating was "the sin unto death;" but what it was in others, is not recorded.
Thus the passage in John and that in James correspond strikingly, the one illustrating the other. In the case of the sick brother, spoken of by James, we have the very thing referred to in the first clause of our text: "If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he (i. e., God) shall give him life for them that sin not unto death." Thus the prayer of faith was to save the sick man from death, to raise him up, and to secure for him forgiveness of the sin which had produced the sickness.
But then the question would arise, How are we to know when a sin is unto death, and when it is not unto death, so that we may pray in faith? The last clause of the 16th verse answers this question. It admits that there is a sin unto death; which admission is thus put in the 17th verse: "All unrighteousness is sin; but all sin is not unto death." But what does the apostle mean by saying, in the end of the 16th verse, "I do not say that he shall pray for it?" If we cannot know when a sin is unto death, and when not, what is the use of saying, "I do not say that he shall pray for it?"
The word translated "pray" means also "inquire," and is elsewhere translated so: John 1:19, "The Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?" (See, also, John 1:21, 25, 5:12, 9:2, 19:21.) If thus rendered, the meaning would be, "I say he is to ask no questions about that." That is to say, if he sees a brother sick and ready to die, he is not to say, Has he committed a sin unto death, or has he not? He is just to pray, letting alone all such inquiries, and leaving the matter in the hands of God, who, in answer to prayer, will raise him up, if he have not committed the sin unto death.
The passage now becomes plain; and while it remains as an unspeakably solemn warning, it does not teach us that there is some one mysterious sin which infers eternal damnation; still less, that a saint of God can commit such a sin. It may be thus paraphrased: "If any one see his brother in Christ sin a sin, and see him also laid upon a sick-bed in consequence of this, he shall pray for the sick brother; and if his sin be one of which the punishment is disease, not death, the sick man shall be raised up; for all sins that lead to sickness do not necessarily lead to death. And as to the difficulty, How shall we know when the sin is one which merely infers sickness, and when it is one which infers death? I say this, Ask no questions on this point, but pray, and leave the case to God."
Let us now come to the lessons of our text.