Foundational to Christianity is belief that Jesus made an atoning sacrifice to pay for our sins and through personal acceptance of Jesus as savior, our sins will be forgiven. All but one sin, there is a sin that Jesus said could not be forgiven, and that "unforgivable sin" is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, for which the penalty is eternal damnation. (Matthew 12:31-33, Mark 3:29, Luke 12:10)
Correct. However, a note on the context, taken from that chapter in Matthew (although that part of Mark 3 or Luke 12, which references a part of Luke 11, work just as well):
22 Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. 23 All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”
24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”
25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
So the Pharisees blasphemed against the Spirit by witnessing a work of the Spirit and attributing it to Satan. This disproves what you assert later.
Considering Christ's uncompromising warning, I think it is important to examine just what the unforgivable sin is and perhaps remind Christians of it. I single out offending Christians here because in Hebrews 6:4-6 the unforgivable sin is associated with "falling away", it clearly states that only Christians can commit this sin, and it claims the offenders are crucifying Jesus again while putting Him to an open shame.
Let's talk about this passage in Hebrews:
Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death,[a] and of faith in God, 2 instruction about cleansing rites,[b] the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so.
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen[c] away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
So, this passage isn't covering the unforgivable sin; it's talking about those who will never truly repent.
When I see some Christians engaging in so much denominational strife and religious one-upmanship, which upon consideration of Scripture is in fact what Jesus referred to as "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit", I can't imagine Jesus being anything but openly shamed by such a divided house.
In Matthew 12 Jesus says a divided house cannot stand, in his definition of the unforgivable sin he makes a clear distinction between blasphemies against Him (forgivable), and the Holy Spirit (unforgivable), and then immediately reminds us that you should only judge a tree by it's fruit.
Refer to the passage from Matthew above. When Jesus talks of a house that cannot stand, He is refuting the idea that He could be driving out demons by Satan's powers. What you speak of is not the divided house that Jesus is speaking of in this passage.
Jesus said he came for ALL men, transcending the very notion of religious exclusion. In the context of the absolute laws of unity and compassion that He embodied and the utterly non-dual nature of his teachings, exemplified in the statement that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28 , Colossians 3:11) there can be little question about what the unforgivable sin is.
The verses you cite here are with reference to race relations between Jews and Gentiles. Notice the whole "You are one in Christ Jesus" part. How can a Muslim be one with a Christian in Christ, when Muslims DO NOT accept Christ and their Lord God and Savior? The verses you cite do not aid your position, but refute it.
I will again point to that passage in John I showed you yesterday:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
If a gift is sent to you, but you reject it, it is not your gift.
When asked to, Jesus summarized all of his teaching into the maxim that you should love your neighbor as you love yourself (Matthew 22:36-39 and Mark 12:28-31, also see Leviticus 19:18, Galatians 5:14 ,Matthew 22:39, Luke 10:27, James 2:8, John 1:5, John 13:34), something impossible to do without recognizing that your neighbor's faith is to him, what your faith is to you. Christ said that the true Kingdom of God was within, that his father's house had many mansions and that a Kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation and a divided house cannot stand.
Above, it has been proven that redemption requires Christ. How then can I love my neighbor when I fail to introduce him to Christ? I can't. If anything, the most hateful thing a Christian can do is to fail to minister to others (of which debate is a method), including Muslims.
And given that those who reject Christ are not saved, your idea that "recognising that your brother's religion is to him what yours is to you," which you use to condemn bringing God's message to Muslims (the good and the bad), is actively harmful to efforts of salvation.
In NONE of the passages you cite, or anywhere else in the Bible, is the claim that refuting Islam and warning Muslims of their doom (if they do not convert) is a hateful act. The notion is refuted explicitly by Matthew 28:18-20:
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The unforgivable sin then, is to have been to the mountaintop of the transcendent and non-dual love of Christ's understanding of God, and to again become dual minded and unstable (James 1:8), and to judge the Holy Spirit working in others by the external trappings of ritual and dogma rather than looking beyond those things to the Kingdom within (Luke 17:21), judging by something other than the fruit of the Holy Spirit, especially when the agenda of tribal denominationalism causes someone to totally deny His teachings and attribute the work of God's Spirit in others to demonic forces.
Similar to the passage from Hebrews, James is on a different subject. Now let's take a look at the passage from Luke:
20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”[c]
22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 23 People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. 24 For the Son of Man in his day[d] will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” [36] [e]
This passage isn't even relevant to your claim. While the Pharisees were infamous for their dogma, observing the letter of the law but not the spirit of it, this verse is not about judging others.
You do, however, cite a verse about judging others later, and I will get to that.
Along with almost every other major religion, Christianity maintains that God is transcendent to human understanding (Isaiah 55:8-9, 1 Corinthians 13:12 , Romans 11:33, and scads more) and Scripture is filled with supporting statements, explicitly telling us that no man knows as he ought to know (1 Corinthians 8:1-2 ), every man has his proper gift of God after different manners (1 Corinthians 7:7),
God is transcendent to human understanding, yes. However, the idea of Jesus being the Messiah is not beyond our understanding. Remember that Hebrews passage you cited? It describes accepting Jesus as part of the very basics. And once again, the contexts do not support your claim that Muslims go to Heaven, according to God:
Examples:
Isaiah 55:7-9:
Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
This passage is about how God is not wicked, but righteous, above the ways of the wicked.
1 Corinthians 8:
Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God.[a]
4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.
The first few verses are Paul telling the church of Corinth to be humble and listen to him. Then Paul tells members of the church of Corinth not to go and eat food offered to idols in idol temples, which most likely includes the leftovers sold in the market as well. This one is ironic for our purposes: Instead of telling Christians to tell the Hellenists that their ways are just another approach to religion, Paul tells the Christians to make a point of rejecting the practices of other religions.
Romans 11:25-33:
25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, 26 and in this way[e] all Israel will be saved. As it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27 And this is[f] my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”[g]
28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, 29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. 30 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now[h] receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. 32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Doxology
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and[i] knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”[j]
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”[k]
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
This passage is about how God works in mysterious ways to achieve His plans. To get ahead of a counterargument: If you are about to claim that today's Christians are hardened to eventually bring God's mercy to Muslims, keep in mind that would still entail the Muslims accepting Christ, as the Gentiles in this passage have. As such, a Christian ministering the truth of Christ to a Muslim cannot be a part of said hardening (again, John 3:16-18 and Matthew 28:18-20 are useful in refuting this notion).
with explicit consequential statements that therefore, we should not judge others (out of hundreds of references, Matthew 7:1 and 1 Corinthians 4:5 stand out).
Matthew 7:1-5:
7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
This verse does not tell Christians never to repeat God's judgment to Muslims. Rather, it is a verse about avoiding hypocrisy. Notice how you are free to critique your brother when you are no longer guilty of the same sins. If we take that concept and apply it to our purposes here, the saved (Christians) are in a position to minister to those who are not (Muslims).
The 1 Corinthians passage you cite is... complex. If you read the entirety of chapters 3 and 4, you will see that the members are dividing themselves into groups based on which church leader they follow: Paul or Apollos.
1 Corinthians 3:1-4
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
This is the first place in your entire case where you have the slightest of points: Prioritising denomination over God has damaged this church.
However:
- The above passage states that they are quarrelling, which is beyond merely debating.
- These are Christians fighting amongst themselves; it does not aid your case with relevance to Muslims.
Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 4:1-7:
4 This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. 2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.
6 Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other. 7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
"Judge not" is once again given as a specific command for the situation in the passage. It does not apply here, nor does it apply to calm, rational debates between Christian denominations.
When I see Christians engaging in all this religious one-upmanship and self righteous condemnation of other ways of understanding God it is hard not to see a direct parallel to the manner in which the Pharisees smugly proclaimed the fruits of Holy Spirit that dwelled in Jesus to be the works of Satan (Matthew 12).
When questioned about it, the Christians who engage in all this "puffing themselves up" (1 Corinthians 8:1-2) and "self exaltation" (Luke 14:11), typically justify it by claiming that they are only trying to save your eternal soul. Perhaps those offending individuals should forego their own egos and instead defer to their Scripture and consider what Jesus had to say about it all, and recognize that maybe it would be more appropriate to worry that it is your own soul that is facing eternal damnation.
Firefigher: *Breaks down door*
Homeowner: WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? You have done damage to the property!
Firefighter: Don't you see the fire? Your son is trapped, and I am going to rescue him. I have done nothing immoral.
Homeowner: WhY ArE yOU bOaStINg?!?!?!
Such is the conversation at hand.
Furthermore, from Jeremiah 9:23-24:
23 This is what the Lord says:
“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
or the strong boast of their strength
or the rich boast of their riches,
24 but let the one who boasts boast about this:
that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”
declares the Lord.
If saying that you are saving someone's soul is boast, then it is a boast in Christ, where the Christian acknowledges that, on a deeper level, God is saving souls through him, not on his own. Knowing RationalMadman/GreatfulGoy here, I would say that it is a given. He is not perfect, but in my conversations with him, I would say he knows that he is nothing special; that he is merely an instrument of God's.
Romans 2:1-2
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
Once again, this verse does not tell Christians not to repeat God's judgment. It is a warning against hypocrisy. See my earlier points on Matthew 7; they apply here.
As for what you wrote in Post #10:
If it were the case that God simply gave Jews and Muslims another understanding, sufficient for salvation, the book of Hebrews (a book written to convert Jews to Christianity) would be pointless. And taking your assertion to its logical conclusion, who would be to say that the Hellenists, and Baalists/etc of the Old Testament, were also not given another understanding, and that they would be saved? If we understand that, then such ministry to them would also be pointless. Yet God Himself had Elijah (1 Kings 18:16-45) and Paul (Acts 16:16-18) demonstrate signs to them, to show that they are true of prophets of the one true God.
As such, you cannot assert that such ministry to Muslims, including the condemnation of their faith and the assurance of salvation in Christ alone, is sinful, or boastful, or anything of the sort.
Finally: You, like the Muslims, are in jeopardy, but are not irredeemable. But that is a topic for another day.
