“Are You Good Enough for God?”
By Rev. Dr. Paul S. Wilson
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Reading: Psalm 51:1-12; Matthew 12:31-32
My father was a United Church minister interested in church growth. In the late 1960s, he was much influenced by James Kennedy, minister of what became a megachurch, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale. Kennedy wanted lay people share their faith, so he developed a program called, Evangelism Explosion. He had several steps to guide church members in their task. Dad told me about it, one evening after supper, sitting around the dining room table. Perhaps Dad was gently evangelizing me in my wayward teens. Lay people were to ask others, ‘Do you know that if you were to die today, you would go to heaven?’ The next time you are out with friends, try that for a conversation starter. ‘Do you know that if you were to die today, you would go to heaven?’ See how many friends you have left.
Kennedy’s question is clever. Some exceedingly rigid Christians might have asked: ‘Do you know that if you were to die today, you would go to hell?’ Phrased positively, however, the question implies that you will go to heaven, you just might not know it. It is inviting. Go to heaven? Many people who believe in God, might answer no, they are not sure they are forgiven, they are not sure they are good enough for God. ‘Do you know that if you were to die today, you would go to heaven?’
Our text today is Jesus’s words about the one unforgiveable sin that would keep us out of heaven. We might each have our own version of what that unforgiveable sin might be. Is there one sin that you fear is unforgiveable? Some of us might find it difficult to choose just one when there are so many. Someone might lament, “When I was nineteen, I became pregnant, and I had an abortion. Someone else might say, I had an affair, or I am divorced, or I was responsible for terribly injuring someone in a car accident. One person said, “I was alienated from my mother for decades. All the times she was drugged out when I needed her to be there for me. She was an appalling mother, and I cut myself off from her. All the broken promises and the terrible things she said to me. Still, I cannot forgive myself. I heard she was dying, and I refused to visit her.”
The Ten Commandments are really a list of ten sins, things that separate us from God. God gave Moses the Commandments, written on tablets of stone, as if to emphasize their permanence, they will not change: no other gods, no swearing, keep the sabbath, honour parents, don’t kill, and no adultery, stealing, false witness, or coveting anyone else’s partner or goods. Some people add, no dancing, no cards, and no fun. A rich young man once came to Jesus wondering, “What must I do to inherit eternal life? I have kept all the commandments.” (Matthew 19:16-22.) He was confident he made the grade. But Jesus told him he still had to sell what today might have been his Corvette, his island off Bermuda, his Bombardier jet, and give the money to the poor. Which of the ten commandments was that? My guess is that even if he did sell all, there would always be another thing to do. We cannot on our own accomplish all the goodness God asks of us.
Jesus reduced the commandments to one, Love God and love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus also broadens the commandments so that no one can claim righteousness on their own. He says, whoever is angry at another has already committed murder, whoever looks at another in lust has already committed adultery (Matthew 5:21-30). Our Roman Catholic ancestors broadened sin even more by listing seven deadly sins or seven paths that lead to eternal damnation: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and (here is an interesting one) indifference.
We are not told what happened to the rich young man who went away from Jesus in grief because he loved his possessions too much to give them up, although we do know that Jesus went from him to the cross to die for him and us. Perhaps that young man had nights like Martin Luther had, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation. Luther had numerous periods of what he called in German Anfechtung, we don’t have a word quite equivalent. He would awake in terror and despair fearing the judgment of God. In our worst moments in the middle of the night, when the reality of death traces its long cold fingers across our heart, some of us might know what Anfechtung feels like. ‘Do you know that if you were to die today, you would go to heaven?’ For Luther the only solution to Anfechtung was the cross and resurrection. We are justified before God or made righteous before God, fit to be with God forever, only by our faith alone, not by all the good works we have done.
Jesus begins our text for today with these surprisingly generous words about forgiveness: “Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy.” (Matthew 12:31.) Every sin. Every sin that is sincerely repented is forgiven, if we want it. Whatever you think is unforgiveable, whatever you cannot forgive yourself for, is no longer counted against you. As Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Matthew 7:7.) You may even be unsure what you believe about Christ himself, and what Jesus says here is startling, “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man [in other words against me] will be forgiven”. (Matthew 12:31.)
So, what is unforgiveable? Only one sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, “blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven…. Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” (Matthew 12:32.)
We can be certain that what Jesus calls blasphemy is not swearing using the name of the Holy Spirit. Who does that anyway? Listen to drivers in Toronto cursing the traffic, you never hear “Holy Spirit”. If there were an Oxford Dictionary of English Swear Words, Holy Spirit would not be there. Even in French Quebec, where most swear words are derived from religion, Holy Spirit is not used.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is something else. It is saying the truth is a lie, and evil is good. If you believed that, you could not want to be with God. It is repeated, persistent, stubborn, rejection of everything God is and stands for. Chris Roth, an Anglican minister in Red Deer, Alberta, describes well what this blasphemy effects: “to reject the source of good, leaves us to experience not-good. To reject the source of beauty, leaves us to experience not-beauty. To reject the source of peace, is to experience not-peace. To reject the source of life, is to experience not-life. To run from the light, is to be left in the dark. In a sense, judgement is to get what we want. To reject the fountainhead of all that is good is to put yourself into the presence of all that God wants to save you from."[1] In other words, sinning against the Holy Spirit implies that we live our lives actively rejecting God and neighbour and all that is good and true, with no regret or repentance. And when at death we meet God and finally see Christ face to face, some people, like Hitler or Idi Amin, perhaps will continue to say, “Depart from me, I want nothing of you.” God may punish people who live murderous hateful lives, or God may in deep sorrow simply withdraw from them, if that is their permanent desire, leaving them without the protection of the Holy Spirit. That’s what our Psalm says, “Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me” (Psalm 51:10-11).
Here is a question that deeply troubles me, and maybe you too. It concerns many family members, friends, and countless strangers who obviously love their neighbour and do good works but reject God. I figure that many people who reject Christ have never met him for who he truly is, so they do not know who they are rejecting. Or, they have turned from him because of evil done in his name, by church members, clergy, entire denominations of the church, even nations. I can imagine some of these people at death meeting Jesus consciously for the first time and being utterly astonished at his goodness and love, “You are Jesus? Why didn’t anyone tell me how wonderful you are?”
We must do good and love our neighbours, but do we only have this life to decide to love God? Is a deathbed conversion one’s last chance? Many biblical texts imply yes. Texts like Jesus’s parable about a poor sick man named Lazarus. During his life he suffered on the street at the gate of the rich man, who ignores his obvious needs for food and medicine. After death, poor Lazarus is now feasting in heaven, and the rich man is thirsting in hell. (Luke 16:19-31.) To use words of The Guess Who, for this rich man, “It is too late, he’s gone too far—he’s come undone.”
But other Bible texts open the door at least a crack on another possibility, that even in death people may have another chance. God is, after all, the God of a second chance, and a third and a fourth. In the Apostle’s Creed we recite that Jesus “was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead”. The New Testament letter, 1 Peter 3, says what happens when Jesus descended to hell. He preaches, he proclaims. Listen to this: “He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago….” (3:18-20 NIV.) Jesus preaches to the departed, not to condemn them further, but to give them another opportunity to accept God’s gracious love to be with God forever.
Our own text may support this. Jesus says, “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come”. That seems to imply that in the age or world to come, some will have another chance to be forgiven. I don’t know. I do know that we always err when we try to limit God’s love. It is only by God’s love and grace that we are saved. Jesus commands us to forgive a person 70 x 7. How much more does God forgive us? Isn’t that what we hear so beautifully over and over and over again in the Bible? Verses like in Lamentations, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23.) Or in Jeremiah, anticipating Christ, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34) Or in the angel’s words to Mary, “For nothing is impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37.) Or in Revelation, I “will wipe away every tear from their eyes…. See, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:3-5.) God alone is the final judge of us all. I cling in hope to the possibility, even the probability, that our loved ones who reject God in this life, in death may still be amazed and overwhelmed by the One who is all love and mercy. As our opening hymn said so beautifully, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.”
Nick Dothée writes in the Washington Post that he would not have been able to forgive himself if his father had not seen him finally sober before he died. His dad always stood by him through his countless bouts with addictions and was his biggest fan. He kept encouraging him, always forgave him, until one time he said he could do it no longer, “I love you, but I can’t do this anymore. You’ve burned every bridge. Until you figure your life out, I can’t be part of it.” It proved to be a turning point, the start of a new beginning for Nick. He recites what happened at his dying Dad’s bedside:
If he had died without seeing me sober [for a year], I would’ve carried the guilt for a lifetime. But he saw me. And I saw him. And I got to tell him he did right by me, as…he was slipping in and out. The machine forcing air into his lungs clicked and pumped. I kissed his white hair and whispered, “You did a good job.” He didn’t respond right away. Then, gravelly and faint: “You did, too.”[2]
Those words were a blessing, to him, not just from his father, but from God. They were for him like God’s words to us today, “I will remember your sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:12.) Because you ask, the resurrected Christ has come into your life in a special way. Whatever unforgiveable deed you cling to your chest, he gently pries from your grasp, saying, “I will remember your sins no more." And because you have found forgiveness, whatever unforgiveable sin someone else has done to you, you can let go of it and give it over to God.
One last thought. Bryan Chapell once preached about Japanese Kinsugi bowls that are dropped and broken into pieces and then repaired with real gold, in a manner like lead in stained-glass windows, except the restored bowl is polished smooth. The bowls, originally beautiful in themselves, are considered more beautiful for having been broken. Chapell said, that is what Christ says to us, when we ask that our sin be removed: “Now you are beautiful to me. More beautiful for having been broken.”[3] Are we good enough for God? In the new creation of Christ, God has made us so. Be assured, and in faith, be at peace.
[1] Chris Roth, an Anglican priest in Red Deer, Alberta. Personal email, March 16, 2024.
[2] <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/12/fathers-day-drugs-alcohol-recovery/>
[3] Bryan Chapell, “Glory,” a sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church in Peoria, IL, Easter 2016, <<https://media.gracepres.org/5999/6111/26705, accessed May 20, 2017.