What is the Unpardonable Sin?

5 What is the Unpardonable Sin? And with good reason too. We hear about Navy he- licopters that are sent on rescue missions. As they’re flying out over the ocean from their aircraft carrier, they have a special instrument labeled PNR * —the point of no return. When they reach a certain point, an alarm goes off. It tells them, basically, that it’s now or never—they’ve reached the halfway point of their fuel supply. It means that, even if they see the person they’re trying to rescue just a little farther beyond, if they continue to fly away from their vessel, as well- intentioned as they might be, based on the laws of physics, they are going to run out of fuel before they can get back. They’ll be ditching in the ocean. Like that man who died on the Scottish shore, if they don’t turn around right then and there, they might not make it home by air. No Turning Back? Along these same lines, the Bible teaches that there is a point you can go to in sinning against God where your life might still be active—your lungs are breath- ing, your heart is beating—but you are doomed, just as surely as if the gates of Hades had already closed behind you. That is, it is possible for a person to have gone so far away from God, from the promptings of the Holy Spirit, that they have spiritually reached the point of no return and, perhaps, even have gone well past it. It is called the “unpardonable sin,” and we’re deal- ing with this because so many worried and confused * Now also called “Point of Equal Time” (PET) or “Critical Point” (CP).