bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
Here's Spurgeon, from a sermon preached in 1869:
The greatest divines who have written on this subject have never been able to prove anything about it, except that all the other divines are wrong. I have never yet read a book upon the subject which did not, one-half of it, consist in proving that all who had written before knew nothing at all on the subject, and I have come to the conclusion, when I have finished each treatise, that the writer was about as right as his predecessors, and no more. Whatever the unpardonable sin may be, and perhaps it is different in every person - perhaps it is a point of sin in each one, a filling up of his measure, beyond which there is no more hope of mercy - whatever it is, there is one thing that is sure, that no man who feels his need of Christ, and sincerely desires to be saved, can have committed that sin at all.
Spurgeon was under the impression that there was considerable confusion, in his day, over what the unpardonable sin is. This surprises me, in that I was taught, and have read, the pretty firm opinion that the unpardonable sin consists of attributing God's work to Satan, especially anything having to do with salvation.
Any guesses as to why Spurgeon and his generation were confused on this subject?
The greatest divines who have written on this subject have never been able to prove anything about it, except that all the other divines are wrong. I have never yet read a book upon the subject which did not, one-half of it, consist in proving that all who had written before knew nothing at all on the subject, and I have come to the conclusion, when I have finished each treatise, that the writer was about as right as his predecessors, and no more. Whatever the unpardonable sin may be, and perhaps it is different in every person - perhaps it is a point of sin in each one, a filling up of his measure, beyond which there is no more hope of mercy - whatever it is, there is one thing that is sure, that no man who feels his need of Christ, and sincerely desires to be saved, can have committed that sin at all.
Spurgeon was under the impression that there was considerable confusion, in his day, over what the unpardonable sin is. This surprises me, in that I was taught, and have read, the pretty firm opinion that the unpardonable sin consists of attributing God's work to Satan, especially anything having to do with salvation.
Any guesses as to why Spurgeon and his generation were confused on this subject?
