What Does it Mean to Blaspheme/Grieve/Quench The Holy Spirit?
I’m afraid I committed the unpardonable sin and blasphemed the Holy Spirit. What can I do to get the Holy Spirit back? Have I messed up so badly that God won’t forgive me? What does it mean to blaspheme, grieve, and quench the Holy Spirit? How are they different and what scripture backs this up?
Excerpt From The Answer
To blaspheme the Spirit is to attribute the work of God to Satan. It’s directly rejecting Christ’s work by rejecting the Spirit, which is to reject the gospel. So a person interested in the Spirit of Christ has probably not blasphemed the Spirit. A believer can’t commit that sin. If a person feels that he or she has done that, the fact that they feel that way is strong evidence they haven’t. If you’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit, you wouldn’t care. When you read a verse that doesn’t make sense, read the verses around it.
If grieving is disobedience (knowing what is right and choosing otherwise), quenching is more a suppressing of what I know I’m supposed to do: live faithfully, be at peace with one another, etc. The Spirit indwells us and gives us the fruit of the Spirit that grow in us. So when we aren’t living out those things, we could be quenching the Spirit or grieving the Spirit because we aren’t allowing Him to guide us and produce that fruit in our lives. When we’re controlled by the Spirit of Christ, we’re less likely to grieve or quench the Holy Spirit’s work in us.
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