Gnostic Insights Is Any Sin Unforgiveable? Blaspheming the Holy Spirit
Last week we talked about the Holy Spirit, what or who it is, and how and why it came to Earth. To review:
In Gnostic teaching, there are three kinds of Power that we know of: The First Order of Powers were the original Aeons—that is, the differentiations that are within the Son of God and that coexist with the Son. It’s called the First Order of Powers because the Son is the first and only direct emanation of the originating Source of consciousness and power. The Pleroma of the First Order of Powers is the infinite number of variables of all possibilities known to the God Above All Gods.
The Second Order of Powers is us and all other life forms. We are the fruit, or children, of the First Order of Powers, fruited through the Pleroma of Logos after he abandoned the results of the Fall and returned to the Fullness above. We’re part of the original power coming from the Father and through the Son and then through the Aeons and on through the Pleroma of Logos. And we are literally the fruit of the Aeon Logos. Logos contained fractals of all the other Aeons inside of him, and we are the fruit of those fractals after Logos returned back to the Fullness.
The Holy Spirit is the Pleroma of the Christ. It is also called the Third Order of Powers. The Third Order of Powers is what came along with the manifestation of the Christ, first in the heavens and then on Earth. Christ is not an Aeon—He is greater than the Aeons. Nor is Christ the original Son that emerged directly from the Father, because the Son predates the Christ. Christ is the Third Order of Powers, formed through the prayer of the Aeons under the direction of the Son and with the blessing and will of the Father. The Tripartite Tractate says:
Then from the harmony, in a joyous willingness which had come into being, they brought forth the fruit, which was a begetting from the harmony, a unity, a possession of the Totalities, revealing the countenance of the Father, of whom the aeons thought as they gave glory and prayed for help for their brother with a wish in which the Father counted himself with them. Thus, it was willingly and gladly that they bring forth the fruit. (Tripartite Tractate, verse 86)
All of those that come with the Christ form the Pleroma of the Third Order Powers—that is, all of the variables that make up the Christ. The Third Order Powers are to the Christ what the First Order Powers are to the Son. We are called the fruit of the Pleroma of Logos, the Second Order of Powers. The First Order of Powers was the Pleroma of the Son. And Christ, the Third Order of Powers, is the fruit of the Totalities of the Son and the Father. He’s a different entity than the Father and the Son. He is the Pleroma of the Holy Spirit that represents the Totalities and the Father. Yet, the Tripartite Tractate does call him the Son because he is “the revelation of his union with them, which is his beloved Son.”
The one who is properly called “Savior” and “the Redeemer” and “the Well-Pleasing one” and “the Beloved,” “the one to whom prayers have been offered” and “he Christ” and “the Light of those appointed,” in accordance with the ones from whom he was brought forth, since he has become the names of the positions [which] were given to him. Yet what other name may be applied to him except “the Son,” as we previously said, since he is the knowledge of the Father, whom he wanted them to know? (Tripartite Tractate, verses 86-87)
Jesus said he would send the Comforter to his followers that would fill them with the Holy Spirit of the Father. This would be a new entity bringing its presence into the cosmos.
Not only did the Aeons generate the countenance of the Father to whom they gave praise… but also they generated their own; for the aeons who give glory generated their countenance and their face. They were produced as an army for him, as for a king, since the beings of the thought have a powerful fellowship and an intermingled harmony. They came forth in a multifaceted form, in order that the one to whom help was to be given might see those to whom he had prayed for help. He also sees the one who gave it to him. (Tripartite Tractate, verse 87)
This is why I make a point of repeating how the aeons are the body of the Pleroma of the Son and how we come from the Pleroma of the body of Logos. The Pleroma of Logos is a fractal of the Pleroma of the Son. In other words, we living creatures are the second iteration of Logos who carries within himself an iteration of the Fullness of God. We have the countenance or face of the various aeons, one fractal level down. So when the Pleroma of the Christ, also known as the Holy Spirit, came to Earth, it reflected the countenance of every Second Order Power and every First Order Power. This is what is meant when the Tripartite Tractate says,
They came forth in a multifaceted form, in order that the one to whom help was to be given might see those to whom he had prayed for help. He also sees the one who gave it to him.
And this is why people who have experienced the born again phenomenon upon acceptance of the Christ have a felt sense of being known and personally loved by God. It is because the Third Order Powers of Christ literally have our faces and our bodies—they know us inside and out. There is a Third Order Power for every Second Order Power.
The Third Order Powers of the Christ are the most powerful force in our cosmos, far more powerful than we are and infinitely more powerful than the Pleroma of the Demiurge. This is how it is that once we accept the Christ and invite our personal Third Order Powers to enter into our soul we immediately feel the love of the Father and are no longer powerless to resist the wily temptations of the archons of the Demiurge. The Third Order Powers see through the lies and phantoms of the imitation. They cannot be deluded by the deficiency. They are not affected by the never-ending war. And we share that enlightenment to the extent that we accept the indwelling of the Third Order Powers.
The Holy Spirit of the Christ not only came for us but also brings redemption to the Demiurge—that egoic part of Logos that had been abandoned here below after the Fall. The Tripartite Tractate says,
For he revealed himself to him within him, since he is with him, is a fellow sufferer with him, gives him rest little by little, makes him grow, lifts him up, gives himself to him completely for the enjoyment from a vision. (verse 90)
Now I’d like to share with you a verse from the New Testament. This is a verse that many people are familiar with. Quoting Jesus,
Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin. (Mark 3:28-29, New International Version)
Hart’s literal translation puts it this way:
Amen, I tell you that all will be excused the sons of men, the transgressions and the blasphemies, howsoever they may blaspheme. But whoever blasphemes against the Spirit, the Holy One, has no excuse throughout the age, but is answerable for a transgression in the Age.
First off, comparing the usual translation to Hart’s translation, we see that conventional Christians are taught that blaspheming the Holy Spirit is unforgivable whereas the literal translation says inexcusable. The conventional translation also says these blasphemers are guilty eternally—meaning it will never go away because the blasphemy is unforgivable. Hart’s translation says that while the blasphemer has no excuse, they will be answerable in the Age to come.
Throughout the age is an interesting phrase, because the Greek word for age is aeon. And generally the Bible tends to translate aeon as a unit of time, but I usually prefer translating aeon as a unit of consciousness. So, we gnostics might translate “in the Age” as “in the Fullness of the Aeons,” which is a place not a time. This indicates to me that while conventional Christians have been taught that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven and blasphemers will suffer for eternity for their sin, the actual translation says that while their sin may be inexcusable, they will have an opportunity to answer for that sin after death, in the Fullness of the Aeons.
As an aside, yesterday I took my dog out on a trail with a lady and her dog that I barely knew. The dogs were having a good time off leash, running around, exploring, having fun. But then when it was time to leave the park, the other dog wouldn’t come and wouldn’t allow us to approach, but kept running away just out of reach. This went on for an hour until we lost track of the dog. I grew more upset as each minute went by. I started say to the lady, “This is unacceptable behavior. This is totally unacceptable!” I must have said that 50 times. We eventually found the dog outside the park, across a bridge, and only yards from the highway where it surely would have been killed. The dog finally allowed us to approach and the lady got him into the car. Now, by analogy, what would a loving owner do? Forgive the dog and take him home or take him to the pound and condemn him to hell? On the drive home I kept reiterating to the lady that she needs to train that dog because his behavior was totally unacceptable. So, to carry the analogy further, the loving owner would teach the dog the error of its ways through training until he could be trusted off leash and be a “good dog.”
Blasphemy isn’t just cursing, just hitting your finger with a hammer, and uttering a curse in God’s name. It means that your heart is turned against God. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit means that you speak ill of the Holy Spirit in particular. The Holy Spirit is the one that is singled out. And why would this be such a big transgression? Because this is the worst thing that you can possibly do in this lifetime, signifying your entire disposition towards goodness and righteousness, towards the Father, towards the Son, towards the Fullness, and towards truth, because the Holy Spirit stands for all of these things.
So this is not speaking of a matter of confusion, and I don’t know which way to turn or I’m an agnostic. Gnostic means to know. Agnostic means you don’t know. It’s not saying that. It’s saying you go beyond confusion to blasphemy. You raise your fist in anger and you denounce God and his will. You denounce the Holy Spirit. Mark 3:28 says that you will be answerable for that transgression in the Age. Or what I would say, you will be answerable for a transgression in aeonic realm. You will come to a period of cleansing and the measure of your guilt will be your own self-condemnation. Your own anger and hatred will be completely exposed. But this won’t be eternal. This will only be until the chaff is burned away from the wheat.
John the Baptist said that,
He will baptize you in a Holy Spirit and fire: He whose winnow is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his threshing floor, and will gather his grain into the storehouse, and will burn away the chaff with inextinguishable fire. (Matthew 3:11-12)
“Burn away the chaff.” Yikes! Sounds painful. There are other frightening warnings concerning God’s wrath, similar to those scary visions recounted in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, primarily from Old Testament prophets and John in the book of Revelations. Such as:
If anyone makes obeisance to the beast and its image, and receives an impress on his forehead or on his hand, He shall drink also from the wine of God’s vehemence, mixed undiluted into the cup of his ire, and will be tormented by fire and sulfur before the holy angels and before the suckling lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ages of ages, and the ones who make obeisance to the beast and its image have no rest day and night, as does anyone who might receive the impress of its name. Here is the endurance of the holy ones who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice out of heaven saying, “Write: ‘How blissful the dead who henceforth die in the Lord.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘so that they shall rest from their labors, for their works follow along with them.’” (Revelations 14:9-13)
And in Matthew 13:49:
“Thus it will be at the consummation of the age. Angels will go forth and will separate the wicked from the midst of the just, and will throw them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and grinding of teeth there.”
The fire isn’t meant to punish or to harm. It is a metaphor for burning away those negative memes that are clinging so tenaciously to your soul. And once those are burned away, then you can join everyone else. You won’t be forced into heaven if you hate God and hate the Holy Spirit and scoff at the notion of heaven. You need to want to come there. And you can’t come there if your soul and your spirit is smothered with “wicked” memes. But it is important to realize that it is not the person that is wicked, for we are all Second Order Powers filled with the Fullness of God. Our basic nature is not sin or wickedness; our basic nature is love.
The wickedness is carried within the memes, not within the human soul. Remember that the process of karma determines what memes you gather and hold onto. If you take up the memes of the Demiurge and its archons, your inherent light will be smothered by those negative memes. And it is those memes that are burned away like chaff from the threshing floor, not the souls of humans. We must be pure and holy in order to return to the Age—the abode of the Aeons from which we come, for no negative memes make it through the winnowing process. It was not the will of the Father that we suffer. That is why the Christ and the Third Order Powers came to Earth—so that we would all have a clear pathway of righteousness aided by the infusion of the Holy Spirit to shed the demiurgic memes before death and any sort of final reckoning process.
In Hart’s version of Matthew 12, beginning at verse 30, it says,
Whoever is not with me, (that’s Jesus speaking), is against me. And whoever does not gather together with me scatters. Hence I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be excused men. But the blasphemy of the Spirit will not be excused. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, (that is Jesus), it will be excused him. But whoever speaks against the Spirit, the Holy One, it will not be excused him, neither in this age nor in the one that is coming. Either make out the tree to be good and its fruit good, or make out the tree to be rotten and its fruit rotten. For the tree is known by the fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being wicked, speak of good things? For the mouth speaks out of what overflows from the heart. The good man issues good things out of his good stores, and the wicked man issues wicked things out of his wicked stores.
This final reckoning after death gives you the opportunity for that 360 degree life review that brings you face-to-face with your karma and memes. If you walk with the Holy Spirit the passage will be easy, for all transgressions are forgiven. But if you hate and blaspheme or speak ill of the Holy Spirit itself, then you have no Comforter at your side to assist you, either in this age or in the Age to come. And if that is the case, then your realization and rejection of the demiurgic memes will be painful. But make no mistake, this reckoning is necessary and inevitable. And after that, forgiveness.
I will close this week’s episode by sharing with you a portion of an archetypal dream I had when I was about eight years old. In that dream I was flying through the air with Jesus, tucked safely in his arm, like Lois Lane flying with Superman. We landed at the front of a huge procession of people carrying torches who were winding there way up a tall hill. I found myself standing before an old gentleman who was sitting at a table that held a large glowing wok or brazier full of red hot glowing coals. The table was in front of a door leading into a huge, brightly glowing structure. Jesus, who was standing behind me with his hands on my shoulders told the man, “She is with me.” The old man took my right hand and plunged it into the hot coals. Now, this is the important part to the lesson of this episode—even though my hand was in the hot coals, it did not hurt and it did not burn because Jesus was with me. When my hand came out of the coals unscathed, I was able to pass into the place before me.
There’s more to the story of what happened in that dream. I’ll tell it to you next week and we’ll talk about dreams. Until then,
Onward and upward, and God bless us all.
