Matthew 12 Footnotes

12:31-32 Blasphemy against the Spirit means consciously rejecting his incontrovertible testimony to the truth of the gospel (see note on Heb 6:4-6). (To blaspheme or speak against the Son of Man seems to be to reject the claims of Jesus. Paul blasphemed the Son of Man prior to the Damascus road experience; he would have blasphemed the Spirit had he rejected the Damascus road experience.) This, then, is the only unforgivable sin, and this saying thus does not contradict such texts as 1Jn 1:9. This is not something Jesus addressed to the disciples or the crowds but to one small group of Jewish leaders who had already demonstrated their implacable opposition to him. There is no biblical evidence that a genuine Christian can commit this sin. Fear that one has done so is probably a good sign that one hasn’t, for full-fledged apostasy is a defiant rejection of everything Christian and lacks the tender conscience that would be worried about such an action.

12:38-40 “Three days and three nights” is from Jnh 1:17. In Jewish reckoning, a period of light and darkness makes a “day” (onah), and any part of a “day” is considered as the whole. Since Jesus arose on the third day (Mt 16:21; 27:63-64), which was the first day of the week (28:1), the language of three days and nights does not mean seventy-two hours (Est 4:16; 5:1) but “part of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday.”