The Premise of Christ & Eternal Sin

In Mark 3:28-29, Jesus declares that "all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemies against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin."

Martin Luther elaborates upon this, asserting that, "Whoever despairs in his sin or relies on good works sins against the Holy Spirit and against grace."

Theologically this coheres perfectly with what is written in John 3:16-19, the cornerstone article of scripture to the Christian Faith:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment…

The import of this is clear: Christ was sent from God for the sole purpose of saving mankind. Whoever believes in Christ is saved – they will not perish but have eternal life. That Christ was sent to save necessarily implies that Christ was needed to save mankind and that therefore only through believing in Christ as one's savior is grace and salvation possible. According to the Christian faith, to deny this is to deny the entire point of Christ and is therefore to deny Christ himself.

One does this when they believe that they can do for themselves – save themselves through their own works – what Christ was sent to do and what, a fortiori, Christ was needed to do. Through such an individual commission one elevates their self above Christ, declaring through their beliefs if not through their words that they can save themselves by their own deeds, no Christ needed. After all, one who holds in their conscience that they can save themselves by themselves necessarily denies that they need a savior and, ergo, simultaneously declares that Christ is not their savior. The only purpose for which Christ was sent is thus refuted and so Christ himself is thus refuted. Once this is done scripture is absolutely clear: he that "has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" is condemned.

What else could be the "eternal sin"? Christianity holds nothing else if it does not hold that to accept Christ – and to not deny Christ – each individual must accept that the only thing they can do is to accede to the reality that there is nothing they can do. It must be done – and is done – through the sacrificial grace of Christ.