BROOD OF VIPERS

Many have struggled with a very troubling thing Jesus once said:

(Matt 12:31, 32 [TS98])
“Because of this I say to you, all sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven men. “And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Aḏam, it shall be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Set-apart Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

I want to submit to you that there is an historical context to these words, and Jesus provides us with a phrase that helps us understand that context. Matthew alone of all the writers mentions this phrase, which is found a little further on in Jesus conversation, where he calls the religious leaders "brood of serpents." Here is the complete thought:

(Matt 12:34 [TS98])
“Brood of adders! How are you able to speak what is good – being wicked? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.

How does this phrase help give us historical context? We find it by comparing the other uses of this phrase, of which there are only 2; and they are all recorded by Matthew. Here they are:

(Matt 3:7 [TS98])
And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his immersion, he said to them, “Brood of adders! Who has warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

(Matt 23:33 [TS98])
“Serpents, brood of adders! How would you escape the judgment of Gehenna?

We see here that this phrase is connected to a coming wrath, also known as a judgment of Gehenna. It is in Jesus' words in Matthew 23 that we find out just what he is referring to. I would encourage you to read the entire chapter to get his flow of thought. These words, found just after the phrase we are considering, tell us what we need to know:

(Matt 23:34 [TS98])
“Because of this, see, I send you prophets, and wise men, and scholars of Scripture. Some of them you shall kill and impale, and some of them you shall flog in your congregations and persecute from city to city,

(Matt 23:35-38 [TS98])
so that on you should come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Hebel to the blood of Zekaryah, son of Berekyah, whom you murdered between the Dwelling Place and the altar. “Truly, I say to you, all this shall come upon this generation. “Yerushalayim, Yerushalayim, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to her! How often I wished to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you would not! “See! Your house is left to you laid waste..."

This conversation is picked up in Matthew 24, where he describes the fall of Jerusalem. The temple being destroyed is what he means when he speaks of their house being laid waste. This occurred in the year 70.

Jerusalem's fall is the judgment of Gehenna, the wrath to come, of which Paul and others warned about.

This helps us understand then, that the blasphemy of the spirit would not be forgiven, neither in the time when Jesus was there, nor in that to come. Jerusalem's destruction was a fulfillment that showed they must bear the penalty for that sin.

This had precedent in the book of Leviticus where blasphemy of YHWH offered no forgiveness. Instead, the offender had to die, bearing the penalty for that sin themselves. I believe the same thing happened to that generation during which Jesus lived, that rejected him knowingly. In particular, it was the religious leaders, although the entire nation suffered as a result.

Hopefully this will clear up and give more light to an often misunderstood and misapplied part of Jesus' sayings.

Ron