of, the Holy Spirit as if He were the manifestation of Satan, represents sin in its absolute

completeness, and for which there can be no pardon, since the state of mind of which it

is the outcome admits not the possibility of repentance, because its essence lies in this,

to call that Satanic which is the very object of repentance. It were unduly to press the

Words of Christ, to draw from them such inferences as, whether sins unforgiven in this

world might or might not be forgiven in the next, since, manifestly, it was not the

intention of Christ to teach on this subject. On the other hand, His Words seem to imply

that, at least as regards this sin, there is no room for forgiveness in the other world. For,

the expression is not 'the age to come' ()wbl dyt(), but, 'the world to come' ()bh Mlw(, or,

yt)d )ml(), which, as we know, does not strictly refer to Messianic times. but to the

future and eternal, as distinguished both from this world (Mlw( hzh), and from 'the days of

the Messiah' (xy#mh twmy).34

3. But this recognition of the spiritual, which was the opposite of the sin against the Holy

Ghost, was, as Christ had so lately explained in Jerusalem, only to be attained by

spiritual kinship with it.35 The tree must be made good, if the fruit were to be good; tree

and fruit would correspond to each other. How, then, could these Pharisees 'speak good

things,' since the state of the heart determined speech and action? Hence, a man would

have to give an account even of every idle word, since, however trifling it might appear

to others or to oneself, it was really the outcome of 'the heart,' and showed the inner

state. And thus, in reality. would a man's future in judgment be determined by his words;

a conclusion the more solemn, when we remember its bearing on what His disciples on

the one side, and the Pharisees on the other, said concerning Christ and the Spirit of

4. Both logically and morally the Words of Christ were unanswerable; and the Pharisees

fell back on the old device of challenging proof of His Divine Mission by some visible

sign.36 But this was to avoid t he appeal to the moral element which the Lord had made;

it was an attempt to shift the argument from the moral to the physical. It was the moral

that was at fault, or rather, wanting in them; and no amount of physical evidence or

demonstration could have s upplied that. All the signs from heaven would not have

supplied the deep sense of sin and of the need for a mighty spiritual deliverance,37

which alone would lead to the reception of the Saviour Christ. Hence, as under previous

similar circumstances,38 He would offer them only one sign, that of Jonas the prophet.

But whereas on the former occasion Christ chiefly referred to Jonas' preaching (of

repentance), on this He rather pointed to the allegorical history of Jonas as the Divine

attestation of his Mission. As he appeared in Nineveh, he was himself 'a sign unto the

Ninevites;'39 the fact that he had been three days and nights in the whale's belly, and

that thence he had, so to speak, been sent forth alive to preach in Nineveh, was

evidence to them that he had been sent of God. And so would it be again. After three

days and three nights 'in the heart of the earth' - which is a Hebraism for 'in the earth'  40 -