Matthew 12:32 - An Allusion to Purgatory?

 

Many Roman Catholics quote Matthew 12:32, where the Lord Jesus, speaking of the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, says “And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” They say that this implies that some sins can be forgiven in the age to come (i.e. in purgatory). 

A number of things may be said in response:

[1]. It is clear that Christ’s reference to “the age to come” is about the Day of Judgment and thereafter. However, Roman Catholicism teaches that after the Day of Judgment, purgatory will not exist (Bellarmine, Purgatory, Book I, Chapter 5), thus this passage cannot be implying the existence of purgatory. 

[2]. William John Hall: “If the sin against the Holy Ghost be the only one to which forgiveness shall not be extended, in the next life; then, upon the Papists’ reasoning, all other sins in general may hereafter receive pardon, and consequently mortal sin; but mortal sin, they constantly assert, can only be remitted in this life; therefore mortal can be both forgiven and not forgiven in the world to come, which is an absurdity.”

[3]. The expression “neither in this world, nor in the age to come” is an exaggerated (yet true) statement to emphasize the fact that those who commit the unpardonable sin are damned forever without any hope of escape. This is clear from the parallel account of the same story in Mark 3:29 - “But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”. Bellarmine responds by saying “One ought not to explain Matthew by Mark but rather Mark by Matthew, since Matthew uses many more words and it is certain he wrote more copiously, whereas Mark made something like a compendium from the Gospel of Matthew.” However, the majority view of most NT scholars today is that Mark wrote his gospel before Matthew and Luke did.

[4]. The church fathers witness against the Roman Catholic interpretation:

“Whoever does not receive remission of sins in this world, will not be in heaven.” (Ambrose, De Bono Mortis, 2.5)

“Therefore, whoever attributes the works of the Savior to Beelzebub, the prince of demons, and says that the Son of God has an unclean spirit, to this one the blasphemy will not be forgiven at any time.” (Jerome, Commentary on Matthew, in Fathers of the Church, Vol. 117, pg. 145)

It is true that Augustine at one point seems to agree with the Romanist interpretation (City of God, Book XXI, Chapter 24), but elsewhere he says “Concerning this point, since it is a most intricate question, no hasty opinion must be formed.” (Against Julian, 6.5, as cited in William John Hall, The Doctrine of Purgatory, pg. 47)

Overall, the argument from the Matt. 12:32 is perhaps the most absurd and stupid of all of the Romanist arguments for purgatory. As we have seen, it is based on assumptions which are inconsistent with the doctrine of purgatory itself and are plainly absurd.