The message that I posted last month under the heading ‘Sin against the Holy Spirit’ is an unfinished piece of work. The Holy Spirit, the third Personae of the Triune God, though broods over the Holy Church incessantly, is also immanent within and without our body and within the entire universe of seen and unseen planes of life. He has been everywhere before the creation of this world. “….and the Spirit of God was moving over the space of the waters”, Gen.1: 2. The sin against the Holy Church is unforgivable, as the Spirit of God dwells within it, so also sinning against our own spirit, together with the physical body, and other people who are created in the image and likeness of God. The Spirit of God permeates in us, so also the Spiritual reflexes that run the whole gigantic system of the created order is everlasting.

Different types of spirits:
In Hebrew ‘Ruach’ and in Greek ‘pneuma’ means wind or air. The Holy Ghost, the third Person of the Triune God, is the scriptural word which is equivalent to this is Holy Spirit. There is a spirit in man. The kindling or the renewed nature that dwells in man makes him spiritual, Mt.26: 41. The renewed nature that we call ‘soul’ continues to exist even after the death of the body, Acts.7: 59, is eternal. Good angels are called spirits, Heb.1: 14. The fallen angels are known as devils, unclean or evil spirits, Mk.5: 13. Spirit signifies an apparition or ghost, Mt.14: 26. The breath, the respiration, the animal life that is in beasts are also personified as spirits or spiritual exercises, Eccl.3: 21. Spirit is also taken for the wind, Amo.4: 13, Zec.6: 5; Jn.3: 8. There is a spirit of man, as well as the spirit of this world, 1.Cor.2: 10-16. These details support us that we in a universal ocean of spirits that even may include the microscopic amoeba, bacteria, and virus and so on. The vibration and movements of all such spirit can influence or indoctrinate our daily life, unless controlled and harnessed and sifted out by our own free will that is an emanation of the spirit of God which dwells in.

Duality of man:
Man is a spirit, the spark of the Spirit of God who created us from nothingness. The Lord is the Spirit ,2.Cor.3: 17. “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life’, Job.33; 4; “…as long as my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils, Job.27: 3”; pro.15: 4. The outer frame of man is a part of this earth that was once the dominion of the fallen Lucifer and his legions. As such evil spirits have the legality and chemical affinity of entering into man, he is like meat in the sandwich that is constrained by good and evil forces. The mortal frame of man is therefore a vulnerable testing medium that decides the destiny of him. Unless we conquer this physical outfit by mortifying the flesh that is the compendium of all the base animal passions, our fate is sealed for the eternal darkness of wailing and gnashing of teeth. To kill our physical body that nurtures all sorts of bestial passions is the sole aim of our life which is given as a gift of God.

He didn’t forsake us even in our disgraced life of Eden’s fall; yet He blessed us with a family life that partake a complementing life of sacramental affinity. Because Adam divorced His Creator, God made it as a test on that basis by giving a partner who was meant to be with him eternally, just as Adam was meant for God everlastingly. The sacred fidelity of Adam to God cannot be questioned, whereas Eve who didn’t directly get a commandment from God separated him by her disobedience of tasting the forbidden fruit. If the forbidden fruit was the test for the first parents, their descendants are again and still being tested after the fall by ‘nakedness’, Gen.2: 25; 3; 7, the net result of eating the forbidden fruit. In the first instance they divorced God, and in the second, they are tempted to be divorced on the basis of sex, a product of the infringement of the first given commandment to both of them. They disobeyed God; the outcome is that they are also being tested by the product of the Forbidden fruit: SEX. “Violent beginnings will have violent ends”. Divorce and infidelity is the outcome of the disobedience that creates a gulf on the basis of sex. The first commandment that invites both implicit and explicit obedience to God also anticipates chastity and fidelity which is the outcome of obedience between the complementing partners or any other members who continued their life after the fall. The partners who have violated the first commandment against God faced the same test by the product, sex impulse, of the forbidden fruit. Divorce that breaks the obedience of fidelity has become equivalent of eating the forbidden fruit, so also the women’s parish equality in the decision-making bodies that can pave the way for sex as an explosive is against the Heavenly law. Women’s ordination, as a result remains as forbidden fruit, an anathema. God hasn’t given sex life that begets children for nothing; the progenies of the first parents are thrown into such testing or tempting ground as long as this world continues to endure, so that them being continually tested again and again till the ripening of the age of Jesus’ second coming by reproducing children who are supposed to have laboured in the Master’s vineyard.

Complementing life of partnership:
Go and replenish the world is the commandment after the punishment of the great deluge. “Be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly on the earth and multiply in it”, Gen.9: 1-7. A clean life of fidelity, chastity and obedience that re-establish a bond that broke down between God and man in Eden is the expectation of a married life which obey, honour, humbly serve and care each other is the sole aim of our life on earth, thereby the affinity that cherished between God and Adam before the fall to continue among the family members, nations and society at large. The Paradise lost by the first parents by their disobedience of the first commandment is regained by the obedience of loving and caring that restore fidelity by sexual purity and bringing up children in God-fearing way is the fast track method of re-conquering the Paradise. Obedience to the social, secular and religious hierarchy is a word or concept that is imbued in our system by our moulder. “Charity begins at home” is the adage. A prayerful, simple, humble life that cleanses our body and spirit by the bucketful tears of repentance and introspection with retrospective effect is the remedy for a healthy life which spins our salvation. This is possible only if the spirit of each member of the family identify with one another in the love of God.

The Spirit of God is the only cleanser that can purify the body and soul. A sacramental life of worship is the cornerstone of the quality of life that enhances the beauty of this ephemeral and evanescent earthly plane, at the same the transcendental, of our temporal existence. Cleansing of our body and spirit by the indwelling and the renewal by the Spirit of God is the unseen work and process of God. Jesus and apostles have been our models who led a life of sacramental faith and a way of life, and proved and demanded us to follow their path to a world of inexplicable beauty and ecstasy. Have faith first in Jesus and His redemptive sacrifice that only adds the excellence of a righteous life.

Garment of Incorruption:
The white ethereal substance that is an outcome of our righteous life is the incorruptible garment. Observing the latter part of the Mosaic commandments without practicing the former one doesn’t guarantee the afterlife bliss of Eternity. Unless the Holy Spirit indwells within us, He can’t cleanse us from standing outside and weave the garment of incorruption by our charitable work alone; it will certainly like putting the cart in front of the horse and harshly beating it can’t help the cart to be driven. If the Holy Ghost is not our driver, we gain nothing in our family, social and inner life that spins the white garb. Right faith first, then the excellence of a virtuous life that triggers from within manifest the white rob of the celestials is the ultimate goal of this transient life. Our pure thought, word and deed that balance in tune with the chemical reactions of the body for spinning of the white and clean robe of the ethereals is fully an internal process of the body; the custodian of all these is the Holy Spirit. Every thought or action that makes either good or bitter chemicals harnesses the normal or abnormal balance of our body system. Our oral and genital organs, together with our voluntary and involuntary organs, will have to work harmoniously for cleansing of our body and spirit. Kamam, sexuality, is the mother of all the lust of our body. Kamam, crodham, …is the order of the list. The garment of incorruption or the opaque rob is an outcome of the residue of our evil or good thoughts or actions that determine the progress of our soul. As man is a product of the passions of the body, no human being can be pure or perfect in his body, mind and soul.

Mystical Body:
Here comes the mystery of the Body of Jesus Christ that is hundred percent pure and crystalline clean. Only the Mystery of the mysteries is able to clean our body, just as anti-biotic that drive out the enemies of the body system. If the Son Incarnate can blot out the sin of Adam, the third Person of the Holy Trinity that brood over the church is able to administer with the celestial food that cleanses our body and its inherent sins. The Son who took our flesh feeds us with His flesh through the Holy Spirit who appoints the clergy to medicate our derailed body with the celestial food of the Christ. The Holy Spirit who came through the ears, the Word or sound, of St.Mary comes into us through the mouth to purify us by the Holy Bread that is administered by the religious ministers. But some celebrants scoff the undercurrent ethos of the spiritual life by treating it as a profession or industry by making it as a game of money and position. Many churches have terminated Christianity with Jesus’ death by neglecting the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. Their slogan is that Jesus washed them in His blood, but cannot reconcile with the resurrection, the aftermath of which is the descent of the Holy Spirit. The second era is the age of the Third Person who works visibly through the commission of priesthood. The sacramental Christianity that Jesus and the apostles have shown as examples is the only path of salvation of a higher degree because there are small and great in the Kingdom of God.

Church Life:
Going to church with such an ideal Christian life of faith and charity bears the fruits of a sacramental life which pleases the Holy Spirit who indwells within us and in the church. Holy life is a transaction between the immanence of the Holy Spirit who is within us and in the church. The sacramental life that enhances the fuels for our repentance and forgiveness is a must for an onward going soldier of Christ. Christianity is not a Sunday club life; it is the ecclesia of like-minded members of the congregation that reflects and radiates the love of God. Sacraments, repentance, fasting and prayer and charity are the catch words of an exemplary Christian life. Unless we take part the Sunday worship that starts from a noble and dedicated family and communal life, the net outcome from the Sunday church attendance doesn’t bear many precious fruits. Sin of omission due to ignorance may be forgiven, but the sin of commission in the church and religious life is a direct confrontation to the Spirit of God. This is termed as the religion of the Pharisees and Sadducees who ridiculed the way of a sanctimonious life of worship. Self-betrayal of their own conscience becomes the ultimate product of self-conceit. Jesus referred to this sort of double or multiple games of their own conscience as a sin against the Holy Spirit, Mt.12: 22-32. The dwarf modern theologians have portrayed this instance of self-betrayal or falsehood as a sin against the Holy Spirit, ignoring the fact that blaspheme is overlooked as the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Blaspheme:
Blaspheme means speak impiously of God. When blaspheme, mt.12: 31, not self-deceit or any unrighteous things, against the Holy Trinity and the church and its teachings are ignored for selfish reasons is the sin against the Spirit of God. “Every sin and blaspheme will be forgiven men, but the blaspheme against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 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”. Despite they knew that Jesus was doing the work of God of administering the healing, they identified Him as an agent of Beelzebub. Here the Savior explicitly explains that the blasphemous sin against the Son of Man or against the Holy Spirit, making it sure that He is finger-pointing to the second and third person of the Triune God, not the sin against oneself or to another individual is an unpardonable sin. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.” 1.Cor.3: 16-17 . Despite we are the temple of God, sins against him or others may be forgiven by penitence because Jesus died for us in flesh, but the sin against the Spirit of God cannot be forgiven as He has not come in flesh to redeem us. The sin against himself or against another may be forgiven because Jesus who experienced about the frailty of human nature. He lived and died and expiated our sins and still pleading for us, whereas the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified hasn’t come in the flesh to forgive our sins. The Almighty Father is likely to forgive our sins committed against Jesus and to other men due to the Son’s sacrifice, where as the Father may not forgive the sins committed against the Spirit of God because he hasn’t come in the flesh to die for us.

Every individual is supposed to be holy, so also the church due to the indwelling of the Spirit of God in both venues. Self-deceit is only one form of sin against the Spirit of God, contrary to that the blaspheme towards the church where the brooding of the Spirit of God is the severe one, denigrating and tarnishing and betraying God. Challenging the Fatherhood of God is more serious than the sin against the brotherhood of man. The honour and sanctity towards the holy church and its worshipping places, altar, sacraments and vestments and utensils are the outward signs of the presence of the Spirit of God and our pure hearts that is the place where God dwells while inside and outside the church are expected to be holier than anything else. The true and chaste faith that electrify our heart and body that go in tune with the indwelling Holy spirit weave the salvation of each man. There is nothing in the world that is not permeated with the spirit of God; yet the sacrifice offered with a burning heart that gives supplication to God is of paramount importance. The pure family and social life that cultivate and cherish the prominence of the apostolic faith and worship of the Holy One of Israel is above everything.

Even an angel who professes against this sacred faith invites the curse. Betraying one’s own conscience is a form of sin against the Holy Ghost who dwells in us, but the damning sin against the Spirit of God is challenging and working against the Triune God who dwells within the church, the body of Christ. Knowing the truth correctly and yet blaspheming against the Almighty God is surely an unforgivable sin of the highest magnitude. God first, and everything else is only secondary. The ten Mosaic commandments are narrated in this order. This is the era of the Comforter, whose Magna Carta is sanctifying every worshipper and the place of worship which is the church that is always brooded by the Spirit of God. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”, Ephe.4: 30. The modern theological pigmies who seek only an academic degree condone also the mystical sides of religiousness due to ignorance and religious apathy.

We are sealed by baptism, the first sacrament that we accept in the church, administered by the ambassador of God. The visible administrator for the Holy Spirit who brood through fire, water, oil, or blood, 1:Jn.1: 5: 8”, is the clergy. Hence the celebrant certainly is the visible agent of the Ruha who indwell in all the sacraments, venues and vicinities. “…let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”, Rev.2: 29, thunder loudly that the Holy Spirit is the one that anoints and sanctifies the churches, individuals and everything. Betraying one’s own conscience for walking over the chaste faith that is the cornerstone of the church is an unforgivable sin or the sin against the Spirit of God.

I can recollect from my faint memory that my father’s statement that the sin against the Holy Spirit is sinning against the Holy Church, the seat of the Holy Spirit and the ecclesia of the faithful believers of the both sides of the grave that temporarily veils the ocean of God’s elected throng.