Luke 12:8-12--Acknowledge Christ Before Men

Luke 12:8-12
English Standard Version
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Acknowledge Christ Before Men
8 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, 9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. 11 And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

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This has been something pretty consistent in the recent teachings that I haven't really hit on other than to say that there would be those Jesus was talking to that were closest to Him that He knew would abandon and betray Him (all the disciples would leave Him, but only John would come back to see most of what happened and stay with Jesus through His crucifixion.  Peter would come back for the trial but would run out after He denied knowing Jesus three times.  Judas Iscariot is going to tell everyone who Jesus is, but is going to do so to betray Him.)

However, I think this is looking forward a bit to post-Resurrection when the apostles and all Christians would face persecution and the real possibility of death.  They would be called on to recant and be offered their life in exchange for saying that Caesar was Lord, not Jesus.  Those that were willing worship the emperor to save their own lives never had true faith and they would not be able to keep or save their own lives (temporal, or eternal).  Jesus says that those who would deny Him before men, He would deny them before the Father because no one that truly belonged to the Father and the Son would deny the Son and "deconvert."  That is a popular word being thrown around today as so many so-called-Christian, especially in the music and entertainment industries make public announcements about how they no longer are Christians and are now Atheists or Agnostics, or something else completely.  Are they still Christians though?  I thought "once saved always saved" was a thing and  you couldn't lose your salvation?  Perseverance of the Saints is a real thing (though I don't like calling it "once saved always saved" because we are saved by God and not by saying some magic words.  Not everyone who claims to be saved by God really was saved by Him.  Many people may have the same "salvation experience" like the whole nation of Israel that went through the Exodus--the Plagues, the Passover and the Crossing over the Red Sea only to rebel in the wilderness and prove that they had no real relationship with the LORD because their first instinct when things got hard was to have Aaron make a god like those that they worshiped in Egypt and in Canaan and to call it the LORD (though they had just been given a commandment saying not to make for themselves any graven images and not to worship any other gods) and worship that idol as they worshiped the idols of the "Old World."  There had been no conversion for them to have a deconversion story.  Their story was that God proved to them that they had never converted in the first place, and now the whole world knew as well.  I think that's what's going on today with many of these artists, podcasters, and people with celebrity status.  At least they are tired of being fake and admitting it.  For that, I do give them credit that they want to stop lying to themselves and everyone else.

​Now comes one of the hardest parts of the Bible to understand if you don't have to context of what's around it.  What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, can we commit it today, and does that mean that there is an unforgivable sin that we can intentionally or unintentionally commit and lose our salvation or never be able to become saved even if we repent in true faith later?  This is pretty confusing topic and I may come back and write a separate journal article about just this topic later after I've had some time to do some research, but let's talk about what we do know from Scripture.

Based off of what Jesus is talking about right now, Jesus is talking about those denying the truth of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform and change people, and the power of the Holy Spirit to deliver His people to salvation even if their body is killed.  So what if the powers that be threaten to kill the body?  They cannot take your soul if it belongs to God.  But those who would deny the power of God to preserve their bodies deny that they believe that God has the power to save their body or their soul.  I believe this is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit when that person who says they believed and says they were truly saved denies Christ and the gospel and says they never really believed it and it was all a lie.  Call this apostasy or deconversion, but I think there are other places in the New Testament that support that we should not expect such a person who has tasted and seen the truth to come back once they have become apostate, and I see no evidence of that taking place in the New Testament.  This is a different topic than Church discipline and excommunication and the possible return of someone who was in sin for 1 Corinthians.  That person my have denied the power of the gospel through their lived but it is something altogether different to stand before the courts and deny the gospel.  Jesus says that those who do such things will be denied by Him before the court of heaven.

So then those who were truly saved will rely on the Holy Spirit to protect them and preserve them and give them the words to say to proclaim the gospel even in the face of losing their life.

Mark 8:35
English Standard Version35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.
That's the best I can do to tie the pieces together that I see right now.  Like I said, maybe I'll come back and talk about this at a later date, but I'll probably just leave it for now and let God convince you whether or not you are walking in true faith or are walking in darkness.