---
title: Matthew 12:31
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-12-31/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-12-31.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Matthew 12:31
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Matthew 12:31

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "For this reason I say to you, every sort of sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven."

## JW Usage

The Watchtower reads Jesus's distinction between forgivable blasphemy (against the Son of Man) and unforgivable blasphemy (against the Spirit) as a warning about deliberately opposing Jehovah's working through his active force. Because JW theology denies Spirit-personhood, "blasphemy against the spirit" cannot be blasphemy against a person. It is reframed as wilful rejection of God's manifest works through his power.

## Protestant Usage

The verse triangulates three distinct identities — sin and blasphemy in general, blasphemy against the Son of Man, and blasphemy against the Spirit — and assigns different consequences to each. If the Spirit were just God's impersonal power, then blaspheming the Spirit would be identical to blaspheming the Father, and there would be no reason to distinguish it from blaspheming the Son. Three distinct objects of potential blasphemy, three different outcomes. Pair Matthew 12:31 with Mark 3:29 (the parallel) and Luke 12:10 to see Jesus making the same triangulation in all three Synoptics. The Spirit is inseparable from God yet distinct from the Father and the Son.

## NWT Issue

The NWT lower-cases "spirit" and drops the adjective "Holy" (the Greek pneuma here lacks the explicit hagios, so dropping "Holy" is technically defensible) — but the lower-casing is a systematic NWT pattern that depersonalises the Spirit across the entire New Testament. Standard English translations supply "the Spirit" as a definite reference to the same Spirit named three verses later in v. 32 ("blasphemes against the Holy Spirit") — preserving the personal referent. The NWT's lower case treats the Spirit as a thing rather than as a person, in line with the JW doctrine that pneuma is Jehovah's "active force" rather than the third person of the Trinity.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Holy Spirit Is a Person, Not a Force](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/holy-spirit-personhood.md) — "He will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13) [Holy Spirit]
- [Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/blasphemy-against-spirit.md) — Matthew 12:31-32 [Holy Spirit]