A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on October 26, 2025.
“And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. 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. 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, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:8–12).[1]
To those whom he called “friends,” Jesus warned, “do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:4-5). Of course, they were, like we are too, friends prone to fear, fear that is often unfounded, fearing wrong things and wrong ones, rather than the One. And while Jesus pointed them to God’s providential care of creation and our image-bearing place in it, the temptation to fear is a powerful one, especially the fear of others, what they will think of us, what they will say about us, what they will do to us. But when Jesus directs us to God’s numbering of the hairs on our head and our value compared to a sparrow, he’s teaching us about God’s sovereignty, yes, but also his provision in every moment, down to the minutest detail. Such is the daily care of our Creator.
We are to live then with an active trust in God from which we profess our faith in Jesus Christ, not only in private but in public, “before men” (12:8). “We must not be ashamed to let all men see,” J.C. Ryle says, “that we believe in Christ, and serve Christ, and love Christ, and care more for the praise of Christ than for the praise of man.”[2] We are with our tongues and through our lives to confess the faith.
In a country where we enjoy freedom of religion, and where Christian persecution is more likely to be psychological than physical, we may fear less what men may do, than what they think or say. But there are still believers around the world who die for their faith and let us remember that eleven of the twelve apostles were martyred for confessing Christ before men. But martyrdom, or anything else man may do, is not Jesus’ point. Some Christians will die for confessing Christ, most won’t. Some may never know a day of persecution, others will know many. Such are the secret things of God, which we are to leave to him. Our responsibility is not to know what God has hidden but to confess what he has revealed, namely the gospel of Jesus Christ.
A Right Confession
Jesus puts it plainly enough, “everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8-9).If helpful, the Greek verb translated “acknowledges” may also be translated “confesses,” meaning “to declare one’s faith,” which differs slightly from profess, which means “to affirm one’s faith.” We are to (acknowledge, declare) confess Christ “before men,” that Christ will acknowledge us “before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8), presumably a reference to Judgment Day, when Christ will judge the living and the dead before the angels.
What Jesus describes is not a collective confession, such as the Westminster Confession of Faith, but individual, the confession of “one.”There are many things our friends may do for us; this is not one of them.But “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom. 10:9-10).As such, we are confessing through faith in Christ that we are reconciled to God as his beloved children forever; we are confessing through faith that we are saved from the condemnation and eternal torment of hell. Therefore, a right confession is of eternal consequence.
Note here that Jesus distinguishes, curiously enough, between himself and “the Son of Man”: “everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8).Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus consistently used his self-claimed, third-person name, the “Son of Man,” taken from the book of Daniel. But why here? And why the distinction? In the seventh chapter of Daniel, we read of the final judgment ushered in by “one like a son of man” (Dan. 7:13), to whom Daniel prophesies, “was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:14). It is a glorious description, leading us to immediately think of Christ’s second advent, judgment, and the subsequent eternal kingdom reign of the King of kings.
But Jesus’ warning is given because that day has not yet come. God sent his Son in “the fullness of time . . . born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). He gave his Son “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). But he is also the very same Son of Man, who will be seated upon the “great white throne” to judge both the living and the dead (Rev. 20:11-15). On Judgment Day, everyone who confessed faith in Christ, will be acknowledged “before the angels of God,” but everyone who did not believe will be “denied before the angels of God.”
Confessing faith in Christ then is no trivial matter, today or the last day. Which is why, Paul confesses, and so must we, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” Why? Because, “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). It is the Good News for sinners like you and like me. “For in it,” Paul says, “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Rom. 1:17). And so, we will be acknowledged by the Son of Man before the angels of God, sinners saved by grace through faith in the One whose righteousness we stand.
An Unforgiven Blasphemy
For this reason, we should not interpret Jesus’ words as instructions to merit our salvation by confession. We are not saved by our confession but through it, for even the faith we confess is “the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). The Bible is filled with saints whose lives fell far short of the glory of God[3] yet lived by faith. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews gives us a list of the good, the bad, and the ugly, as well as those “of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb. 11:38). And when John tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9), he does not add that this applies only to those who have always believed and obeyed. Even those “who speaks a word against the Son of Man,” Jesus says, “will be forgiven”. It is helpful to remember, I think, that following the Protestant Reformation many of the Reformed churches throughout Europe had upon their steeple not a cross but a rooster, reminding them that we are all forgiven sinners saved by grace through faith, just like the one who denied Christ thrice before the rooster crowed.[4]
But Jesus is not preaching universalism, nor salvation apart from faith; there is a sin that is unforgivable. Blasphemy of (or “against”) the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, “will not be forgiven” (Luke 12:10). But what does this mean, and how does one commit it? To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to know who Jesus is and to know his gospel and yet, as one theologian describes it, “go against the conviction of the intellect, against the enlightenment of conscience, against the dictates of the heart.”[5] Such hardness of heart may even lead the blasphemer to attribute the things of God to Satan himself.[6] Such a person never worries whether he or she has committed the unforgivable; they don’t care at all. And so, they never believe and never confess Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, rejecting the forgiveness Christ offers, which is unforgiveable.
A Ready Defense
This of course makes believing the gospel all the more imperative and beautiful.Given the reality of hell and the hope of heaven, given the reality of grace and gift of faith, we who are saved through the gospel of Jesus Christ should treasure it.It should be constantly on our minds and tongues. Can you imagine what talking about the gospel would do to gossip in the church? What if our conversations were filled with the wonder of God’s amazing grace, that saved a wretch like me! What if our complaining and criticizing were met with words of wonder, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15). And what if it carried beyond the walls of the church too, that others around us, even indirectly, witnessed the hope that is within us.
The apostle Peter tells us to be ready for this very thing.He says that we are not to fear what others think, say, or do, “but in [our] hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks . . . for a reason for the hope that is in [us]” (1 Pet. 3:15).It is a defense to be done, Peter says, with gentleness and respect and a good conscience,[7] remembering that we are responding to something others have seen in us. Such a thought may strike fear into the hearts of many, if not most of us. But before the fearful among us retreat behind closed doors (never to go out in public again), consider this: If God saves us by his grace through faith in Christ, will he not enable us by that same grace through faith? If we are born again by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, will not the same Spirit empower us to give a defense of what he had done?
Jesus puts it this way: “do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” Luke 12:11-12).In context, he was of course speaking to his disciples and apostles who would be brought “before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities” (Luke 12:11). Even the untimely born[8] apostle Paul appealed to Caesar yielding many years in chains but also many opportunities to confess the faith before rules and authorities.[9] How much more should we then be ready, willing, and able to give a defense, we who enjoy a full canon of Scripture, a godly heritage of those of whom the world was not worthy[10], and the power of the promised Spirit within us?We should not be anxious, because the gospel is really that good!
On April 17, 1521, Martin Luther, the former monk and academic thrust into leading what would be called the Protestant Reformation, stood before the Diet of Worms, the secular assembly of what was left of the Holy Roman Empire. Already excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, Luther now stood trial before the state. His Protestant writings had seemingly swayed a nation, but the Roman Catholic emperor and executors were not sympathetic. Pitting Luther and his writings against Christ’s church and Christianity itself by virtue of the pope and emperor, the prosecutor demanded that Luther repudiate his writings and thereby renounce his protest. We do not know his mental state or how heavily the moment weighed upon him, but quoting from this passage in Luke’s Gospel the day before, it is likely Luther thought of these words: “do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:11-12). And so, Luther said,
Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.
To which he purportedly added, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.[11] He was found guilty, but his confession prevailed.
In his later years, Luther would later recall, “I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends . . . the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.”[12] What Luther understood upon reflection is what Christ promised: “the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour.” Knowing that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4), we need not worry but only be faithful through his presence within us. And while we may never face such fierce opposition like Luther, we are enabled and empowered by the same Spirit of Christ who empowered the prophets, apostles, and reformers before us.
And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God has willed
his truth to triumph through us.[13]
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 48.
[3] Rom. 3:23
[4] Matt. 26:75
[5] Herman Bavinck quoted in Philip Graham Ryken, Luke, Vol. 1 (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2009), 653.
[6] Matt. 12:31-32; Mark 3:28-30
[7] 1 Pet. 3:15-16
[8] 1 Cor. 15:8
[9] Acts 25:9
[10] Heb. 11:38
[11] Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1977), 180.
[12] https://www.modernreformation.org/resources/articles/the-seed
[13] Martin Luther, Frederick Henry Hedge, trans., “A Mighty Fortress,” Trinity Hymnal, Revised Ed. (Suwanee: Great Commission Publications, 1990), 92.
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