Alma 39:5-6

This is where the doctrine about the grievousness of sexual sin comes from. Second only to murder or denying the Holy Ghost. This is such a complicated verse. 

It is confusing and complicated to get into what denying the Holy Ghost means, and Alma, or maybe Mormon in his abbreviation, really doesn’t. At least not the way it has been explained to me since then. It sounds like Alma says if you have ever felt the Holy Ghost about something, and then do the opposite knowingly, that is the very worst thing you can do. I guess the trick comes in the knowing that it is the Holy Ghost you are denying, not just going on faith or belief. But many fall away from the church, or even become atheist, or agnostic, and then repent and come back. So that can’t be denying the Holy Ghost, because that is supposed to be the unpardonable sin. The trick lies in what is “knowledge”.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught the following about the unpardonable sin: “What must a man do to commit the unpardonable sin? He must receive the Holy Ghost, have the heavens opened unto him, and know God, and then sin against him. After a man has sinned against the Holy Ghost, there is no repentance for him. He has got to say that the sun does not shine while he sees it; he has got to deny Jesus Christ when the heavens have been opened unto him, and to deny the plan of salvation with his eyes open to the truth of it” (in History of the Church, 6:314).

That quote seems to align more with what I have always been taught about it being such a sure knowledge that very few people even could sin against the Holy Ghost because very few people will ever know that surely.

When I look this up, I find that it is not a solely Mormon belief that this is the unpardonable sin. I actually really like this description found here:

“Yes, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, is any sin that a person clings to by continually resisting the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. Keep in mind that there is not one specific sin that is unforgivable, such as lying, stealing or murder, but rather a perpetual hardening of the heart and willfully sinning against God and man (1 Timothy 4:2; Titus 1:15). In Acts 7:51 Stephen says the following to the Pharisees, "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.” In a nutshell the unforgivable, or unpardonable, sin is any sin that a person doesn’t want to give up, confess, or even ask forgiveness for and additionally doesn’t want to hear any more about it from the Holy Spirit.”

This makes so much sense to me, because God can’t forgive us if we won’t repent. When he lets us know something is wrong, through the power of the Holy Ghost, and we don’t care there can be no repentance and no change. And then our heart continue to harden, and we can hear less, and become less and less like God, and more and more in bondage to sin. But you would have to have received the gift of the Holy Ghost, know the plan, know what you were feeling was from God, and then just not care. So it isn’t that you knew the truth once and have been deceived since then or forgotten, but it is that you know the truth now, right then, and don’t choose it. And sticking to that choice to the bitter end. That is really sad, actually.

But then to the question of why specifically sexual sin is then so serious, Jeffrey R. Holland explains:

By assigning such seriousness to a physical appetite so universally bestowed, what is God trying to tell us about its place in His plan for all men and women? I submit to you He is doing precisely that—commenting about the very plan of life itself. Clearly among His greatest concerns regarding mortality are how one gets into this world and how one gets out of it. He has set very strict limits in these matters.

He then says it is so important for 3 reasons:

1. The body is part of the soul, so exploiting someone’s body is exploiting their very soul, the soul that Christ accomplished to atonement to save.
2. It is the ultimate symbol of total union. Can only come with the proximity and permanence of the marriage covenant.
1. I just read a blog written by a woman who had lived with her boyfriend for a long time and had recently gotten married. She was surprised that it did feel different, even though their lives were essentially the same, because of making those promises. It felt more secure and permanent to her. I asked Billy about being away from Jamie while she is gone, if it is different now that they are married than it was when they had to be apart before when they had been living together. He said it was somewhat same old same old, but there was something different about it.
3. Third he says it is a symbol not only between husband and wife, but of their relationship with God. “These are moments when we quite literally unite our will with God’s will, our spirit with His spirit, where communion through the veil becomes very real. At such moments we not only acknowledge His divinity but we quite literally take something of that divinity to ourselves. One aspect of that divinity given to virtually all men and women is the use of His power to create a human body, that wonder of all wonders, a genetically and spiritually unique being never before seen in the history of the world and never to be duplicated again in all the ages of eternity. A child, your child—with eyes and ears and fingers and toes and a future of unspeakable grandeur.”

I wonder if we focused more on teaching the amazing sacredness of sex to our children, if abusing it would be less of temptation. I have always loved this talk, and how it re-frames the question.

Alma 39:5-6