The rest of the believers that were scared to meet with Jesus in public. Notice how Nicodemus met with Jesus secretly at night. If the "we" were Pharisees, why would Nicodemus hide his encounter with Jesus?
And for further review. John 7:45-52 45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” 46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied. 47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48 “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.” 50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51 “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?” 52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.” Look specifically at Verse 48-49. Those are the "we" you are referring too. There is no guessing or assumptions here. It's crystal clear. They Pharisees do NOT believe.
Nicodemus hid his encounter with Jesus because he didn’t want the other Pharisees to know he was talking to Jesus. Jesus was their enemy and Nicodemus talking to Him would look like he was colluding with Him.
The Pharisees didn’t see Him as God. Just one sent by God. Show me scriptures that indicate Christ claimed He was God to the Pharisees. I’m not aware of any. He was an enemy to them because they didn’t want the people going to Jesus. They wanted to keep their power of being religious leaders. Jesus was stealing their show, so to speak.
You gotta start doing some homework before making outrageous and/or ignorant comments brother. John 5:16-18 16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. John 8:52-58 52 At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” 54 Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” 57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” 58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
I'm silent when the Bible is silent. It says they didn't believe in Him. I believe the Bible. It doesn't say who they thought He was. What's your answer? Who did the Pharisees think Jesus was?
Nicodemus was clear. The Pharisees -- at least some of them -- thought Jesus was a teacher sent from God, but they never expressed, as a group, faith in Christ.
I tend to think they believed He was sent by God, like Rabbiknife does. RK says they believed Jesus was a teacher. Ok. That seems reasonable. I don’t know that they believed He was the Messiah, just that He was “sent by God.” Either which way, they had no excuse for calling the Holy Spirit “Beelzebub.” Bad. Very bad.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit doesn't send anybody to hell. It simply prevents one for seeking forgiveness from Christ by denying that He has the authority to forgive sin. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, after all. The Pharisees were accusing Jesus of driving out demons by the power of the devil. They witnessed the miracles but refused to acknowledge the source. They were willfully denying God's divine authority. Because they were so used to manipulating religion and faith however it suited them, they had lost all reverence and regard for the sacred, since it was all a political game to them. Now Jesus comes along with a power greater than their own, and they feel threatened by that so they accuse him of being empowered by the devil, rather than submitting themselves to God's authority. Well, if you refuse to submit yourself to God's rightful authority then you cannot receive pardon for your sin, because forgiveness comes from God. The very essence of blasphemy is to deny God's authority as Creator and to refuse to truly submit oneself to Him from the heart. God knows who's faking it, always. Jesus' words were borne to full fruition when Jerusalem was judged, and the Pharisaical corrupt power system along with it, never to rise again. There was to be no pardon and "one more chance", only judgment. God will only give us so many chances to repent, and then ... done. Judgment, death, the end. The matter of such a willfully proud and rebellious person not finding forgiveness is also limited to "this age and the age to come" which means it's finite and limited to 2 ages. Ages may last a really long time but they certainly aren't endless. We have always divided history into ages, and nobody ever ascribes any sort of eternal value to any age. I'm not sure why we all of a sudden want to change the rules of that when we read certain verses in the Bible. What this passage doesn't mean is "say anything bad against the Holy Spirit and you'll go to hell forever". God isn't petty, although He is severe when it's called for, because there must be an end to corruption eventually. No corrupt system on Earth lasts forever. They will all be brought down eventually. As we have seen time and again, and will continue to see.
I just read through the rest of the thread. Yes, Paul was the perfect real-life example of that passage definitely not meaning what people are being taught it supposedly means.
http://www.vagablogging.net/robert-johnson-sold-his-soul-to-the-devil-in-rosedale-mississippi.html Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in Rosedale, Mississippi The man stands up, tall, barrel-chested, and black as the forever-closed eyes of Robert Johnson’s stillborn baby, and walks out to the middle of the crossroads where Robert Johnson kneels. He says, “Stand up, Robert Johnson. You want to throw that guitar over there in that ditch with that hairless dog and go on back up to Robinsonville and play the harp with Willie Brown and Son, because you just another guitar player like all the rest, or you want to play that guitar like nobody ever played it before? Make a sound nobody ever heard before? You want to be the King of the Delta Blues and have all the whiskey and women you want?”
Where in the Bible does it say Paul "blasphemed the Holy Spirit?" Sure, he did many things wrong before becoming a Christian. We all do that. However, I don't recall any scripture where he ascribed the work of the Holy Spirit to the Devil.