Mark 3:20-30
Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”
And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
In my last article in this series, I mentioned that Mark’s gospel contains a number of themes which are introduced at the start and run throughout the gospel. One of those themes is the rejection of Jesus – by his family, the religious leaders of the day, and (eventually) a close friend.
This passage comes after a series of confrontations with the Pharisees and the Scribes, where their disagreements with him get more and more vocal each time. It comes to a climax in 3:6, where the Pharisees go out and plot to kill Jesus. This is the background of the story we’re looking at today.
We start out with an insight into what Jesus’ family thought of him: “they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind’.” I find it interesting that this phase in Jesus’ family life is relegated to a single sentence. Can you imagine how much pain that must have caused him? Facing rejection from your own family is one of the hardest things to deal with. It is a terrible thing: those whom you look to for unconditional love and support reject you.
Couple this with the rejection of the Pharisees and the scribes, and you can see that Jesus had very few friends in the world! After plotting to kill him in 3:6, the scribes “came down from Jerusalem” to see him. His fame (or infamy) had spread even there, and they wished to see for themselves this upstart rabbi who was causing all the commotion.
And it seems that they get to see Jesus in action. So much so, in fact, that they have no reason at all to doubt the miracles that he performs and instead they can only say “He is possessed by Beelzebul [i.e. Satan]“. Although they have seen Jesus’ work at first hand, they still cannot rightly recognise him as the Messiah. That is to say, amazingly, they cannot recognise Jesus as the Messiah: they knew the prophecies. It is said that some of the teachers of the law could remember the whole of what we now call the Old Testament. They knew the prophecies backwards and forwards. And yet, they cannot recognise who Jesus is: instead of falling at his feet, they blindly dismiss his miracles as the work of Satan.
Both of these groups of people – Jesus’ family, and the scribes – have committed the ‘unforgivable sin’. Or, to be more precise, are in the process of committing the unforgivable sin. What does that mean? Let’s look at what Jesus says in verses 29 and 30: “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” ”
Notice that “for” in the middle. The people were saying that Jesus had an unclean Spirit. But, Jesus in fact had the Holy Spirit. Thus, the people were blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. And, in essence, this is the unforgivable sin: not recognising the work of the Holy Spirit. Not understanding who Jesus is. John 3:18 says, “Whoever believes in him [Jesus] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” – i.e., they have not recognised Jesus as who He truly is.
One of the most famous arguments for Jesus is made by C.S. Lewis in “Mere Christianity”. You may well have heard this argument made before, however I think it’s always worth quoting the original source: (apologies for the lengthy quote, but I think it deserves to be quoted in full):
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Those people – both Jesus’ family and the scribes – should have known better. How could his family have called him “mad”? How could the scribes – well versed in Old Testament scripture – not recognise Jesus as the Messiah when they saw him?
Indeed, what the scribes suggest – as Jesus points out – is logically inconsistent: how could Jesus drive out demons by the prince of demons? It doesn’t make sense! Jesus himself is the “strong man” who has come to bind up Satan’s power, in order to liberate us from the power of evil.
The problem is a problem with the human heart. As Jesus says in John 3:19, “men loved darkness instead of the light”. Our human nature is to shy away from the light, because it will expose us as who we really are – sinners, in need of forgiveness.
But, nonetheless, it is a choice we must all make: was Jesus mad, was he bad, or was he God?
Footnote: I realise that the “Mad, Bad or God” argument has come in for criticism from some quarters, as it does not give a full account of all the options. For example, what if the gospels were fakes, or the disciples were lying, or something like that? My opinion is, if the gospels are accurate records of what Jesus said and did this argument holds a lot of power.
The 64 million dollar question then becomes, are the gospels reliable records? I believe that – yes, they are. (No surprises there!) One website which I’ve found quite helpful in investigating the historical Jesus is Reasonable Faith, run by Dr. William Lane Craig. His arguments for the historicity of the resurrection are very compelling.
If you have questions about any of these things, perhaps you could join us in the forums for some lively discussion!