Untitled Sermon (3)
20–21 Again Jesus was being pressed by the crowds. The house (probably of Peter and Andrew; cf. 1:29; 2:1–4) was so packed with people demanding his attention that both he and his disciples were prevented from eating. This reference to Jesus’ family is the first one in Mark’s gospel (see Notes). When they hear that he was so engrossed in his work that he failed even to care for his physical needs, they decide to go to Jesus and “take charge of him” (v. 21), a phrase that probably means they wanted to take him back to Nazareth and thus remove him from the strain of having so many people constantly pressing on him to meet their physical and spiritual needs. The verb translated “take charge” is krateō (GK 3195); it is used of arresting someone in 6:17; 12:12; 14:1, 44, 46, 49, 51. Jesus’ family wanted to take charge of him because they feared that overwork had affected him mentally—he was “out of his mind.” These words are shocking, but as Mitton, 26, writes, “If they reveal his family’s failure to understand him, they are also a measure of their concern for him.” In a culture in which honor and shame were critically important, there may also have been an attempt to prevent shame on the family caused by Jesus’ unorthodox behavior.
21 The Greek phrase οἱ παρ̈́ αὐτοῦ (hoi par’ autou) is an idiom that can indicate family, relatives, or friends. The continuation of the story in v. 31 suggests that here immediate family is meant, though extended family may also be included. The theological significance is that these were Jesus’ own people.
The family arrived at Jesus’ location but did not enter, presumably because of the size of the crowd. Instead they stood outside (exō) and sent someone in to call him. Only Jesus’ mother (the only reference to her in Mark’s gospel) and his siblings are mentioned specifically. Joseph is not mentioned; presumably, he was not living at this time. The Greek word adelphoi can mean either “brothers” or “siblings” (i.e., “brothers and sisters”), and the latter may be intended here. Jesus’ sisters will be explicitly mentioned in 6:3. Possible evidence for the presence of Jesus’ sisters is the analogy in v. 35, where Jesus’ spiritual family includes “my brother and sister and mother.”
Mark shows no interest or concern in the later church debate over whether these siblings were (1) born to Mary after Jesus was born, (2) Joseph’s children by a previous marriage, or (3) only cousins of Jesus (as the Roman Catholic Church has historically asserted; see comments at 6:3). For Mark the point of the story is the climactic pronouncement in vv. 34b–35 that true spiritual relationships are defined not by blood or birth but by common allegiance to the will and purpose of God.
32–35 When Jesus was told that his family was looking for him, he responded by asking the rhetorical question, “Who are my mother and my brothers [and sisters]?” (v. 33). Then with a sweep of his eyes over those seated in a circle around him, he identified his true family: “Here are my mother and my brothers [and sisters]” (v. 34). This statement would certainly have included the Twelve but also the “crowd” (ochlos, GK 4063, v. 32) gathered around him—the wider group of his followers. Jesus’ point is that in the age of salvation there are spiritual ties that are closer than blood or family ties. Jesus’ true family consists of all those who obey the will of God (v. 35)—in Mark’s narrative world, those who are responding positively to Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God.
Jesus’ words are particularly shocking in the “dyadic” (group-oriented) culture of the Middle East, where respect and loyalty for family and clan were (and are) among the highest values. While Jesus does not reject or repudiate his own family, he places spiritual relationships on a higher plane. It can easily be imagined what this statement meant to the original readers of Mark’s gospel. F. C. Grant, 694, writes, “In place of broken family relations, ostracism and persecution, was the close and intimate relation to the Son of God.” The striking spatial contrast between Jesus’ physical family, who are “outside” (exō; vv. 31–32), and his spiritual family, who are “sitting around him” inside, will be taken up in the next chapter (see comments at 4:11). A reversal is taking place in Mark’s gospel: those who have traditionally been insiders to God’s blessings—the religious leaders and the physical heirs of Abraham’s promise—will become the outsiders. And those who were formerly outsiders (sinners, tax collectors, Gentiles) will become the insiders and recipients of God’s salvation.
In view of the Jewish attitude of respect and honor toward one’s parents—an attitude adopted by the church—the historicity of these two family scenes (vv. 20–21; vv. 31–35) can scarcely be denied, for the church would never have invented a story that put the family of Jesus in such bad light.
Vers. 20, 21.—The last clause of ver. 19, And they went into an house, should form the opening sentence of a new paragraph, and should therefore become the first clause of ver. 20, as in the Revised Version. According to the most approved reading, the words are (ἕρχεται εἰς οἷκον), He cometh into an house, or, He cometh home. There is here a considerable gap in St. Mark’s narrative. The sermon on the mount followed upon the call of the apostles, at all events so far as it affected them and their mission. Moreover, St. Matthew interposes here two miracles wrought by our Lord after his descent from the mount, and before his return to his own house at Capernaum. St. Mark seems anxious here to hasten on to describe the treatment of our Lord by his own near relatives at this important crisis in his ministry. So that they—i.e. our Lord and his disciples—could not so much as eat bread; such was the pressure of the crowd upon them. St. Mark evidently records this, in order to show the contrast between the zeal of the multitude and the very different feelings of our Lord’s own connections. They, his friends, when they heard how he was thronged, went out to lay hold on him; for they said, He is beside himself. This little incident is mentioned only by St. Mark. When his friends saw him so bent upon his great mission as to neglect his bodily necessities, they considered that he was bereft of his reason, that too much zeal and piety had deranged his mind. His friends went out (ἐξῆλθον) to lay hold on him. They may probably have come from Nazareth. St. John (7:5) says that “even his brethren did not believe on him;” that is, they did not believe in him with that fulness of trust which is of the essence of true faith. Their impression was that he was in a condition requiring that he should be put under some restraint.
He Established a New Family (Mark 3:20–21, 31–35)
Our Lord’s friends were sure that Jesus was confused, and possibly deranged! The great crowds they saw following Him, and the amazing reports they heard about Him, convinced them that He desperately needed help. He simply was not living a normal life, so His friends came to Capernaum to “take charge of Him.” Then his mother and “brethren” (Mark 6:3) traveled thirty miles from Nazareth to plead with Him to come home and get some rest, but even they were unable to get near Him. This is the only place in the Gospel of Mark where Mary is seen, and her venture was a failure.
History reveals that God’s servants are usually misjudged by their contemporaries, and often misunderstood by their families. D.L. Moody was called “Crazy Moody” by many people in Chicago, and even the great Apostle Paul was called mad (Acts 26:24–25). Emily Dickinson wrote:
Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur—you’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
Our Lord was not being rude to His family when He remained in the house and did not try to see them. He knew that their motives were right but their purpose was definitely wrong. If Jesus had yielded to His family, He would have played right into the hands of the opposition. The religious leaders would have said, “See, He agreed with His family—He needs help! Don’t take Jesus of Nazareth too seriously.” Instead of giving in, He used this crisis as an opportunity to teach a spiritual lesson: His “family” is made up of all those who do the will of God. Our Lord’s half brothers were not believers (John 7:1–5) and Jesus felt closer to the believing publicans and sinners than He did to James, Joses, Judah, and Simon, His half-brothers.
Our Lord was not suggesting that believers ignore or abandon their families in order to serve God, but only that they put God’s will above everything else in life. Our love for God should be so great that our love for family would seem like hatred in comparison (Luke 14:26). Certainly it is God’s will that we care for our families and provide for them (see 1 Tim. 5:8), but we must not permit even our dearest loved ones to influence us away from the will of God. When you consider the importance of the family in the Jewish society, you can imagine how radical Christ’s words must have sounded to those who heard them.
How does one enter into the family of God? By means of a new birth, a spiritual birth from above (John 3:1–7; 1 Peter 1:22–25). When the sinner trusts Jesus Christ as Saviour, he experiences this new birth and enters into God’s family. He shares God’s divine nature (2 Peter 1:3–4) and can call God “Father” (Rom. 8:15–16). This spiritual birth is not something that we accomplish for ourselves, nor can others do it for us (John 1:11–13). It is God’s work of grace; all we can do is believe and receive (Eph. 2:8–9).
The strong man (vv. 22–30). Jesus healed a demoniac who was both blind and dumb (Matt. 12:22–24), and the scribes and Pharisees used this miracle as an opportunity to attack Him. The crowd was saying, “Perhaps this Man is indeed the Son of David, the Messiah.” But the religious leaders said, “No, He is in league with Beelzebub! It is Satan’s power that is at work in Him, not God’s power.”
“Beelzebub” (or “Beelzebul”) is a name for the devil, and it means “master of the house.” Jesus picked up on this meaning and gave a parable about a strong man guarding his house. To plunder the house, one must first overcome the strong man.
Jesus exposed both their bad theology and their faulty logic. If it was by the power of Satan that He had cast out the demon, then Satan was actually fighting against himself! This meant that Satan’s house and kingdom were divided and therefore on the verge of collapse. Satan had been guarding that man carefully because the devil does not want to lose any of his territory. The fact that Jesus delivered the man was proof that He was stronger than Satan and that Satan could not stop Him.
Jesus did much more than answer their false accusation. He went on to explain the seriousness of what they had said. After all, our words reveal what is hidden in our hearts (Matt. 12:35), and what is in our hearts determines our character, conduct, and destiny. We sometimes say, “Talk is cheap!” But in reality, what we say can be very costly. Jesus warned the Jewish religious leaders that they were in danger of committing an eternal and unforgivable sin (Matt. 12:32).
When you ask people, “What is the unpardonable sin?” they usually reply, “It is blaspheming the Holy Spirit” or “It is the sin of attributing to the devil the works of the Holy Spirit.” Historically speaking, these statements are true; but they do not really answer the question. How do we today blaspheme the Spirit of God? What miracles is the Holy Spirit performing today that might be carelessly or even deliberately attributed to Satan? Must a person see a miracle in order to commit this terrible sin?
Jesus made it clear that God would forgive all sin and all blasphemy, including blasphemy against the very Son of God Himself! (Matt. 12:32) Does this mean that God the Son is less important than the Holy Spirit? Why would a sin against God the Son be forgivable and yet a sin against the Holy Spirit be unforgivable?
The answer lies in the nature of God and in His patient dealings with the nation of Israel. God the Father sent John the Baptist to prepare the nation for the coming of their Messiah. Many of the common people responded to John’s call and repented (Matt. 21:32), but the religious leaders permitted John to be arrested and eventually killed. God the Son came as promised and called the nation to trust Him, but those same religious leaders asked for Jesus to be killed. On the cross, our Lord prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and demonstrated God’s power in many convicting ways. How did those same religious leaders respond? By arresting the Apostles, ordering them to keep silent, and then killing Stephen themselves! Stephen told them what their sin was: “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost” (Acts 7:51). They had sinned against the Father and the Son, but had been graciously forgiven. When they sinned against the Holy Spirit, they had reached “the end of the line” and there could be no more forgiveness.
People today cannot commit the “unpardonable sin” in the same way the Jewish religious leaders did when Jesus was ministering on earth. The only sin today that God cannot forgive is rejection of His Son (John 3:16–21, 31). When the Spirit of God convicts the sinner and reveals the Saviour, the sinner may resist the Spirit and reject the witness of the Word of God, but that does not mean he has forfeited all his opportunities to be saved. If he will repent and believe, God can still forgive him. Even if the sinner so hardens his heart that he seems to be insensitive to the pleadings of God, so long as there is life, there is hope. Only God knows if and when any “deadline” has been crossed. You and I must never despair of any sinner (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).
Ver. 22.—The scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, etc. These scribes had apparently been sent down by the Sanhedrim, on purpose to watch him, and, by giving their own opinion upon his claims, to undermine his influence. They gave as their authoritative judgment, “He hath Beelzebub.” One of the most prominent characteristics of the public works of our Lord was the expulsion of evil spirits. There was no questioning the facts. Even modern scepticism is here at fault, and is constrained to admit the fact of sudden and complete cures of insanity, So the scribes were obliged to account for what they could not deny. “He hath Beelzebub,” they say; that is, he is possessed by Beelzebub, or “the lord of the dwelling,” as a source of supernatural power. They had heard it alleged against him, “He hath a devil;” and so they fall in with this popular error, and give it emphasis, by saying, Not only has he a devil, but he is possessed by the chief of the devils, and therefore has authority over inferior spirits. Observe the contrast between the thoughts of the multitude and of those who professed to be their teachers, the scribes and Pharisees. The multitude, free from prejudice, and using only their natural light of reason, candidly owned the greatness of Christ’s miracles as wrought by a Divine power; whereas the Pharisees, filled with envy and malice, attributed these mighty works which he wrought by the finger of God, to the direct agency of Satan.
Vers. 23–27.—How can Satan cast out Satan? Observe here that our Lord distinctly affirms the personality of Satan, and a real kingdom of evil. But then he goes on to show that if this their allegation were true, namely, that he cast out devils by the prince of the devils, then it would follow that Satan’s kingdom would be divided against itself. As a house divided against itself cannot stand, so neither could the kingdom of Satan exist in the world if one evil spirit was opposed to another for the purpose of dispossessing, the one the other, from the minds and bodies of men. Our Lord thus employs another argument to show that he casts out evil spirits, not by Beelzebub, but by the power of God. It is as though he said, “As he who invades the house of a strong man cannot succeed until he first binds the strong man; in like manner I, Christ Jesus, who spoil the kingdom of Satan, whilst lead sinners who had been under his power to repentance and salvation, must first bind Satan himself, otherwise he would never suffer me to take his captives from him. Therefore he is my enemy, and not in league with me, not my ally in the casting, out of evil spirits, as you falsely represent me to be. It behoves you, then, to understand that it is with the Spirit of God that I cast out devils, and that therefore the kingdom of God is come upon you.”
Ver. 28.—All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, etc. St. Mark adds the words (ver. 30), “Because they said, [ἔλεγον,‘they were saying,’] He hath an unclean spirit.” This helps us much to the true meaning of this declaration. Our Lord does not here speak of every sin against the Holy Spirit, but of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. These words of St. Mark point to a sin of the tongue more especially, although not excluding thoughts and deeds against the Holy Spirit. Observe what these scribes and Pharisees did; they cavilled at works manifestly Divine—works wrought by God for the salvation of men, by which he confirmed his faith and truth. Now, when they spake against these, and knowingly and of malice ascribed them to the evil spirit, then they blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, dishonouring God by assigning his power to Satan. What could be more hateful than this? What greater blasphemy could be imagined? And surely they must be guilty of this sin who ascribe the fruits and actions of the Holy Spirit to an impure and unholy source, and so strive to mar his workand to hinder his influence in the hearts of men.
Ver. 29.—Hath never forgiveness. Not that any sinner need despair of forgiveness through the fear that he may have committed this sin; for his repentance shows that his state of mind has never been one of entire enmity, and that he has not so grieved the Holy Spirit as to have been entirely forsaken by him. But is in danger of eternal damnation. The Greek words, according to the most approved reading, are ἀλλ᾽ ἕνοχός ἐστιν αἰωνίου ἁμαρτήματος: but is guilty of an eternal sin; thus showing that there are sins of which the effects and the punishment belong to eternity. He is bound by a chain of sin from which he can never be loosed. (See St. John 9:41, “Therefore your sin remaineth.”)
