Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, the hosts methodically show how Scripture is one cohesive story. Critical Thinking with a little bit of theology and apologetics and you have what this podcast is about. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity today must address woke, deconstruction, and progressive Christianity, all topics that are addressed if we go purposefully through the Bible. Join Glenn and Steve weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S10 || Exploring the Unforgivable Sin || Mark 3:20-35 || Session 10 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Can any sin truly be beyond forgiveness? This episode challenges conventional wisdom as we delve into the complex topic of the unforgivable sin in Mark, chapter 3. Explore the intense scrutiny Jesus faced from those who misunderstood his mission and labeled him out of his mind. We confront the skepticism from an official delegation from Jerusalem, which accused him of demon possession, and discuss how these narratives resonate with the challenges Christians face when their faith is misunderstood. By analyzing the accusations from the Sanhedrin and Jesus' insight into their unrepentant hearts, we clarify the significance of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and why steadfast faith is crucial. Join us as we continue to unpack the teachings of the book of Mark with thoughtful insights and reflections.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
The Word of God talks a lot about forgiveness, but there's a question Is it possible to sin so much that God will not forgive us? Is it possible to commit what's called the unforgivable sin? Today, on Reasoning Through the Bible, we're going to explore this question. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We have a ministry that we go into quite a bit of detail about the Word of God. If you have your copy, open it to Mark, chapter 3, and we're going to see now how Jesus is received by the people from his family and his old acquaintances and we're also going to see how he is received by an official delegation that comes down from Jerusalem. That's where we get into the question of whether or not people can commit what is called an unforgivable sin. We're going to go ahead and dive in.
Speaker 1:Open your Bibles to Mark. Chapter 3, starting in verse 20, says this and he came home and the crowd gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. When his own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of him, for they were saying Steve, apparently his family and his people from his neighborhood think that Jesus boy, this guy's gone crazy. He was teaching things that were unusual in those days and that felt rather unusually on people's ear In verse 21,. His family and friends think he's crazy, steve. What should we do when our family and our friends, if we're Christian, just don't understand us? They think, wow, you've gone off into some religious thing or other and have you lost your mind. I mean that happens to people with acquaintances, that suddenly somebody becomes Christian and starts following.
Speaker 2:Christ. Isn't that the case with a lot of the skeptics and atheists that we encounter, Glenn? They say, oh, you're a fool, you believe in an imaginary sky person, things like that. Yeah, those people that don't understand and don't have relationships with God are going to react that way. They act like you're crazy and like they're the sane ones and that you have lost your mind or that you're an idiot or that you're ignorant, and that's the way that they treat you. So when we see this with Jesus here, he is, he's healing people. He has these unclean spirits that are declaring who he is and he's calling them out of people. There's a lot of commotion and things. That's going on as he casts these unclean spirits. As he casts these unclean spirits, it says demons out of people, Because through this, he was very clearly expressing himself to be God. I think that was the thing that they're saying he's crazy. He's saying that he is God.
Speaker 1:It says in this passage that his own people I take that to be his family and his friends came to take custody of him. They were actually trying to physically pull him back into the old way, the old life. I think that happens sometimes to us, does it not? People become Christians, they start following Christ and the people around them from their previous life says wait a minute, you're not really taking this thing seriously. You could be a Christian just as long as you don't take it very seriously.
Speaker 1:When you start really trying to follow Christ, then the people from the old neighborhood they notice and they will sometimes try to pull you back. What are you doing? Be a Christian, just don't take it seriously. Well, the only way to really be a Christian is to take it seriously, and if you take Jesus seriously, he's going to change you. He's going to change your desires. You won't want to do the old things and the old crowd won't understand that. I know that happened with me. So is it true, steve, that sometimes they'll try to pull you back into the world, pull you back into the old life?
Speaker 2:Yes, I know that's because we have the experiences of God working in our lives that we can only explain by God and they don't have those experiences. They don't have that type of relationship. So, yeah, they're going to try and pull you back into an area that is in a non-relationship with God, because they don't have a relationship with God. But we should resolve ourselves in that case to do just like what you were saying, glenn. If we're going to take it seriously, then we need to seriously continue to tell them the Word of God, tell them about our life, give them our testimony, tell them the things that God has done and worked in our life in order to convince them to become believers, and not let them continue to work on us to come back into the world and become non-believers again.
Speaker 1:Until the Lord opens their eyes, the non-believers will never really understand the ways of Christ. We just saw his people, the people from his neighborhood Jesus encounters. Next he's going to encounter an official delegation that has come down from Jerusalem. In Mark we see Jesus encountering different peoples and different times, so it's always a series of encounters with people. See now what happens when Jesus encounters the official delegation from Jerusalem. Steve, can you start at verse 22 and read to verse 30?
Speaker 2:The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying he is possessed by Beelzebul and he casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons. And he called them to himself and began speaking to them in parables. How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand. But he is finished. But no one can enter the strongman's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strongman and then he will plunder his house. Truly, I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven, the sons of men and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin. Because, they were saying, he has an unclean spirit.
Speaker 1:With this passage we have a turning point in the book of Mark. It's very similar to one that was in Matthew. But there's a turning point here because what does it say in verse 22? The scribes who came down from Jerusalem, and they make a declaration. Well, the scribes coming down from Jerusalem was most probably an official delegation sent by the national leadership to evaluate Jesus's teaching. Jesus was in a remote area. The official delegation comes down and makes this official declaration. So this is the decision that was made by the leadership. We could view it as an official proclamation from the Jewish nation. That's really what we have here.
Speaker 1:The committee that was assigned to determine doctrinally is Jesus valid or not? Their official national conclusion was no. They used the word Beelzebul, and Beelzebul is a word that's actually a name. The source of the name could be two places. One, there's a word Beelzebul in the Latin Vulgate that means Lord of the Flies or Lord of Filth, and suggests a connection to the Old Testament idol Baal. There's also a New Testament Greek word, beelzebul, which means Lord of the house, which aligns with Jesus' parable of binding the strong man, either one of those. It's quite clear what they're saying here is that they're saying Jesus is demon-possessed, and not merely demon possessed, but he has the authority of Satan. Their official national conclusion, by the committee assigned by the national leadership, says Jesus is Satan-possessed and he is casting out demons by the power of Satan. Now, steve, what are the implications of the official proclamation being that they're great because all the people are looking to these officials.
Speaker 2:The Sanhedrin would put together delegations to go out and look at persons claiming to be the Messiah. They'd observe them. Once they observed them, they would come back and make a report on whether or not they thought that they should go further and then challenge them with questions. Once they would challenge them with questions, then they'd come back and make a report on whether or not they thought that they should go further and then challenge them with questions. Once they would challenge them with questions, then they'd come back and report that to the Sanhedrin and then the Sanhedrin would make a decision on whether or not this person was the Messiah or not.
Speaker 2:This delegation coming out and saying that he's Satan-possessed, not just demon-possessed, but he's possessed by Satan himself. That's how he has the power to cast out all these spirits and to do these healings. That is an official declaration from the Sanhedrin, from the ruling class. The people were looking for this. They looked for this declaration to come from this body in the temple, for this declaration to come from this body in the temple, the Sanhedrin, that was made up of Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes and others. It's very important. It's a turning point because it's the official rejection of him of being the Messiah and also of him being God of what he's claiming. We see at this point, as you mentioned at the beginning of this session, this becomes a turning point in Jesus's ministry now that he has gotten this official rejection from this delegation.
Speaker 1:We could see it in upcoming passages. In chapter four and following, he changes the way he starts teaching people. He starts teaching in parables. He changes the way he talks about the kingdom, the passage that we just read.
Speaker 1:He has been accused of being demon-possessed. Specifically, they said he cast out demons by the ruler of the demons. They're declaring that he is in league with Satan. His response says how can Satan be against Satan? His kingdom would fall apart, his kingdom wouldn't stand, he wouldn't be able to send out demons if he was casting them out himself. So he's basically saying that's illogical and it's nonsense to say that I'm casting out demons by the ruler of the demons. And he has this passage there about no one can enter the strong man's house unless he first binds the strong man.
Speaker 1:Then he talks about the passage that everybody always wants to talk about, which says that whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin. It says in verse 29. And that's the one that most people start saying wait a minute, how's that work? That is what has been called blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, or some people use the term the unforgivable sin. The solution is rather simple. The problem, of course, is God always says that we could be forgiven of all of our sins. Yet here we have one where he's saying we can't. Well, the solution to any problem like this is rather straightforward. It's basic hermeneutical exegesis, by just saying basic textual interpretation.
Speaker 1:Who is speaking? Who are they speaking to? What is the situation in which they're speaking? What was the motivation for the statement they're making? What tells us the context that it's in? Where does that passage fit in the overall flow of the book? 99 times out of 10, you're going to get an answer when you just look at the context here. That's what we'll do. We'll explain how this problem of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit works. What we can't do is take one phrase or one verse out of a context and use it to build a doctrine. Steve, who is he speaking to when he gives this answer? And we basically just said that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's speaking to this delegation of scribes that are here that came from Jerusalem, this official delegation of the representatives from the Sanhedrin, the ruling class, that are making this decision. That's who he's making this declaration about.
Speaker 1:The immediate context for his statement about the unforgivable sin was this official delegation had come down and declared that you are demon-possessed. In this passage, that's his response. He's responding to those particular people that had made that exact statement. Jesus Christ is demon-possessed, not to the multitude. Then there's what's called the crowd, or the multitude that are just there either to get fed or for whatever reason, and the multitude includes some of these scribes and Pharisees. Well, he's not talking to the crowd here. He's talking to this official delegation of the scribes.
Speaker 1:Jesus said these statements to this specific question, in this specific situation, to a theologically trained people, the scribes. If you're going to have a statement, be your final judgment about Jesus that he's demon-possessed, then Jesus is saying that is a sin that you will not be forgiven of. If that is your final conclusion for the rest of your life and you never change it, that is a sin that you will not be forgiven of. Steve, to me it's just basic textual interpretation. If you just look at who is he talking to, he's not making a broad statement to anybody ever.
Speaker 1:I remember a few years back there were a bunch of teenagers that would get online and try to be cute and say well, I blaspheme the Holy Spirit, thinking that somehow that made them eternally damned, trying to get attention from their friends. It's really not. That's not something you could commit today At least many Bible teachers think so. But the main point is, if you're going to say Jesus is irrelevant or Jesus is demon-possessed and that's your final conclusion, and you go to your grave saying that that's a sin you won't be forgiven of, Well, yeah, and it's very simple is that if that happens, then you have rejected Jesus Christ?
Speaker 2:By rejecting Jesus Christ, you do not accept the forgiveness that's offered to those who will believe on Jesus Christ and trust on him. Now I do think that, this being the official ruling from the Sanhedrin, from the ruling class, Jesus knows their hearts. We saw that earlier in the text that while these scribes were sitting around, they were thinking to themselves about what he was doing, and he addressed them because he knew what they were thinking in their hearts and in their minds. He knows that this is the official declaration from representatives of the nation and they're not going to change their mind. In fact, even earlier, it said they immediately went out and started to conspire to kill him and do away with him. So Jesus knows this being God and he knows that they're not going to change their mind as far as this official declaration and that they're not going to be able to come back from it.
Speaker 2:I do believe that this judgment does come on the nation later, in 70 AD, from the tearing down of the temple in Jerusalem and then, eventually, the scattering of the Jewish people out of the land of Israel in general. But yes, I don't think that people can go out there, like you said, this game that was going around at one time of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and thinking that, oh, this is damn me for eternity. No, if you actually believe and trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior at any point in time, who he is, what he did, his death, burial and resurrection, you will be saved. So those people can come back from something like that of having an idea and a rejection initially of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:As you said, steve, jesus knows the hearts of the people he's talking to and that's the context that this was put in. He knows these particular people not going to repent. What's not the case today is that if you made one statement on one day in the past that you're eternally lost and can't get into heaven, that's not what this is saying at all. The way I would phrase it is this there's many passages in the New Testament and the Old Testament for that matter that tells us that if we but turn to God, he is a loving God and will forgive us. So we have to compare this with them, because there are people that are worried about that. Have I committed the unforgivable sin? My friend? If you're worried about whether I've offended a holy God, then you've not committed the eternal sin. It's the people that aren't worried about it that go to their grave like that. Anytime you repent and go back to the Lord, he will forgive you. If you go to your grave saying he's irrelevant or demon-possessed, then now you've got a problem.
Speaker 1:Verse 27 says this no one can enter the strongman's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man and then he will plunder his house. He has this illustration of a strong man and plundering their house. Again, what's the context? What had Jesus just gotten through doing? Back in verse 22, that started, this was casting out demons. And the scribes then say oh, he's casting out demons by Beelzebul. Who is then the strong man? The context would say it's the demons. The house, of course, is a person. If you're going to go in and take away the things that the demons had in the house, you have to first bind the demon. I think that's the context here. He's not talking about something to do with salvation, really. It's talking about how does one get rid of a demon and a demon-possessed person? Well, you have to have the authority to bind the demon. The question he's defending himself against this idea that he was Satan or Satan-possessed or demon-possessed, and he's saying no, if you're going to cast out a demon, you have to have authority over all the demons.
Speaker 2:This comes on the heels of what you just mentioned. Jesus was casting out these demons just by his word. The one demon he casts out who is a mute? The process that the Pharisees and others had of casting out unclean spirits or demons was they had to find out what the name of the demon was. Again, they had all these type of processes. Jesus wasn't doing any of those processes and the people were starting to say who is this? Nobody's ever done this before.
Speaker 2:Jesus, through his actions, has forced this decision to be made now by this group, because they can see that it's getting out of control. They don't have any response to the people saying who is this? Nobody's ever done this before. He teaches with authority. He casts out demons just with his word. He heals people just from them touching him. There's something special about this guy, so they have to come up with a decision to get rid of him, and this is the way that they've done it. So, yes, I agree that they're making this decision because Jesus, by his actions, is forcing them to make a declaration.
Speaker 1:Moving on to the last part of chapter 3, we see yet another of these encounters that Jesus has with people around him. Mark 3.31 says this. Then his mother and his brothers arrived and, standing outside, they sent word to him and called him Steve. Who is it? Brother and sister and mother, steve, who is it that's in Jesus' family?
Speaker 2:We are in his family today, those who are believers.
Speaker 1:The main point of this passage is just that it's quite clear. What he's saying here is that those of us who are followers of Christ, those of us that have completely received his message and are then regenerated and saved, we are in his family. Galatians 3.29 and Galatians 4.5 both say we are adopted into the family of God heirs according to his promise. Colossians 1.12 says we are qualified to get an inheritance because we are children of the king. We have this idea that we, as Christians, we are the family of Christ. The question whoever is the mother and brother and sister of Christ? It's those of us who do the will of God. It says in the last verse of the passage. So is it the case, steve, that you have to then obey and do things? Isn't that what it says there in verse 35? So, says some Bible teachers, we have to obey enough to get in his family. Is that what that's saying in verse 35, or is he talking about something else?
Speaker 2:Well, I think this is referencing one of the things that says the will of the Father is that all would become believers, that everyone should be saved. So I think that's a very simple thing that the Father wants people to become believers in Jesus Christ. Believe, the one that has been set to be a satisfactory sacrifice, so that, in essence, is being in the will of the Father, is by believing in Jesus Christ and who he is.
Speaker 1:That's really the commandment, I would agree. 1 John 3.23 tells us the command we are to obey is to believe in the name of Jesus. That's doing the will of the Father is to believe and, of course, as James says, show me your faith and I will show you mine by my works. So that's what he's saying here. Is, how do you see it? Show it to me. Well, the one who does the will of the Father, that's the one who believes. His family did not understand him, and we talked about that a little earlier.
Speaker 1:We get in situations today where our families, our friends, don't understand us when we follow Jesus. Lastly, there's a question that arises here about Jesus' family and Mary, his mother, whether or not she was an eternal virgin. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church has come up with a doctrine where they hold the eternal virginity of Mary and when they get to a passage like this, the typical Catholic would say that the word brother or sister, there is an extended relative like a cousin or something. Unfortunately, the Greek lexicons disagree. There's a different word for extended relatives and cousins. This one, according to the standard Greek lexicons, means biological brother with same parents. That's what the term means. So from this and similar passages we would hold, that Mary was indeed a virgin at the time of Jesus' birth, but did not remain so because she had other children. We find ourselves at the end of Mark, chapter 3, and next time we're going to get into the parable of the sower who went out to sow, and we're going to see a whole lot of different people Steve in that parable.
Speaker 2:Steve, yeah, we are. It's going to be great to go through that. We hope you tune back in to reason with us through the book of Mark. Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
