MARKAN MEDITATIONS

Meditations in the Gospel of St. Mark

St. Mark 3:20-30

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WE HAVE seen in our last but one meditation how hostility against Jesus was beginning to be shown as the Pharisees went off to plot how they could kill Jesus. In the passage before us, where Jesus is accused of being in league with the devil, we see opposition building up even further.

The awful thing to notice in this opposition is that it was coming from inside the church. It was the teachers of the law that were accusing Jesus of being connected with the devil. How often is the visible church found to be out of sympathy and opposed to a real work of God in the church, not understanding the nature of a true work of God in their midst.

The opposition begins with the direct family of Jesus saying Jesus and his disciples were out of their minds when they see the crowds thronging to hear Jesus, and crowding around him, and Jesus seeking to teach and help them. They thought Jesus out of his mind because the normal things of life, evening eating, had to be sacrificed for this important spiritual work of teaching the people. Jesus' family did not understand him or the work he had come to do. Christians often find that their families oppose them when they give themselves to the work of the Lord.

A real movement of God so often brings this response. In the Pharisees and teachers of the law it was an even greater animosity than the family of Jesus, They accused Jesus of being hand in hand with Satan. They said Jesus had a devil and his power came from the devil. So often the leaders of a dead church react like this when any real spiritual life threatens their lifeless existence. It is often those who hold high office in the church, like the teachers of the law here, who are the lifeless ones who show the greatest and most pointed opposition to the work of God. It is happening today, and it has happened in all the great revivals of the past.

Satan does not infiltrate Jesus or the true work of God, but he has succeeded in infiltrating the visible church, and he gains access to the visible church through the hearts and minds of those church people who are not truly born again, and are still dead spiritually, although they have the outwards signs of piety, and have climbed the ladder of authority in the church. This opposition to Jesus here, and similar opposition against the work of God, is evidence of the deadness and blindness of the natural human heart, which the Bible testifies to, together with the fact that until Christ delivers us, we are under the rule of Satan, who is called in the Bible the God of this world.

Jesus responds to the accusations of the teachers of the law by speaking in parables, and brings an irrefutable argument against what the teachers of the law were saying. In bringing this argument Jesus also reveals the wonderful good news of the Gospel, which we can take strength and comfort from, even if other church people are blind to it.

What Jesus says is that if Satan acted against himself, and if devils cast out other devils, then there would be civil war in the kingdom of Satan, and this would mean that Satan's kingdom would fall. What Jesus is telling the teachers of the law is the good news which they refused to see. As Jesus was casting out devils, the kingdom of Satan was being overcome. Jesus was indicating that someone had come who had bound the strong man, Satan, and now was spoiling his kingdom, and releasing people from his grip and authority. In fact Jesus is saying, as I am the one who is casting out devils, it means that I am the one who has bound Satan, and delivers people from Satan's power.

Here is the marvellous Gospel of God. Jesus is the Saviour of the world. He is God who has complete authority over Satan. He is the God-man who gives his life a ransom for many, paying the price of their sins by undergoing the just punishment of their sins in their place, thus he takes away from Satan every hold and authority he has to hold these saved ones. Satan has no authority any more to hold them. Jesus has saved them from their sins, which sins were the claim Satan had to bind them to him.

Jesus finishes with a very solemn truth, the truth of the sin against the Holy Spirit which can not be forgiven. There has been much argument over what exactly the blaspheme against the Holy Ghost is. When we see the words of Jesus about this sin in the context in which it was spoken, the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is clear and plain. This blasphemy is exactly what the teachers of the law were doing in rejecting the Gospel and refusing to believe that Jesus was the deliverer from Satan and from God's just judgement. Anyone who refuses to believe the Gospel, for whatever the reason, is rejecting the testimony of the Holy Spirit to God's way of salvation. They are refusing the only way, the way that God has provided, for being saved from the consequences of our sin, and being blessed with eternal life. Because of this they can never be saved, because there is no other way of salvation. This is why the sin against the Holy Spirit is the unforgivable sin, because it is rejecting the Holy Spirit's testimony to Jesus as the Saviour from sin. Every other sin, however bad, can be forgiven by faith in Christ. Christ has fully atoned for them all, but when we refuse the Saviour, there is no other way we can be saved from death and hell.

See how serious is all rejection of the Gospel of salvation, for such rejection is the sin against the Holy Ghost. How dreadful for the teachers and preachers who either deny the Gospel, or teach another Gospel, because not only are they sinning against the Holy Spirit, and calling him a liar, but they are leading so many others to sin against the Holy Ghost also.