Introduction
This is a text about families. You can see this by observing the structure of the passage. In verses 20-35 we have what is called, in technical terms, a sandwich. In verses 20-21 we see reference to Jesus’ family, and the camera will pan to them again in verses 31-35. So that structural clue tips us off to the overall point of what lies between.
In verse 20 we read that Jesus is home - given that his family is going out, as we’ll see in the next verse, this probably doesn’t mean Nazareth, but rather, that he is back in Capernaum. He may possibly have a home here, or perhaps more likely, he is operating out of Simon and Andrew’s house, as he was back in chapters 1 & 2.
Whatever house he is in, he is once again the toast of the town, and the crowd has packed in to the point where no one can even eat. You might imagine that in a society which still depended upon open fire cooking that it was probably impossible even to make a meal, let alone to eat it.
How would you expect Jesus’ family to respond to this swelling popularity which we have witnessed over the first three chapters of Mark? Do you think there was joy, excitement, worship? Not quite. It seems they are concerned for his sanity, and they set out to save Jesus from himself, seeking to stage some sort of intervention. “They went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind’” (v21). It’s worth noting here something I said on Good Friday: the Mary we find in the gospel accounts is a good woman, a woman who trusts in the Lord. She is someone we should admire and in many ways emulate. But she was far from perfect, and she needed salvation through Jesus just the same as you and me.
Conflict
And it brings us to verse 22, where we read that among the crowd of those pressing into the house are a number of scribes who have made the trek up from Jerusalem to investigate this Jesus character. It’s a similar scene to John chapter 1, where the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to investigate and interrogate John the Baptist. But here the inquisitors are scribes, experts in the Old Testament law, and the one under examination is Jesus. At least, they think it’s Jesus who is under examination. He’s about to turn the tables on them.
What is their initial verdict? Verse 22 gives us the accusations they made: “He is possessed by Beelzebul” and “by the prince of demons he casts out demons.” These are some fairly staggering accusations. They look at Jesus’ power - and they cannot help but acknowledge that he has genuine power - but they question the source. Surely this cannot be godly power. He must be in league with the devil!
Jesus' response is straightforward, questioning their logic and giving parables. The first parable is straightforward: “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.” Abraham Lincoln famously quoted this text in reference to this nation, using it as a warning. But in Jesus’ case he means it not as a warning, but a vindication. Do the scribes really think that Satan is so incompetent as to attack himself?
Imagine an exterminator who made his living ridding houses of termites. And then imagine a big write up in the paper about how he really was a super-villian, teamed up with termites everywhere to…kill termites? If this is the sort of thing Satan does, why be worried about Satan? And this is exactly what Jesus says in verse 26, “If Satan has risen up against himself, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end.” Jesus obviously is not in league with Satan, because Jesus is in the process of undoing Satan’s work. Which leads into the second parable.
In verse 27 Jesus says, “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.” Who is the strong man? Who is the plunderer?
Paul, writing in Ephesians 2:2, calls Satan “the prince of the power of the air.” That sounds like a pretty strong title. In Ephesians 6:12 he will write of the “cosmic powers over this present darkness.” Jesus speaks in John 12:31, calling Satan the “ruler of this world”; and Paul again in 2 Corinthians 4:4 refers to Satan as the God of this world.
I am reading a lot of CS Lewis right now for a talk I'm gonna give next month. And Lewis is interesting because of his embrace of what might be called a medieval cosmology. That’s not to say he thought it true in the “scientific” sense, but he thought that medieval cosmology, which picture the stars and planets not simply as rocks are balls of gas, but rather as places for which personal powers were responsible, was instructive for how we ought to think of the world. One advantage medieval people had over us in understanding their bibles was that their perception of the world was suffused with the supernatural. That idea of governing spirits isn’t simply from the Dark Ages of Europe, but it seems to be heavily present in several biblical passages, especially a text like Daniel chapter 10. And I think what we see in the words of Jesus and Paul that I referenced above is that Satan is just such a governing spirit. He was given power in this world.
But we know that he did not use that power to honor and glorify God. Rather, he sought to magnify himself, and procure the worship of humanity for himself. Thus he, rather than ministering to Adam and Eve, personifies himself as a serpent and tempts Eve to disobey her Creator. And while this seemed to be successful, God immediately interjects into the story, bringing a curse for the serpent: the Seed of the Woman was coming to crush his head. Oh, he would bruise the heel of her Seed. But the Seed would bring an end to the power of the tempter.
Enter Jesus in Mark’s gospel. From the first chapter we have read of Jesus healing demoniac after demoniac. Freeing people from Satan’s power and influence. Jesus is plundering Satan’s house, the god of this world can’t hold onto his stuff, he cannot maintain his prisoners, which means one thing: Jesus has bound the strong man.
The picture we are given in Scripture is of Satan being allowed to run roughshod over this world for millennia. This of the days of Noah. After the fall and being expelled from Eden, humanity quickly plunged into violence, polygamy, and all manner of debauchery; it got so bad that we’re only six chapters in when God washes the slate clean. And even after this point, God begins his work with just one family, the family of a moon-worshiper from the land of Ur. Even as this family grows and God works deliverance after deliverance for them, we find that even God’s chosen people would prefer to have the child-sacrificing, adultery indulging gods of the nations, rather than YHWH who had called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Satan seems to hold sway even in God’s house, the people of Israel.
But all of that began to change when God the Son took on flesh and dwelt among us. When Jesus invaded Satan’s domain he bound him. This is part of why Mark shares so many of Jesus' miracles of deliverance, because he wants us to understand that Jesus’ power to save is greater than Satan’s power to bind and oppress.
Is Satan still active in this world? Was Luther right in A Mighty Fortress Is Our God to write that this world is “with devils filled”? Absolutely. But Satan no longer has the power he once did. He’s prowling around like a roaring lion - but he’s a lion with no fangs. He’s roaring because he wants to bully us, he wants us to cower: but brothers and sisters, if you resist him, he will flee from you (James 4:7). Note, you’re not attacking when he flees. You just resist his roaring. You may feel his onslaught; Revelation 12 pictures Satan cast down from heaven (which I believe is what Jesus is referring to in John 12:31), and as one theologian put it, he’s mad as hell. But he’s mad because he no longer has the power he once did. He knows his days are numbered. And he knows this, ironically, because he did fight against himself: that’s what happened at the cross. Satan entered Judas, Judas betrayed Jesus into the hands of the chief priests, and Jesus was crucified under Pontus Pilate: but there on the cross he bore the weight of the sins of all who would trust in him, and in doing so, he removed the greatest power Satan possessed: the power to accuse us before the throne of God. Now Christ stands before the throne, pleading our case, which is not a case based on our goodness, but on his blood. The strong man has been bound, and his source of power destroyed.
We spent the past week in Morton, IL for the RHMA Small-Town Pastors’ Conference. The theme was Hopeful Ministry in a Despairing World. And I desperately needed that message. I was convicted as I listened to the various sermons with a realization that has been building in my mind over the past several months: I have been incredibly hopeless in ministry. And brothers and sisters, I need to apologize and ask for your forgiveness for that hopelessness.
Remsen, Iowa is a place where I feel the strong presence of Satan still at work. But for me to be hopeless, to have low expectations of what God is going to do, is a faithless attempt at self-protection and disappointment aversion. It is a form of fear. And it dishonors God. Because whatever grip Satan has on people’s lives pales in comparison to the power of God given for salvation: the Gospel of Jesus Christ: crucified, risen, and ascended for sinners, binder of the strong-man. Jesus has more power than Satan, his gospel light is bright enough to light up any dark place, and Jesus is Lord of heaven, earth, and this place.
Do you believe this?
One of my goals for this coming year is to think through ministry based in and propelled by hope. Not hope in an ethereal or meaningless sense. But a true and solid hope built on the fact of a Savior powerful enough to bind-Satan, pay for sin, and walk out of the tomb. That doesn’t mean hardship won’t come or we won’t face hard times. But it does mean that we can persevere through those times, believing that God is doing something far greater than we can ask or think. Will you join me in thinking and praying this way?
Our hope is built on a sure foundation: the finished work of Jesus. But how can we know we’re on his side and in his family?
Warning
Jesus issues a warning in verses 28-30, a warning which has sent chills down the spine of Bible readers ever since Mark recorded these words.
28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
What is this eternal sin? How can you know if you’ve committed it? One oft-made observation, but an important one nonetheless, is this: if you’re worried about committing the unforgivable sin, you haven’t. But you need the reasoning behind that assurance.
First, we need to see who Jesus is speaking to: the scribes. The religious elite, the people who knew the law forward and back. In other words, the very ones who should have been first to correctly identify Jesus as God’s Son, or at least as the promised Messiah. Second, we need to see what they do: they attribute the clear and obvious work of God not to God, but to Satan. Though they knew God, they did not honor him as God, and their foolish hearts were darkened, as Paul writes to the Romans.
Is God willing to forgive blasphemy? Paul answers that question with a resounding “yes” from his own testimony. Consider 1 Timothy 1:12-17.
12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, 13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Notice the condition of Paul’s receipt of mercy: he acted in ignorance. Now, there is a sense in which all sin is ignorance. But what Paul seems to be driving at, and what makes sense of Jesus’ statement here, is that one can hate God, hate Christianity, and hate Jesus, and God is more than happy to forgive that, if we turn to him in faith. Repent of your hatred, and bow the knee to Jesus. However, there is a type of sin which hardens you to the truth, deadens you to the conviction of the Spirit, and makes it such that you will not repent, and thus will not be forgiven.
A prime example of this is Pharaoh. Pharaoh hardened his heart, though Moses clearly was being used as God’s instrument to bring judgment on his land. And it was that hardness of heart that made Pharaoh’s sin unforgivable. No sin is intrinsically unable to be forgiven. But the sin of looking at the work of God’s Spirit, and deliberately spitting upon it (or: blasphemy of the Holy Spirit) is going to harden your heart and shut you off from Christ.
This danger is what drives the author of Hebrews to pen a terrifying passage:
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:23-31)
Who is falling into the hands of the living God? Those who have come to an understanding of the truth - they have heard the gospel, understood the gospel, they may even claim to believe the gospel: and yet they refuse to live a life of repentance from sin. They are in the habit of neglecting the church. They don’t get together with their brothers and sisters to encourage one another and stir each other up to love and good deeds. Brothers and sisters, if we try to live the Christian life without each other we are essentially giving up to Satan. It’s like claiming to be God’s child, but refusing to enter his house (not the physical space, but the gathering of the people). If you have trusted in Jesus, then Jesus has made you a part of his family. Our souls depend on living as if that’s true.
Conclusion
As we come to the conclusion of the passage, we find Jesus’ family still trying to get to him. And I imagine both the messengers and his family were shocked by Jesus’ response to their request to see and speak with him.
31 And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32 And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” 33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
Who does Jesus identify as his true family? Those who do his will. And what is his will? First of all, that we trust in him (John 6). And then, that we join with our brothers and sisters in the church, as we read in Hebrews 10, to learn to obey him in everything he commands in the Scriptures. That might sound daunting, and alone it surely would be. Doing it alone is impossible. But together? Together we can, imperfectly but increasingly, grow in conformity to Christ, shining as lights in a dark work (Philippians 2:15).
So, which family are you in? Are you going to line up with the scribes, and accuse Jesus of being false? Are you going to line up against his church and see the good work he is doing in drawing people to himself and helping them grow in conformity to him, or are you going to throw rocks from the sidelines? Are you going cower in fear that Jesus can’t really make a dent in this town? Or are you going to trust Christ - not only for your eternal salvation, but for the good work he wants to do in and through you in this life? Will you trust that, as he told the apostle Paul, he has many people in this city? Will you trust that he has gifted you to help encourage and build up the believers in this body? In short, our duty is this: to live like a true brother and sister of the Lord Jesus.
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