Sermon: The Unforgivable Sin (Mark 3:19b-35)

The Unforgivable Sin
Sunday, June 4^th, 2023
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA

Mark 3:19b-35

And they went into an house. ²⁰ And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. ²¹ And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself. ²² And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils. ²³ And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. ²⁶ And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. ²⁷ No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. ²⁸ Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: ²⁹ But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: ³⁰ Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

³¹ There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. ³² And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. ³³ And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? ³⁴ And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! ³⁵ For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

Prayer

Father, we thank you for giving us Your Holy Spirit that guides us into the truth. We ask for illumination now as we consider some hard and challenging words from the Lord Jesus, we ask for help in His name, Amen.

Introduction

This morning we come to what St. Augustine considered to be one of the most challenging questions in all of Scripture, which is, “What is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?” Various and diverse answers have been given to this question, and we will tackle that later in the sermon. But lest that distract us from the bigger and more central issue here, let me remind you of the context that Mark is setting up.

• Last week we saw that Jesus called to himself The Twelve Disciples. These twelve disciples are the reconstitution of the twelve tribes of Israel, and they stand in contrast to the nation of Israel which has in many respects become apostate.
  • This apostasy is especially evident in that everywhere Jesus goes in the Holy Land is infested with demons. Rather than coming to a nation that is full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus comes to a people that is sick and dying and oppressed by evil spirits.
• And so the calling of The Twelve is the formation of a new society. It is the beginning of a new Israel, a new nation, a new house, and kingdom of God. This is the beginning of what will eventually be called the Christian Church. And as we see in Revelation 21, the twelve apostles are the twelve foundations upon which the New Jerusalem is built.
• So Mark is setting up Jesus and the Twelve as one community, One House, and now he is going to contrast that house with two rival communities, or two rival houses. So what are those two rivals in our text?
  • 1) Jesus’ friends and family, or what we might call “The Natural House”
  • 2) The religious leaders of Jerusalem, who represent the Temple (God’s House) back in Jerusalem.
• And the question before Jesus’ audience is really the same question before all of us today: Which House are you in? Which House has your highest loyalty and love? Who is in that House? Who has your utmost affections and total allegiance?
• That is the theme of this section, Conflict Between Rival Houses, so let us walk through our text together and see how this conflict plays out.

Verse 19b

And they went into an house.

• So far in Mark’s Gospel, anytime Jesus calls a new disciple to follow him, the next thing he does is go into a house to eat with them.
  • He did this first after calling the four fishermen, he went into Peter’s house.
  • He did this a second time after calling Levi the tax collector, he went into Levi’s house.
  • And now this is the third time that he calls more disciples and then goes into a house to eat.
• We presume that this is Peter’s house again, which is where we have already seen many miraculous healings and exorcisms, because it says in verse 20…

Verse 20

And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.

• Earlier the multitudes were pressing into this house, there was nowhere to sit, and Jesus healed a paralytic who was let through the ceiling. And now Jesus and the disciples come down from the mountain, they are hungry, but they cannot so much as eat bread.
• Being with Jesus is very inconvenient to attending to the normal bodily needs of eating and sleeping. These routines are constantly interrupted by multitudes who are clamoring for healing and help from Jesus.

Verse 21

²¹ And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.

• Here, friends refers to Jesus old companions or family members. Later we will see his mother and brothers and sisters calling unto him from outside the house, but here we are told that these friends “went out to lay hold on him.”
  • The idea here is that they think Jesus has gone crazy. He gets baptized by the John the Baptist, and the next thing we know, He thinks He is God.
  • And in every other case, this would be a very good and reasonable thing to do. They want to restrain Jesus and keep him from embarrassing himself or bringing shame upon the family. Or perhaps they want to protect from the crowds and the controversy that is following him, he might end up dead. They are doing what concerned friends and family naturally do.
  • Of course, in this case they are committing the sin of unbelief. This is a lack of faith that Jesus is God, or that He knows what He is doing, and it will not be until after his Resurrection that their eyes are opened to the truth.
  • So this is the first of the rival houses that Jesus must contend with: The natural family with its natural concerns for his natural wellbeing.
• Now before we see how Jesus responds to the Natural House, Mark inserts a second rival house into the narrative. And Mark likes to use this “sandwich structure” in His gospel where he begins a line of thought, what we might call “The A Story” or “Primary Plotline” and then he interrupts it with a subplot or “B Story” which when completed will give us a new perspective or reference point to understand and resolve the “A Story.”
• Also, to make things more complicated, sometimes within that subplot (or “B Story”), Jesus tells a parable, so that now you have a story within a story within a story, and it kind of telescopes to teach us at different levels.
  • That is what we will see for the first time here, and again throughout this gospel.
• So what is the “A Story?” The “A Story” is that Jesus and his disciples are in the house, they can’t eat because of the multitude and his friends/family have come to kidnap/rescue him (take him back to Nazareth). Then in Verse 22, we have the second rival house introduced.

Verse 22

²² And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.

• This is the Religious House, and these scribes are not local Galilean scribes or priests from Capernaum, these are the scribal elite, the most learned men who come from the big city of Jerusalem. The modern equivalent might be to say that these are the scribes who studied at Oxford and Cambridge and are present on behalf of the King of England. They have a massive amount of clout because of who they are and what they represent. This is a retinue of sorts from Jerusalem.
• The charge they make against Jesus is that He is himself possessed by the devil, and not just any devil but by the prince of the devils Beelzebub, which as we will see shortly is another name for Satan.
• How does Jesus respond to this accusation?

Verses 23-27

²³ And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. ²⁶ And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. ²⁷ No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.

• So Jesus’ clapback is that the scribes are poor theologians. In their envy they have overlooked the basic truth that Satan cannot cast out Satan, and if such a thing were possible, the kingdom of darkness would implode (there wouldn’t be all these devils in the promised land.
• Satan and his demons are united in their opposition against God, and therefore the kingdom of darkness must be plundered by someone outside of it. And so Jesus likens his ministry to someone entering a strong man’s house, binding the strong man, and taking all his stuff.
• In this parable, Jesus is the stronger man, who kicks down the door of Satan’s house, binds him, and plunders his goods. From the beginning of Jesus ministry, this is what He’s been doing: fighting Satan, casting out devils, and plundering their house.
  • What are the “goods” or “spoils of Satan’s house? Theyare the souls of men. Men who as Paul says in Colossians 1:13, “have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
  • Healing is one thing, but the forgiveness of sins is what actually transfers a person from Satan’s House to Jesus’ House.
  • The Devil is a strong man and he has a kingdom, but Jesus is a much stronger man, who comes with an infinitely more powerful kingdom, and he transferring men into it.
  • In the parallel passage of this same scene in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus adds, “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come upon you” (Matt. 12:28).
• So this entourage of accusing scribes from Jerusalem is refuted. Jesus reasons that no house that is divided against itself can continue to stand (unless someone stronger comes along), and even the scribes had to admit that Satan’s kingdom was still very present among them, perhaps in their minds most exemplified by their Roman overlords.
• There is also here in Jesus’ parable a prophetic warning to these scribes. And that is that the temple in Jerusalem was itself a divided house. The high priesthood was controlled by the Sadducees (who were heretics), while the Pharisees were the dominant teachers and rulers of the people. And after the resurrection of Jesus, these divisions will become even more acute (as Paul will use to his advantage in Acts). Jerusalem will eventually be destroyed by civil war; they will burn their own food supply and light their own temple on fire.
• So Jesus warns them, “a house divided cannot stand,” and any scribe with a little bit of self-awareness would know that that was a true description of Jerusalem and the house there.
• Jesus then issues a more serious warning if they want to avoid that future destruction.

Verses 28-30

²⁸ Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: ²⁹ But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: ³⁰ Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

• So here we come now that difficult question: What is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
• To answer this let us start with what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not.
• First notice that Jesus says, “all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men,” and this includes blaspheming Jesus who is the Son of Man, he is God.
  • Under Mosaic law, blasphemy was a capital crime, and you could be put to death for doing so.
  • Leviticus 24:16 says, “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.”
  • So blasphemy under God’s law was not only a sin, it was a crime, and it is this charge of blasphemy that the scribes and Pharisees are going to use against Jesus to crucify him. Jesus is claiming to be God, that is blasphemy, therefore he must die.
  • Jesus of course knows that this is going to happen, and he declares to them now, that even this sin will forgiven them. What does Jesus say from the cross? “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
  • So someone could blaspheme God, they could curse Him, or even crucify Him, and Jesus says, “All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and [even] blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme.”
  • This is further proved by the example of the Apostle Paul, who says in 1 Timothy 1:13, “though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief…”
• Notice that in both Jesus’ prayer on the cross, and in Paul’s confession, it is blasphemy done in ignorance that is forgiven. This is key to understanding the kind of blasphemy that cannot be forgiven.
• Let me now give you the three basic interpretive options as to what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is, and note that these are not mutually exclusive, all three of these could be what Scripture is referring to.
  • Option 1. It is the literal verbal utterance of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. This view was held by Athanasius, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, and Chrysostom.
    • Under this interpretation, this sin is what the scribes are doing in our passage, calling the work of the Holy Spirit a work of Satan, or calling the spirit that is within Jesus “an unclean spirit.” To say that and mean it, is to blaspheme in an unforgivable way.
    • Another possible example of this sin would be Ananias & Sapphira lying to the Holy Spirit, and thus they drop dead for their crime. That could be a form of blasphemy against the Spirit.
  • Option 2. St. Augustine’s view was that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is persistent unrepentance.
    • This would include blasphemy as described in Option 1, but it adds the condition that they willfully resist and reject the Holy Spirit until they die. In support of this, we might point to the fact that Jesus says these scribes are, “in danger of eternal fire” and therefore although they are at present blaspheming the Holy Spirit, it will only be unforgiveable if they continue to do so.
    • The Apostle Paul would be a good example then (under this option) of someone who blasphemed the Holy Spirit by persecuting Jesus and the church, but then by God’s grace, was brough to repentance. Paul did not persist in this blasphemy.
  • Option 3. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the sin of malice or contempt against the Holy Spirit’s goodness. We might call this the sin of apostasy or hard-heartedness.
    • This would again include sins like Option 1 (literal verbal blasphemy) but adds the condition that it is sin without ignorance. It is the sin of the devils to knowingly call good evil and evil good, to call God Satan and Satan God. And therefore just like the fallen angels had no opportunity for forgiveness, so also those who commit the same sin as the angels.
  • Summary. So you can see there is some overlap in these three options but each of them nuance it in a different way.
  • I think what it ultimately comes down to is determining whether or not these scribes are actually committing that sin or just in danger of committing that sin. Good arguments could be made in both directions, and I’ll leave that for you to ponder.
• My position is a blend of Options 2 and 3, both of which include but qualify Option 1.
  • I believe blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is willful, knowledgeable (without ignorance), rejection of the Holy Spirit.
    • This would include verbal blasphemous utterances like the scribes are doing here, but I think these scribes are partially ignorant and therefore only in danger of committing the unforgivable sin.
    • One of the reasons I think this is the case is because we see in the book of Acts that many scribes and Pharisees do repent and become Christians who were formerly opposed to Him (including Paul).
      • Acts 6:7 says, “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
      • So what Jesus says on the cross about God forgiving those who crucified Him, comes to pass at Pentecost when Peter preaches to the very people who murdered him, and 3,000 are cut to the heart, forgiven, and baptized.
    • There is also a historical element to this kind of sin in that those who continued to resist the Holy Spirit after Jesus was resurrected are now without excuse and are no longer ignorant of His claims to deity.
      • So while Jesus’ identity was somewhat veiled to these scribes, and they blasphemed God not knowing who Jesus was, after the resurrection and ascension and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they can no longer plead the same ignorance.
• So that’s my understanding of what the unforgivable sin is, and a common question that people then ask is: Can people still commit this sin today? Yes, I think so.
• However, some people wonder if because they once thought or said the words “I curse you Holy Spirit” that they are therefore unsavable. Is that true?
  • The short answer is no. I don’t think a momentary thought or blasphemy like that is unforgivable.
  • The longer answer is that the only person who can commit this kind of sin is someone who has real light and knowledge of God such that they are without ignorance. And then knowing who the Holy Spirit is, they consciously reject Him or depart from the faith. Essentially, they refuse salvation, harden their heart and God gives them what they want (separation from Him, both now and for eternity).
• Whatever your understanding of this sin is, it is playing with fire to go anywhere near it. So don’t blaspheme at all. Get as far away from hell as possible.
• Returning to our text, Mark brings a conclusion to the A Story in verses 31-35, as we see how Jesus responds to his family.

Verses 31-35

³¹ There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. ³² And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. ³³ And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? ³⁴ And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! ³⁵ For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

• The scene here is Jesus is in the house with the Twelve, while his family is outside the house calling for him. This difference of place illustrates what Jesus makes explicit in words.
• Who is Jesus’ true family? Who has the deeper connection to him?
  • Is it his mother Mary, and his brothers and sisters who grew up with him? Jesus says it is “whosoever shall do the will of God, that is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
  • Jesus is drawing the boundaries of the New Jerusalem. He is defining what makes someone with Him or against Him.
  • Do you do the will of God? Then you are Jesus’ family, you are in His house.
• As radical as this might seem to pit the natural family against the spiritual family, Jesus is not introducing anything new here. The Ten Commandments already put worship of God and loyalty to Him as more important than honoring father and mother and the rest.
• Jesus is not being rude to his family or dishonoring them by saying this. He is restating what God has always commanded: that worshipping the true God and dwelling with Him, takes precedent over everything else, even the natural family.
  • When God called Abraham, he left his idolatrous family behind.
  • When Jesus called James and John to follow him, they left their father in the ship with the servants.
  • In Luke’s gospel we are told that when Jesus himself was a boy, and Mary and Joseph were looking for him he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
• For Jesus, that which is eternal takes precedent over the temporal. And it is in this sense that the waters of baptism are thicker than blood. Commitment to Christ and the household of faith, may mean at times leaving your unbelieving parents behind. It might mean you are rejected or disowned by your siblings or family for what you believe.
• But if you do the will of God, and are loyal to Jesus and His House, then you are joined to an eternal fellowship of saints. A fellowship that begins in this life and continues into eternity. A fellowship that is with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whose glory we shall behold and enjoy forever.
• That is the family and household that Jesus invites you to join. And so do the will of God, repent and believe, for in Jesus alone is the forgiveness of sins, and he delights to forgive all who will come to him.