Mark 3:22-30--Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

Mark 3:22-30
English Standard Version

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit
22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” 23 And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27 But 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.

​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.”

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The scribes, Pharisees and teachers of the Law need to come up with a counter-narrative about who Jesus is because if they continued to let everyone believe in Him, they would lose their power as religious and political leaders (for Messiah should lead the Jews both spiritually and politically).  They were getting rich off of the system they created and Jesus appeared to be ready to destroy all of that system that made them the rich, famous and powerful.  So, what was the counter-narrative they came up with?  They said that the only reason He was able to control demons was because He Himself was the prince of demons, Beelzebul (which would translate to "Lord of the Flies").

Jesus then shows them and the people that they didn't think their counter-narrative through, because it doesn't make any sense.  Why would Satan cast out himself?  If his demons were busy doing the kinds of things that demons would do (oppressing people, making them mute, making them have seizures, and making them go crazy just to name a few things), why would he cast them out to stop them from doing this work which is aligned with the kingdom of darkness?  "A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand." Is how Jesus sums up his argument against their counter-narrative.  I don't think they expected an argument from Jesus because they were hoping for what happens to us today when someone doesn't like our message and they try to demonize us.  Usually we just stop speaking to avoid the fight.

Jesus then gave them a better picture of what was going on.  Jesus was going to rob Satan by taking souls that were under Satan's influence and saving them, but Satan is a "strong man" that you don't just go into his house and rob him while he's awake and ready for you.  No, first you must bind up the strong man so that he can't fight against you before you go in and take what belongs to him, and that requires that the thief be stronger than the strong man so that he can bind him up.  Jesus is saying that is sort of what is going on between Him and Satan (only Jesus is the Creator of all things and Satan has no strength in comparison to Jesus because Jesus speaks and Satan must obey).  Jesus has work to be done to seek and to save that which was lost--especially the lost sheep of Israel.  Jesus is binding up the strong man of the demons that have demonized these men, women and children so that these people can clearly hear the gospel and be set free.

Then Jesus makes a statement that is probably one of the most largely debated passages of Scripture, but we have to assume it has something to do with what was just said to Him and what He's been saying in response.  Jesus says that every sin that is against the Son will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven--it is an eternal sin.  Mark clarifies here that these scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the Law were guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit because they were saying, "He has an unclean spirit."  The Spirit that was at work within Christ was the Holy Spirit.  They were not lying so much about Jesus as they were lying about the Holy Spirit.  There's much debate about if this particular sin only happened here or if it can happen other times.  Some people are concerned they could accidently do this and lose their salvation (I don't think that's biblical as this is an intentional act of attributing the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit to the devil and his demons), and their intent in doing this was to keep people from believing the gospel.  Not only had they decided that they weren't going to believe, but they decided that they would make sure that no one else they had influence over would believe either.