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About Jesus Steve Sweetman This Section - Chapter 3:7 to end of 3 ch. 3:7-12 ch. 3:13-19 ch. 3:20-30 ch. 3:31-34
Crowd Follow Jesus (ch. 3:7-12) In
verses 7 to 12 we see that Jesus is pressed in on all sides by the crowds.
He can’t get away from them.
He and His disciples go to the lake, which would be the Preaching
from a boat had secondary value as well as being a distance from the
crowd. The water would provide
natural amplification so that everyone could hear Him. We
see the demons coming out of people again, and every time they came out
they recognized that Jesus was the Son of God.
The
Appointing Of The Twelve (ch
3:13-19) In
this section we see Jesus going up into a mountain, probably to be alone.
Here He called 12 men out of the many disciples that He had
gathered. We need to realize
that scholars believe this moment of time is well into Jesus’ second
year of ministry. From all of
His followers He chose “whom He wanted”.
Jesus by divine inspiration wanted these 12 men to be more than
disciples. Mark
said that He “appointed” these men to be “apostles”.
The word apostle simply means “sent one”.
So implied in the word apostle is the idea of being sent somewhere. Verse
14 says that Jesus called these men for two reason.
The first is that they might be with Him.
They’ve been with Jesus for a while now, but it appears from here
on out that more time would be spent together, and this was because He
would send them out into the world, which is the second reason why He
called these 12 men. For
the last year or so these men had some training in general terms, but for
the next year or so they’ll have more detailed training, with a few
practice runs at going out on their own.
Even though Jesus has called these men aside at this point in time
and appointed them as apostles, they wouldn’t be actually sent out on a
full time basis until the Day of Pentecost. Jesus
was going to send them out to preach, but along with the preaching these
men would cast out demons and heal people as well, just as He did.
It is interesting that Jesus calls 12 out of the many followers to
be sent ones with the authority to do miraculous things.
This leads one to believe that the rest of the disciples did not
have such authority and power at this time.
This might make one think that not all Christians are endowed with
the same power and authority. This
would be dependent upon one’s calling from Jesus. This might well
account for the reason why some are more successful in working miracles
than others. I
believe if you do a detailed study of the Book of Acts you’ll see that
not all had the same miraculous power that men like Peter and Paul had. It
is also interesting to note that before Jesus sent anyone out into the
world to serve Him, He first calls them to Himself to spend time with Him.
That hasn’t changed. Who
Jesus calls to serve Him, He first calls to be with Him.
Jesus
And Beelzebub (ch. 3:20-30) Verse
20 says that Jesus “entered a house”.
Many Greek scholars say because of the wording here that the house
was probably “Jesus’ house” that we’ve referred to earlier in this
commentary. It
appears that Jesus and His disciples were hungry and ready to eat but
couldn’t because of the great crowd that followed Jesus to His doorstep.
When the rest of Jesus’
family saw this, or at least some of the rest of His family, “they
took” charge of things. At
this point these family members thought things were getting too much out
of control with Jesus. It is clear that these family members were not
followers of Jesus. The
family members actually “took charge of Jesus” saying that “He is
out of His mind”. So they
more than took charge of the situation. They took charge of Jesus, or at
least tried to. While
the family members thought Jesus was out of His mind the Pharisees went a
stop further and said that He was associated “with Beelzebub, the prince
of demons”, meaning the devil. They
were saying that the power Jesus had to cast out demons came from the
devil. There’s
some vagueness concerning the word Beelzebub, but the best understanding
seems to be that it means “lord of the dwelling’ and is associated
with the Old Testament false god called Baal. So
the Pharisees claimed that Jesus casts out demons by the authority of
satan. Therefore Jesus
presents them with a very logical question, “how can satan cast out
satan”. He goes on to
explain using a couple of analogies. Jesus
says that if a Kingdom is divided against itself, the Kingdom won’t
stand. Nothing to intelligent
about that. Learned men such
as the Pharisees should follow this line of reasoning without too much
trouble. How and why would he
work against himself by casting his own demons out of people?
That made no sense. In
verse 27 Jesus says that no one can rob a strong man’s possessions
unless he first ties up the strong man and disables him.
After this is done then you have the ability to rob him.
Now in context this strong man that Jesus is speaking of here is
the devil. What
Jesus is in fact saying is that there will be demonic influences on men
and women until the day comes when the strong man, that is satan is tied
up. Until then Jesus and those
to whom He has given authority can free individuals of demons, but demonic
influence will remain until satan is tied up for good. The
question then is, “when will satan be tied up for good”?
I believe the book of Revelation is clear on this point.
At the end of the thousand years of the rule of Christ, satan will
be let loose one more time to try to bring the nations to his side.
Then after a little while Jesus will intervene for the last time
and satan will be thrown into the You
often hear people in prayer “binding the devil”, as if they can do
such a thing. I don’t think
we can bind the devil. Jesus
doesn’t even bind him so how can we?
But the day will come where he will be bound and until that day
comes we cannot bind him. Only
Jesus can bind the devil, and He will at the appointed time. In
verse 28 Jesus says that “all sins and blasphemies of men will be
forgiven him”. Jesus is not
saying that all men will be saved here because all their sins will be
forgiven. We need to
understand this statement in light of other statements that Jesus makes.
The forgiveness of sins, or the dismissal of sins is conditional
upon repentance. This means
that one must change his mind concerning his sin.
He must realize that his sin is indeed sin and is wrong in God’s
eyes. Yet
in verse 29 Jesus introduces one sin to the conversation that can never be
forgiven. This sin is
blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, something the Pharisees seem close to
doing when they said that Jesus did miracles by the power of satan, when
in fact He did them by the power of the Holy Spirit. This
gives us a clue to what the blasphemous sin is.
In context it seems to be attributing the work of the Holy Spirit
to the devil, and not just any work, but the specific work that Jesus
does. If Jesus does anything,
it is through the power of the Holy Spirit.
If you disclaim this, then you are disclaiming Jesus.
If you say that Jesus is associated with the devil and not the Holy
Spirit, then you are in fact denying who Jesus really is.
This denial is the unpardonable sin. You must believe that Jesus is
divine in order to be forgiven of all your sins.
If you believe He is not divine, or especially if you believe
He’s from the devil, that sin can never be forgiven.
This is only logical. I’ve
always said that there is one sin that Jesus cannot forgive and that is
unbelief. If He would forgive
our unbelief in Him then all mankind would be saved because there would be
no reason to believe, and Jesus would have gone through what He did in
vain. So all sin Jesus can
forgive once repented of, but as long as one is in unbelief, there is no
forgiveness for him. And if
one says that Jesus is associated with the devil, then it is obvious that
He doesn’t believe. This sin
can never be forgiven. By making Jesus in the same league as the devil,
you’ve denied the deity of Christ, the foundation stone to our whole
belief system. Jesus’
Mother and Brothers (ch. 3:31-34) In
this section we see Jesus’ mother and brothers outside of the house
wanting in to see Jesus. Somebody
tells Jesus that His mother and brothers are outside and want in to talk
with Him. His
answer may be strange to us at first.
He asks, “who are my mother and my brothers”?
In His answer He says that those who do the will of God are His
mother and brothers. By this
answer Jesus is telling us that there is more to Him than what appears.
Jesus is more than a
human being with an earthly mother and brothers.
In fact He is the Son of God who is about to have many adopted
brothers and sisters. These
adopted people are those who do the will of God, and the first thing they
must do is believe or give themselves to Him.
In
the long run, Jesus’ spiritual family has little to do with His earthly
family. It is His Heavenly or
spiritual family that is important and will be throughout all of eternity.
This should say something to the Catholic belief that Mary is
someone special, especially the idea that she is the mother of God.
This idea is far from Scriptural truth.
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