Mark 3:20-30
Kingdoms that declare war on themselves do not grow stronger, but weaker. Civil war does not strengthen a nation or build it up. It tears it down and leaves it vulnerable to attack from its enemies. This was Jesus’ central counterpoint to the prominent rabbis from Jerusalem. They charged that Jesus was demon possessed, but they did so without cause or reason. For how could Jesus be from the devil when he was diligently destroying the devil’s work?
To see Jesus’ miracles, was to see the very finger of God at work. To deny that the Spirit of God was behind Jesus’ miracles was to deny God himself. And so these denials were evidence of the Pharisees’ blindness. Their deaf spiritual ears and their hard spiritual hearts could not even attribute his miracles to God, so their was certainly no hope that they would hear his words.
And we shouldn’t assume that the Pharisees lost a salvation they never had. The Pharisees (as a collective body) never acknowledged Jesus was the Messiah. They never believed in him – miracles or otherwise. They did not put their trust in his goodness or mercy. They are of those that Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of John: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:18).
The default position of every human heart is unbelief and that means that the default spiritual status of every human being is condemnation. In saying that Jesus was demon possessed, the Pharisees didn’t necessarily signify a spiritual change in themselves. They simply affirmed a condition that was already in them, and already present since the day they were born. They had a garden variety unbelief that is common to all men.
Everyone who rejects Jesus is just like the Pharisees. Whether they are cold hearted religious fanatics or kind hearted hedonists who reject Jesus as Lord makes no difference. Now this is not to say that true Christians are cold-hearted and morally bankrupt. They must walk as their Lord walked (1 John 2:3-4). But Christians are not saved on account of their good deeds or kind dispositions. They are saved by faith in Jesus that cannot help but leak out joy in the remembrance of what Jesus has done for them.
The Pharisees excelled at demonstrating their unbelief. They showed it through their self-righteous pride. They displayed it through their jealousy of Jesus’ miracles. They constantly sought to bicker with him because they were envious of his large crowds and amazing teaching. So instead of falling to their knees, the Pharisee’s religious pride prevented them from repenting at the sight of Jesus’ works. They could not see sin in themselves. They could not recognize the righteousness of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And they could not look away from themselves to see their God, and this because they could not stop loving themselves through their status, their positions and traditions.
Jesus’ warning about the eternal sin of unbelief has two-edges. First, it warns us to remember what it is that Jesus saves us from. He saves us from our past and present sins that should always be before us – not as a cause for despair, but as a reminder of what Jesus has done for us. Second, it warns us that it is only by faith that we are forgiven and saved. If our faith isn’t genuine, and should we find it evaporating in fires self-righteousness and religous pride, we will face the same eternal punishment in the life to come as the Pharisees did. This is true of all those who have despised Jesus’ gift. Whether the world considers someone as a great humanitarian or a tyrant makes no difference. It is Christ who will judge us on the only court day that matters, not the world.
And the offer for everyone (even those who are extremely frightened of a passage like this one) is to turn, repent and trust in the Lord Jesus. For those who have faith in Jesus, it is not their righteousness and talents that they will bring before God in the hope that these things will save them. But for Jesus’ people, the people who have trusted that his cross and righteousness have removed all their sin, it is the righteousness of Jesus that will be presented on their behalf.
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