Monday of Week 3 in Ordinary Time - Mark 3: 22-30

Hi everyone and welcome back to the logical Bible study podcast, we're going to take a look at the reading from today's mass and we'll try and provide an exegesis of the literal sense. What was Mark trying to communicate to his original audience? So today, we look at Mark chapter 3 verses 22 to 30 and it's quite a well-known passage

in quite a controversial one. So, here's the passage from Mark chapter 3. The scribes who come down from Jerusalem, we're saying be eligible is in him, and it is through the prince of devils that he casts Devils out. So he called them to him and spoke to them in Parables.

How can Satan cast out Satan? if a kingdom is divided against itself that Kingdom cannot last, and every household is divided against itself, that household can never stand Now, if Satan has rebelled against himself and is divided, he cannot stand either. It is the end of him. Boss. No one can make his way into a strong mans house and burgle his property, unless he has tied up the strongman. First. Only then, can he burgle his house?

I tell you, solemnly all men's sins will be forgiven and all their blasphemies, but let anyone blaspheme against the Holy Spirit and he will never have forgiveness. He is guilty of an eternal sin. This was because they were saying and unclean spirit is in him. So, let's start by looking at the context here. What's happened so far in? Mark, is all these massive crowds have been coming to see him in Galilee to see Jesus. He's been doing all sorts of Miracles and healings, and

particularly exorcisms. He's becoming quite well-known for casting demons out of people. So now the scribes come down from Jerusalem in verse 22. So up till now he's just been doing stuff in Galilee and the Galilean Pharisees don't really like Him. But now we have some scribes from Jerusalem, which is actually South in the southern region. They're coming all the way up to go away. So they've traveled quite a few days to hear to hear Jesus.

There want to investigate this strange preacher that everyone's talking about. So Jerusalem is sort of a capital of Israel, and that's down the southern area, and Jesus has been working in the northern area, but he's become so famous, that word has spread to Jerusalem. So the Jerusalem leaders send These scribes in and these are kind of like the big guns, they are the Jerusalem. Scribes were the absolute experts in the law.

They were considered to be more authoritative even than the ones in Galilee. So they accuse him or they say firstly though use this word be, I was a bowl. This is a name be eligible and it's a word that the Jews used at that time for Satan. It's one of the words for Satan Satan had a few names and be eligible was one of them and it's probably derived from the Canaanite god Baal it's just another way of saying Baal or Satan is be eligible so they say

be eligible is in him. So basically, they're accusing Jesus of being possessed by the devil. And this is the thinking, so the scribes have come to see him and they're like, how is this guy doing this? How is he casting out? The demons and their reasoning goes something like this. His casting out so many demons, and the only person who has that much control over demons is the Devil Himself. Therefore, Jesus must be possessed by the devil that seems to be their thinking.

Obviously, they've missed a key Point here being that God has power over those demons as well. So this the saying, aye, he's possessed by the devil. So verse 23, he called them to him. So Jesus actually calls over the Pharisees and he wants to teach them in particular. He speaks to them in Parables so he's going to give them a couple of short analogies, not like the longer Parables. We're used to, it's still a parable load.

So it's a short analogy. He's going to teach them a couple of things about exorcism and what it's all about. He says to them first, how can Satan cast out Satan? And that's a rhetorical question. He doesn't expect him to answer because the answer is obvious. The answer is he can't. Verse 24, Jesus says to the scribes if a kingdom is divided against itself that Kingdom cannot last. So if you've got this kingdom and there's internal fighting going on, the kingdom is not

going to last long. And so, Jesus Point here is if Satan was being forced to get rid of his own demons, his fighting against his own demons, then it would not be a very strong Kingdom. But the scribes knew very well that Satan's kingdom is strong so that can't be right. It can't be this. Satan is fighting against his own demons. That doesn't make sense verse 25. Jesus gives another similar analogy and if a household is divided against itself that

household can never stand. So, same basic idea if there's fighting within the family, it will be a week, family. Now, verse 26, Jesus tells us the point. He was trying to make. Now, whenever you're looking at parables, You want to work out? What's, what was Jesus point? He usually makes a couple of little analogies. Sometimes he then tells his readers and this is the point that I'm trying to make and that's what he does here.

Thankfully sometimes he doesn't tell the meaning of the parable and that's when the disciple sort of scratch their heads, but when he tells us the meaning of the parable, we should pay attention because that can help us get some principles for interpreting the other Parables. And here, he tells us what he means. Verse 26. So If Satan has rebelled against himself and his divided, he cannot stand either. It is the end of him. So, that's Jesus point. Scribes you're wrong.

Satan is not casting out. These demons that doesn't make sense so he's firstly he's ruled out there. Hypothesis, he says you're wrong. Now in verse 27, having ruled out that idea about a kingdom divided his, now going to tell them what's really going on, what's really happening in these exorcisms. No one can make his way into a strong mans house and burgle his property, unless he is tied up the strong man first. Now, some people have a problem with this because it's implying

that God is a burglar. If you take it too, literally. But remember Parables and not supposed to be identical to Jesus or identical to God. In every aspect. You can't map every aspect on exactly that will be over stretching. The parable. He's just trying to make one Central Point that they will be

familiar with. And then applying that to God, So the idea here is if someone's planning to rob a house but they're planning to do it. They know who lives there and they know the homeowner is a strong man. Then the burglar is obviously going to make a plan to tie up the strongman first before he tries to steal his property otherwise is not going to get very far. The strongman's just going to kick him out. So Jesus here is saying that Satan is like the strongman.

Satan is like the strong man guarding his possessions. What's Satan guarding? He's guarding humans in this particular period of Salvation history, he has possession over humans and in particular, the ones that he has that he's possessed through the demons. They are his property. So Satan is the strong man and Jesus is saying that by performing these exorcisms He is weakening the power of Satan. The power of the strongman over the world.

So Jesus is weakening the strongman Satan by casting out. These exorcisms is slowly weakening Satan's influence in the world. So this probably implies because remember, what Jesus says here is first you weak and the strong man and then you plunder his Goods. So probably what Jesus is saying here is that these exorcisms that he's doing currently a phase, one of plundering Satan's house. So he's currently binding.

Satan weakening his power over the world and probably Jesus is implying, that soon, there will be a phase 2, where Jesus steal Satan's goods, and that would mean that's where he Takes some of the people from the kingdom of Satan and brings them into the kingdom of God. So here, I think is one of the clearest teachings about what Jesus mission is, we don't often like to talk about Satan and him having power in the world, but that was the whole context of the kingdom of God.

If you read the gospels carefully, Jesus clearly is teaching that the world is largely under the power of Satan and the point of the kingdom of God is to give people a different Kingdom to be a part of if they want to. So that's all the stuff about exorcisms there, that he's done. A couple of little analogies, verse 28, we get to the hard or controversial part to interpret. Jesus says to them in verse 28,

I tell you solemnly. Now whenever you say that you want to pay attention, this is where Jesus says, well basically means, I'm about to tell you something very important. Other translations would have this as truly truly, or amen. Amen, or he who has an ear, let him hear verily, verily is the old English way of saying it. Whenever you see those flag words, you want to pay attention because Jesus is about to teach something. And it's probably going to be something that's binding forever.

It's probably some general theological principle that he wants people to know about. So it's a signal that Jesus is about to conclude is make a conclusion, bring everything he said, To ahead and to make the point that he wants to make, so he's dealt with the little things that the Pharisees have said. And now he wants to make his deeper more profound point. It's a textual indicator to us as the readers that he's about to say, is about to teach something in his capacity as Messiah.

He's about to teach something theological and it's going to wrap up. The things is just said, here's what he says. All men's sins will be forgiven and their blasphemies, that's part one of the sentence. So what's he said so far? He said that if a person turns to God and enters the kingdom, then all of their past sins will be forgiven. Yeah. Jesus is saying there's no limit to God's forgiveness. All sins will be forgiven, even blasphemies and blasphemy is,

were some of the worst crimes. According to the Jews, the worst sins because that's when you abuse God directly. It's a direct offense against God, but Jesus, he says even blasphemy, is will be forgiven. But then the second half. Sorry, I won't say the second half yet, let's just talk about the word holy spirit because it's the first time that Jesus uses it here in Mark the Holy Spirit, we sometimes think of is like it's not in the Old Testament at all of the New

Testament idea. It is in the Old Testament but it's in the later books of the Old Testament and a lot of those books are not in Protestant Bibles. So in the book of wisdom and the Book of sirach, there's a couple of descriptions about the spirit or of God or the holy spirit. It's even called in one place. So the Jews were familiar with and they did believe in the holy spirit. It's just, they didn't connect it with the Trinity.

They didn't believe in the Trinity and Jesus is not referring to her in a trinitarian way here either. So, what was their idea of the holy spirit? It's basically the power of God on Earth, that's what they saw. The holy spirit is The power of God on Earth and that's fine. We as Christians, we believe that too. With that in mind. And so the Jews know what, the holy spirit is all the basics of it.

Jesus now says, whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit or another translation, whoever speaks a word against the Holy Spirit. Why does he say that here? Well, the scribes were in fact, just doing this. They were blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.

If you think about it they were blaspheming against God's work on Earth. There are watching Jesus cast out demons with the power of God and they were attributing it to Satan. Their blasphemy against the work of God on Earth are blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Now they didn't know that though.

So if we're going to analyze this in terms of, you know, mortal sin and things like that, they didn't have full knowledge, they actually didn't realize that God was working through Jesus. So if we want to pass it out that way, they weren't fully culpable of it. So Jesus actually just giving them a warning. He's not saying they're going to hell. He's just saying all you need to be careful here.

Okay, so whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, he will never have forgiveness, or he is guilty of an eternal sin and eternal sin. This is something that people really find really hard to accept. And sometimes called the unforgivable sin, How can there be a thing such as an unforgivable sin? So, let's think about it. Jesus is not saying that if you personally offend God or you personally offend the Holy Spirit by saying bad things about him, you'll be damned.

That's not the point. He's making, he's saying something more General. He's using this idea of blasphemy, which they've just done, but he's now making a more General point about General way that we can blaspheme against God. And it's this. What Jesus is saying is this if a person dies having seen the work of God in their life, but they deny that, it's the work of God, although refused to accept his promptings, then they cut themselves off from God. Now that's basically the

Catholic teaching on salvation. So it's not, it's not that there's one. How can we put? It's not that there's one specific thing. You do one specific sin that you commit in your life and you're done. That's it. You can never be forgiven. That's not what Jesus is saying. He's saying there's only one thing that would stop you from

you from entering. The mercy of God from entering the kingdom of heaven and that is refusing to accept the work of God. If you refuse to accept the work of God, then there is no forgiveness to you. There's no forgiveness available and you can't make it into the kingdom of heaven. So it's a teaching. On salvation. So notice the language here talks about all men and eternal life, it doesn't say Pharisees, you need to know this. It says all all manner of sins

will be forgiven of men. So we're talking about men in general and he mentions the eternal life. So this is something that's binding permanently. Jesus is teaching General Christian, theology hear about salvation, And the church, the Catholic church has confirmed that the principal Jesus lazy out here is still binding today, this is a permanent principal so let me reiterate what that is.

Again, the unforgivable sin is not that if you do one specific sin that you can never be forgiven in your stuffed up for the rest of your life, regardless of the good you do, that's not what Jesus saying. He's saying that there's one thing that will always be a barrier to you having forgiveness and eternal life. And that one thing is rejecting,

the work of God on Earth. so if we have it with that, we keep that perspective in mind, which is the perspective of the Catholic church that fits nicely with everything else, we know about salvation and everything we know about Catholic teaching in general Verse 30, the last verse here. Mark tells the readers. This is because they were saying and unclean spirit is in him. So we need to keep that in mind.

Jesus has given us this teaching in response to the claim of the scribes that Jesus is possessed by the devil. So Jesus here. Remember, when Jesus, sort of response to critics what he generally does is he sort of disabuse them of their false Notions first, but then he goes on to make a more serious point. So he's disabuse them of this false idea that he's possessed by the devil.

But now he's going to make a more serious theological point, which is and it's this, imagine he's saying this to the fairest to the scribes You need to be careful if you don't change your mind about this. If you continue to reject the work of God that you've just seen, your will be damned. That's what he's saying. It's a warning. Okay, it's a warning. Jesus is not saying, since you have said this, you are damned, he's not saying that he's saying

that you need to be careful. You need to re-evaluate this if you continue to see these things and reject them as the work of God and you say that were the work of Satan, then you're blocked from the kingdom of God, because he will not accept the work of God. This General principle applies to all Humanity today. This is what we as Catholics would say, who goes to heaven. It's the people who accept the work of God in their life and they cooperate with it who goes

to hell. It's those who reject the work of God on Earth and in their life. Life. Now, that will be me paraphrasing complex, Catholic theology, but I think it's a fair summary. Now, let's have a look at the catechism passages here. There's a few really interesting ones paragraph 548. There's a description about how Jesus is accused of being possessed by Satan paragraph. 574 to same thing. It says, Jesus is suspected of demonic possession. Paragraph 539, I'll read out

this one. It's about Jesus Temptations. The evangelists indicate. The cell River. Can meaning of this mysterious event? Jesus is the new Adam, who, Faithful just where the first Adam had given in to Temptation. Jesus, fulfills, Israel's vocation perfectly in contrast to those, who would once provoked, God during 40 years in the desert Christ reveals himself as God's servant, totally obedient to the Divine will in this Jesus is the devil's conqueror.

He binds the strong man to take back his plunder. Jesus victory over the tempter in the desert, anticipates victory at the passion, the Supreme Act of obedience to his filial filial. Love for the father. So, you'll hear that Echo is about binding. The strongman paragraph. 1864 is the one we want to spend the most time on. This is in the section about different kinds of sin, mortal and venial sin. And this paragraph is about the unforgivable sin.

Therefore, I tell you every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven. There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his Mercy by repenting rejects the Forgiveness of his sins and the Salvation offered by the Holy Spirit such Hardness of Heart can lead to final

impenitence and eternal loss. So really clear Catholic teaching their about anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his Mercy by repenting rejects the Forgiveness of his sins and the Salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Now I want to read out a bit of an extended chord here because this paragraph that we just write out 1864.

The catechism is largely informed by an encyclical written by Pope John Paul. The second called a problem that probably not going to pronounce this right Domina mitzvah. Vivek antem. That's the Latin. And it's the English title of that. Encyclical is on the holy spirit in the life of the church and the world. Now, I want to read you a paragraph 46 because this is where the teaching of the Catholic Church on what the unforgivable sin is, is explained here in this encyclical.

So, if what I've said so far hasn't made sense. Hopefully this will help clarify it and certainly, you know, I don't have any authority to Proclaim Catholic teaching, but the pope does. And so I think it's well worth listening to him. Describe how we should understand the unforgivable sin. So this is paragraph 46 from Pope John Paul. The second in the cyclical. Why is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unforgivable? How should this blasphemy? Be understood st.

Thomas Aquinas replies. That it is a question of a sin that is unforgivable by its very nature, insofar as it excludes the elements, through which the forgiveness of sin takes place. According to such an exegesis blasphemy, does not properly consists in offending against the Holy Spirit. In words, it consists rather in the refusal, to accept the Salvation, which God offers to man through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the cross.

If man rejects the convincing concerning sin, which comes from the Holy Spirit and which has the power to save, he also rejects the coming of the counselor that coming which was accomplished in the Paschal mystery in Union, with a Redemptive power of Christ's blood the blood, which purifies the conscience from dead works. We know that the result of such a purification is the Forgiveness of sins. Therefore, whoever rejects the spirit and the blood remains in dead. Works.

In sin and the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit consists precisely in the radical refusal, to accept this forgiveness of which he is the intimate giver and which presupposes the genuine conversion which he brings about in the conscience. If Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, cannot be forgiven, either in this life or in the next, it is, because this non forgiveness is linked as to its cause to non repentance. In other words to the radical refuse, To be converted.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a right to persist in evil in any sin at all and who thus rejects Redemption, one closes oneself up in sin thus making impossible ones conversion and consequently the remission of sins which one considers not essential or not important for one's life. This is a state of spiritual ruin because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not allow one to escape.

From one self-imposed imprisonment, an open oneself to the Divine sources of the purification of consciences and of the remission of sins. so, that's the end of the Court there, from Pope John Paul the second So I'll put all these paragraphs or catechism courts and the Pope John Paul, the second Court in the show notes, and this is one of those passages that needs to be read a few times and perhaps analyzed a

few times. So, if you think you got the basics of what I've said but you want to listen to it again, that's probably not a bad thing to do. Thanks for listening. Hope you learned something new about demon possession and the unforgivable sin. And if you think others will benefit from hearing this podcast as well, others who might wonder about the unforgivable sin, then please consider sharing this podcast with them. Thanks for listening.