Mark 3:20-35: Jesus and the Strong Man

(1) Bible Study Questions

Discuss: What do people think about demons, spirits, Satan, and angels? What about you?

1. What does the family deputation think of Jesus? (v. 21) What does that say about them? (cf. John 7:1-9)

2. What would Jesus have been doing to make them think that?

3. Has anyone ever thought that you were crazy or a religious nut? Why or why not?

4. What do the religious authorities from Jerusalem think of Jesus? (v. 22)

5. Why do they come to that conclusion?

6. Jesus speaks a parable in response to the Jerusalem scribes. What is his argument against their understanding of his authority?

7. About the parable, who does the strong man represent?

8. Who are his possessions?

9. How is the strong man bound? (Heb 2:14-15; Col 2:15)

10. What is the point of the parable?

11. Look carefully at verses 28 to 30. What is the promise that Jesus makes about ‘all the sins and blasphemies of men’?

12. What then do you think is the eternal sin?

Note: "The present tense of the verb 'blaspheme' indicates not a single act, but a pattern of habitual practice. To resist the ministry of the Holy Spirit convicting the heart and mind about the truth of Jesus is to be guilty of an eternal sin. Those who fear that they might have committed this sin are to be assured by their concern that they have not" (Paul Barnett, The Servant King: Reading Mark Today, 68).

(2) Sermon Script

Introduction: You People Are All Mad!

Has anyone ever thought you brainwashed? For those of you who have shown an interest in church things, have you heard that accusation? You’ve been brainwashed! This is all program learning.

Who do you think might say something like that?

Now they are right, of course, to warn us about manipulative techniques and brainwashing. There are things like ‘love bombing’. Groups provide warmth, acceptance, and attention to vulnerable people. There are practices like sleep deprivation, or the use of guilt and manipulation to control people. It might be excessive supervision to achieve conformity to group norms which sidesteps the mind to obtain compliance.

I have been helped greatly by Martyn Lloyd-Jones who made this clear to me in his books. Humans have a mind, emotions, and a will. And in the gospel, God addresses us through the mind. The call to repent and believe the gospel is a rational call. That is why reasoning and argument are important. And through the reasoning of our minds, God also affects our emotions. For we are humans, and emotions are part of our make up. And through these two, mind and the emotions, the will is challenged.

The address of the command or the gospel promise is not only directed to the emotions. That is manipulative. Nor is it directed to the will only. That is coercive. But all change, all repentance, must be first and foremost, the result of the rational address to the mind, which then affects the emotions as a reflex or secondary affect.

But nevertheless, it is often in the context of religious matters that non-Christian family or friends view particularly new believers as mad. “We’ve got a religious nut, here.” It’s expressed with the bald, “you people are mad.” As King Agrippa said when interrupting the Apostle Paul in Acts 26:24 at his trial, “You are out of your mind, Paul! […] Your great learning is driving you insane” (NIV). Agrippa said this despite the fact that Paul demonstrated that what he was saying was “true and reasonable”. Or as many of the Jewish opponents of Jesus said about him, “He is demon possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?” (John 10:20).[1]

And why is it that people wrote off Jesus and Paul as mad? They didn’t want to listen to them. Paul was angling to convince Agrippa to become a Christian, and Agrippa simply didn’t want to be persuaded. It is much easier to call Christianity madness or mania than to repent. And so that’s what people did then, and do now.

A Sort of Homecoming (vv. 20-22)

Our passage today is a sort of homecoming for Jesus. Perhaps he has returned to Nazareth or is in Capernaum, having returned to Peter’s house (cf. Mark 1:29, 2:1). We can’t be sure, but either way, he is close to family and friends.

(1) The Crowd (v. 20)

And once again Jesus has attracted a crowd. Verse 20:

Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.

Jesus doesn’t even have enough elbow room to have a meal. We are not given the crowd’s verdict on Jesus here. Perhaps some in the crowd saw him as a magic healer or wonder worker. Or perhaps, more positively, Jesus was seen as a prophet. Perhaps the members of the crowd had heard what the demons were saying—“You are the Son of God”—and perhaps they began to believe it.

(2) The Family (v. 21)

But such things are hard for Jesus’ family to believe. No prophet is ever accepted in his own house. We read in verse 21:

When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind”. (NIV)

If Jesus’ family were in Nazareth, and Jesus was in Capernaum, then they travelled 50km to come and get him. Otherwise, it was a shorter journey. But either way, the news spread, and the family response is not belief but that “he is beside himself”.

Now here the word translated “family” refers more literally to those who are ‘with’ or ‘alongside’ Jesus. They are Jesus’ “near ones”. Most English versions take this to be ‘family’, though some take it as ‘friends’. Either way, it is justified to think it is a reference to Jesus’ family, because verses 31-35 clearly refer to Jesus’ human family of origin.[2] We also know from elsewhere that Jesus’ brothers didn’t believe in him, and teased him a bit. We see that in John 7:1-5. So we have reasonable grounds for saying that his family—his mother and half-brothers[3]—are those referred to as thinking him ‘out of his mind’. They went to forcibly rescue Jesus from his own insane behaviour.

(3) The Experts From Head Office (v. 22)

But also the experts from head office have arrived, and they have provided their own diagnosis concerning Jesus. Verse 22:

And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons. (NIV)

The diagnosis of the big city specialists is that Jesus is suffering the most serious case of demonic possession possible. He has not merely a demon, but is possessed by Beelzebub, “the Lord of the Flies”, Satan himself, the prince of demons (Matt 10:25).

(4) Who is Jesus?

The crowd think him at least a wonder worker who is able and willing to help them by healing their sicknesses and driving out demons. Perhaps some of these venture to see him as the Son of God. The family think him a religious nut who should get a grip, come home, and get a real job. The religious leaders from Jerusalem think him a man possessed by Satan. Well, Jesus responds to these analyses with a reasonable and measured argument.

Jesus’ Reasonable Answer (vv. 23-27)

Jesus responds to the religious leaders by answering their accusations using parables. Jesus tells two parables, a tale of two houses. The first tale shows that the teachers of the law are irrational. The second shows Jesus’ rationale for driving out demons.

(1) Parable Number 1: A Divided House (vv. 23-26)

So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables.

How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand: his end has come. (NIV)

Here is Jesus’ reasonable defence. If the Teachers of the Law are right, Satan’s kingdom is in the middle of a civil war. If the looters are the citizens themselves, the regime has collapsed. Satan is defeated and no longer a credible force.

The question really is whether Jesus is attacking the kingdom of Satan from the inside or from the outside. Are Jesus’ operations a matter of internal security within the kingdom of darkness, or a military operation by an opposing force?

(2) Parable Number 2: A Plundered House (v. 27)

And in his second parable, Jesus makes it clear he is not tearing Satan’s kingdom apart from the inside. Nor is it an ambush, and Jesus some deceptive operative of Satan, who sacrifices some of his demons as a ruse to capture his enemy.

Rather, Jesus is moving against Satan’s kingdom from the outside. Jesus is invading Satan’s kingdom, not to make war on its citizens, but to take out its leadership in a decapitation strike, to enable regime change. Verse 27:

In fact, not one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house. (NIV)

In his bold analogy, Jesus pictures himself as an armed robber. Jesus is not a boarder who steals from his host unaware, or a sleeper agent who operates by white-anting the kingdom of darkness. Rather, Jesus comes against Satan’s kingdom from the outside, confronts and overpowers the strong householder in open battle, and then as the stronger man, having vanquished the strong man, is at liberty to steal the strong man’s possessions.

Who is Jesus? Jesus is the armed robber, the stronger man, stronger than Satan, who binds the strong man, and liberates his captives. And what Mark implies, Matthew and Luke make explicit. Jesus does this by the Spirit of God (Matt 12:28), and by the finger of God (Luke 11:20).

And the question is, How does Jesus bind the strong man, Satan? In what way has he done this? For up until now in Mark’s Gospel, we’ve seen Jesus simply despoiling him, driving out demons, and healing those captive to him. How has Jesus bound the strong man? This question really relates to why Jesus has come? What is Jesus’ mission?

Jesus has come not just to raid, but to overthrow. And the successful decapitation strike was not at the beginning, but at the end of his mission. The temptation in the wilderness was only an initial skirmish, for the main battle will be in Jerusalem. And Jesus conducts raids into Satan’s kingdom along the way to his definitive battle. Jesus by his death binds the strong man.

As Paul says in Colossians 2:13-15:

He [Jesus] forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (NIV)

For Jesus won forgiveness for us on the cross. He took away the curse of the law that hung over us. And by that atoning sacrifice, Jesus disarmed the power of the demonic realm and the kingdom of Satan. In his seeming defeat—death on the cross—Jesus won the victory for us.

Again, the author of the letter to the Hebrews says the same thing. Hebrews 2:14-15:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death

It was the death of Jesus that destroyed the devil. And that death brought freedom to those enslaved by the devil. Friends, humanity fears death. Despite the bravado we put on it, the brave face we show the world, the reality of death is a horrible, awful, fearful cloud over everything we do. And Jesus in his death destroyed death. He punched a hole through death and emerged victorious on the other side. Death could not hold Jesus down. So Jesus is not only our substitute, but also our liberator. Jesus is both our pioneer who went before us, and also our substitute who went instead of us. Christ is victor.

Jesus’ Solemn Promise and Warning (vv. 28-30)

Because Jesus looks ahead to his death, he issues a great promise, and a solemn warning.

(1) Why? (v. 30)

Why does Jesus give this solemn saying? Verse 30 tells us:

He said this because they [the teachers of the law] were saying, “He has an unclean spirit”. (NIV)

Again, the teachers of the law viewed Jesus’ good as evil. They are now explicitly crediting the devil with Jesus’ good works.

(2) All Sins and Blasphemies Forgiven (v. 28)

Now notice that Jesus gives a broad promise first. So much emphasis has been given to the warning that we forget the promise in verse 28:

I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. (NIV)

Notice that the first word Jesus gives here is forgiveness. Jesus starts with forgiveness, and we would expect nothing else of the one who has authority on earth to forgive sins. What else should we expect of the one who came not to call the righteous, but sinners, except the forgiveness of those sins, when they repent?

But notice, secondly, that Jesus adds the word ‘all’. All that sinful people might speak as blasphemy will be forgiven them. Thus, it seems to me that when Jesus then speaks of the unforgivable sin, he is not speaking of any particular individual act. There is no one individual act, or one class of acts, which is beyond forgiveness.

I say this because some people have wandered God’s earth thinking that by some individual act they have committed the unforgivable sin. John Bunyan, for example, author of Pilgrims Progress, wandered around in a depressed daze for a couple of years thinking he had committed the unforgivable sin. For a whole year, day and night, he had tempting thoughts saying “Sell your saviour, sell him for this, sell him for that.” And when he once said in his heart in response to these torments, “Let him go, if he will”, then for two more years he wandered around thinking he had committed the unforgivable sin. And when he went to an old Christian to ask whether he had committed the unforgivable sin, the old man said, “YES!” This one mental act of a disturbed mind was thought by this poor tortured man to damn him.

No, that is not the unforgivable sin.

For the one blasphemy which will not be forgiven is not this sin (v. 29). The blasphemy is not an individual act, be it mental, verbal, or actual. If it was, what do we make of Paul’s continual blasphemy and resisting of the Holy Spirit, before the Damascus Road, kicking against the goads? And notice that Jesus doesn’t say that the teachers of the law have actually committed this unforgivable sin—rather, they are in danger of it. For this unforgivable sin is not just one act, or class of acts, but that settled, life long rejection of the Jesus who works by the Spirit. The unforgivable sin is that heart attitude that continues to call Jesus’ good works by the Holy Spirit ‘evil’, and that this rebellion against the good Christ is not repented of. Other parts of the bible point to this. The previous verse points to this, which says, “all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven.” Even the present tense of the verb points to this: a continuous, unrepented of rejection of the Spirit’s testimony about Jesus.

Mind you, I’ve seen this verse misused another way. I remember being on the train and got talking to an old man who claimed that he was speaking by the Spirit, and implied that rejecting his claim of speaking by the Spirit was a blasphemy against the Spirit and an unforgivable sin. That’s not application of this passage but extortion and spiritual blackmail. Every claim of inspiration must be subject to verification and rejection.

A Family Reunion Thwarted (vv. 31-33)

Well, finally, Jesus’ family turn up. Jesus mother and brothers arrive. But they cannot enter, again because of the crowd. So they send for him. It is a reasonable request, especially if they have come 50km from Nazareth, and Jesus is in Capernaum. And the crowd lets Jesus know that his family are waiting outside.

But Jesus won’t come out. He asks an abrupt, almost harsh, question. Verse 32:

Who are my mother and my brothers? (NIV)

Certainly this shocked the crowd. Jesus was implicitly rebuking his mother and brothers. But this is all the more understandable if their intention was to take him back home to Nazareth because they considered that he was mad. Just as Jesus did at the Wedding at Cana in John chapter 2, so also he does here: he gently but firmly rebukes and corrects his mother. In John, when Mary stepped out of line by asking for wine, he said “Woman, what do you have to do with me?” Now he says “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

In other words, Jesus is saying that family connection and near relationship gives no special privileges or rights of audience. Instead, Jesus looks at those seated in a circle around him—the twelve and the other disciples—are his mother and sister and brother.

Jesus’ disciples are Jesus’ family because they do the will of God. And the will of God is this, “To believe in the one he has sent.” The twelve and the disciples listen to Jesus and follow him. That is the will of God.

Do you do the will of God? Do you listen to the Jesus of Scripture, sit at his feet and learn from him, and then do what he says? If so, you are as blessed as Mary herself.

I wonder at the special place Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy give to Mary. Jesus accords her blessed title to every Christian, to every person who does the will of God. Here he denies her any special place because of her relationship to him. Jesus could have given his mother pre-eminence, but the fact is, that when given the opportunity, he sharply refused to do it. Jesus does this also in Luke 11:27-28, when a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” And Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” Perhaps that is why Luke 11:27-28 doesn’t appear in the “Hail Mary”.

Who is Jesus?

So who is Jesus? He is not possessed by Satan, but he is the stronger one than Satan.

And why has he come? He has come to use that superior strength to conquer Satan, tie him up, and take his possessions. In the words of Colossians 1:14:

He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (NIV)

And Jesus is not ashamed to call those who trust him and obey his Heavenly Father his mother and sister and brother. We become his mother and sister and brothers when we trust and obey him, because he came to earth to die, and rise, so as to become the firstborn among many brothers.

Why don’t you join the family? It is open to all who do the will of the Father. And the will of the Father is this, “To believe in the one he sent, Jesus our Lord.

Let’s pray.

[1] But others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”. Compare also John 8:48, where Jesus is said to be “a Samaritan and demon possessed”, or John 7:5, where even Jesus’ brothers don’t believe in him.

[2] Mark elsewhere uses sandwich structures, where he starts a story, and then inserts another story that can ‘colour’ or ‘flavour’ both accounts, and then he resolves or completes the first story. You can see this literary device in Mark chapter 5, regarding the 12 year old dead girl, and the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. We also see this in chapter 11, with the account of the fig tree sandwiching an account of the clearing of the temple.

[3] If as is most likely, Jesus had physical brothers, children of Mary and Joseph, they could only ever have been ‘half-brothers’, because Mary conceived as a virgin, and Jesus took his human nature exclusively from her. If the common Roman Catholic or Orthodox view is adopted, the ‘brothers’ of Christ would have been the sons of Joseph and a previous wife, or more distantly related as ‘cousins’, and not what we would call blood relations or close family of Jesus at all.

(3) English Translation

20Καὶ ἔρχεται εἰς οἶκον· καὶ συνέρχεται πάλιν [ὁ] ὄχλος, ὥστε μὴ δύνασθαι αὐτοὺς μηδὲ ἄρτον φαγεῖν.

21And he came into the house, and again the crowd gathered [there], so that they were not able even to eat their meal.

21καὶ ἀκούσαντες οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἐξῆλθον κρατῆσαι αὐτόν· ἔλεγον γὰρ ὅτι ἐξέστη.

21And when those who were with him heard, they came out to take charge of him, for they were saying, "He is beside himself".

22Καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς οἱ ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων καταβάντες ἔλεγον ὅτι Βεελζεβοὺλ ἔχει καὶ ὅτι ἐν τῷ ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων ἐκβάλλει τὰ δαιμόνια.

22And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, "He has Beelzebul", and "[it is] by the prince of demons [that] he casts out demons".

23Καὶ προσκαλεσάμενος αὐτοὺς ἐν παραβολαῖς ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· πῶς δύναται σατανᾶς σατανᾶν ἐκβάλλειν;

23And calling them to [himself], [Jesus] spoke to them in parables, "How is Satan able to cast out Satan?

24καὶ ἐὰν βασιλεία ἐφ’ ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ δύναται σταθῆναι ἡ βασιλεία ἐκείνη·

24And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom is unable stand.

25καὶ ἐὰν οἰκία ἐφ’ ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ δυνήσεται ἡ οἰκία ἐκείνη σταθῆναι.

25And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

26καὶ εἰ ὁ σατανᾶς ἀνέστη ἐφ’ ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἐμερίσθη, οὐ δύναται στῆναι ἀλλὰ τέλος ἔχει.

26And if Satan stands against himself and is divided, he is not able to stand but his end has come.

27ἀλλ’ οὐ δύναται οὐδεὶς εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν τοῦ ἰσχυροῦ εἰσελθὼν τὰ σκεύη αὐτοῦ διαρπάσαι, ἐὰν μὴ πρῶτον τὸν ἰσχυρὸν δήσῃ, καὶ τότε τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ διαρπάσει.

27But no-one is able to enter the house of a strong man to steal his possessions, except he first binds the strong man, and then he can ransack his house.

28Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πάντα ἀφεθήσεται τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὰ ἁμαρτήματα καὶ αἱ βλασφημίαι ὅσα ἐὰν βλασφημήσωσιν·

28Truly I say to you, that all the sins and blasphemies of the sons of men will be forgiven, as much as they might have blasphemed.

29ὃς δ’ ἂν βλασφημήσῃ εἰς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, οὐκ ἔχει ἄφεσιν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, ἀλλ’ ἔνοχός ἐστιν αἰωνίου ἁμαρτήματος.

29But whoever has blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, he does not have forgiveness in the age [to come], but is liable for an 'age[-to-come]' sin.

30ὅτι ἔλεγον· πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον ἔχει.

30because they were saying, "He has an unclean spirit".

31Καὶ ἔρχεται ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔξω στήκοντες ἀπέστειλαν πρὸς αὐτὸν καλοῦντες αὐτόν.

33And his mother and brothers came and sent for him, calling him to come outside

32καὶ ἐκάθητο περὶ αὐτὸν ὄχλος, καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῷ· ἰδοὺ ἡ μήτηρ σου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί σου [καὶ αἱ ἀδελφαί σου] ἔξω ζητοῦσίν σε.

32And the crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, "Look, your mother and brothers and sisters are outside looking for you.

33καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς αὐτοῖς λέγει· τίς ἐστιν ἡ μήτηρ μου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί [μου],

33And answering them [Jesus] said, "who is my mother and my brothers?"

34καὶ περιβλεψάμενος τοὺς περὶ αὐτὸν κύκλῳ καθημένους λέγει· ἴδε ἡ μήτηρ μου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί μου.

34And looking around at those seated about him, he said, "Look, [here are] my mother and my brothers!

35ὃς [γὰρ] ἂν ποιήσῃ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ, οὗτος ἀδελφός μου καὶ ἀδελφὴ καὶ μήτηρ ἐστίν.

35For whoever does the will of God, this one is my brother and sister and mother."