[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.”
(Mark 3:22-30 ESV)
(Gr. form Beel'zebul), the name given to Satan, and found only in the New Testament (Matt. 10:25; 12:24, 27; Mark 3:22). It is probably the same as Baalzebub (q.v.), the god of Ekron, meaning "the lord of flies," or, as others think, "the lord of dung," or "the dung-god." (source)
Reading this text for the first time as a teen, i thought, how silly can they be. A bad thing can't make another bad thing leave? That would just be silly? Wouldn't one bad thing invite another bad thing to stay, or at least invite another bad thing into join? Why didn't the Pharisees see how silly they were being.
I have to admit, I still kinda think that way. Yet I can sorta understand where they are coming from. They are the leaders in the church and they see a fellow doing things that simply don't make sense to them. They wanted to find a way to warn the people away from him until they could sort him out. So they went with the easiest solution. "Tell the people that he is of the Devil and they'll stay away from him" is probably what their thinking was.
Jesus though didn't allow them to linger on that thought and immediately corrected the foolishness of it. Seriously, would Satan chase himself away? Henceforth we get a really common saying "can a kingdom divided against itself stand?"
Of course it can't. A nation under turmoil disintegrates.
Look at what has happened with the Soviet Union. Still a big country, but not as big as it was a while back. All these little countries splintering off from it. And families, oh my goodness, the greatest failing we have a body of believers.... all the families within us that divorce, churches that split up over petty things, all the dissension. How can we stand against the works of the devil if we keep letting him break us up? Seriously.
We should not be so divided.
We let him, we let him get us all knotted up. We should be binding him!!! Hold on. Isn't that what Jesus did though? He entered Satan's household and bound him up. We should be plundering his household! Shouldn't we? So why do we allow all these divisions to creep up into us? WHY? Why don't we get on with that we are supposed to be getting on with? Plundering his house. Standing as house NOT divided!
Jesus then moves onto another area. Our forgiveness of sins. All sins we make will be forgiven. Any blasphemies but ONE will be forgiven. We are not to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Full Definition of BLASPHEMY1 a : the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God b : the act of claiming the attributes of deity 2 : irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable (source)
Saying that Jesus was an unclean spirit was blaspheming him. It was claiming that Jesus was the opposite of what he indeed was/is. We do need to be wary of doing this.
I come away from this passage thinking to myself. I need to be careful where I attribute things. Being sure that I give the praise to God where it fits, and being silent when I am not so sure. See, if God doesn't allow it, it can't happen. He does allow Satan to move in our lives, only as much as he deems we can handle (see the story of Job). But not all that happens in our lives is evil right? Sometimes it's God's correction, or his way of telling us NO to a certain action. Let us then only give notice to the things that are truly of God and not assign negative attention where it be not warranted.
Make sense? Hope so, it does kinda in my mind. :)