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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 3:31

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There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.

31 35. His Mother and His Brethren come to Him

31. his brethren ] Their names, James, Joses, Simon, Judas, are given in Mat 13:55 and Mar 6:3. Some understand them to have been His literal “brethren,” others think they were the sons of Cleophas and Mary, the sister and namesake of the Virgin.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

See the notes at Mat 12:46-50.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Mar 3:31-35

There came then His brethren and His mother.

Spiritual kinship with Christ

See the honour and dignity of good Christians that believe in Christ. There is a most near union between Christ and them, even as near as between natural parents and children, or between those that are of nearest kindred by natural birth: therefore He accounts them as His spiritual kindred, as dear nod near to Him as His mother and brethren. And what an honour is this, to be of the spiritual kindred of Christ Himself, to be called and accounted His brother or His sister. If it be an honour to be of the blood-royal, or of the kindred of some noble personage, how much more honourable to be the brother or sister of Christ Jesus! Let all believers think of this dignity vouchsafed to them; and let it comfort them (as well it may) against all the contempt they meet with in the world. The grace of faith engrafts the believer into the stock of Christ, and brings him within His pedigree, making him to be of most near kindred with Him in a spiritual manner: it makes Christ and the believer as near to each other as natural parents and children; yea, as husband and wife, for it marries them together, whence it is that Christ is said to be the Husband of the true Church. Let this move us to labour for true faith in Christ. If we had been born and lived about the time when He was upon earth, would we not have been glad to be in the number of His natural brethren and sisters? How much more desirous should we be to be His brethren and sisters by faith? Never rest till thou know thyself a believer in Christ, and one of His kindred spiritually engrafted into Him; without this thou art miserable, though thou hast kinship by natural blood with all the princes and great men in the world. (G. Petter.)

The result of relationship with Jesus

The tenderest human ties were used by the Son of God as an illustration of our Divine relationship. To be Christs disciple is to belong to His family. Home, with its deep-rooted sympathies and precious endearments, is to picture our union with the Lord. Religion is as personal in its affections as in its duties. Holiness may seem to the undeveloped saint an almost fearful thing, hard to imagine, impossible to realize. But to live with Jesus and love Him is very real and very glorious. The believer finds a hand to clasp, a face to gaze upon, an ear for whispered confidences. How strange and beautiful the words must have sounded. It is as if a prince had taken by the hand a rude and ignorant slave, and drawn him into the dignity and affection of the royal household. (C. M. Southgate.)

Doing the will of God

One of the household words of the kingdom of God. It emphatically teaches that there are but two divisions of mankind-those who do the will of God, and those who disobey that will; and that not even the closest blood relationships (much less the possession of national, or church, or religious privileges) can in the slightest degree affect the distinctness and permanence of the line between these divisions. Of all relationships, spiritual ones are the closest; and there is but one permanent relationship to God, which is conformity to His will. (M. F. Sadler.)

Spiritual relationship

A poor, but pious, woman called upon two wealthy and refined young ladies, who, regardless of her poverty, received her with Christian affection, and sat down in the drawing room to converse with her upon religious subjects. While thus employed, a dashing youth by chance entered, and appeared astonished to see his sisters thus engaged. One of them instantly started up and exclaimed, Brother, dont be surprised; this is a kings daughter, though she has not yet got her fine clothing.

Divine relationships

Let us look at this subject in one or two of its important bearings upon some of the relative positions of life.

I. As regards our ties of natural relationship one to another. There is a bond stronger even than the strongest bond of nature. We may not say that Christ, as Divine, had an independence of natural affections. Yet these considerations are not to diminish the duty and affection which are to fasten relations together; no book invests our home relationship with such sweetness and power as the Bible. Yet there is a bond stronger. It is of the very last importance that the ties which fasten us together in blood and kindred should be exceedingly and paramountly strong. What parent does not feel it with his child? What husband does not feel it to his wife? Or what brother and sister do not feel it one to another? See, then, the immense necessity that the spiritual and the natural attachment run in one. Otherwise, there will be a want of sympathy. Otherwise, look at your position, worldly parents, if you have a pious child; or you, worldly children, if you have pious parents; or worldly brothers and sisters, if you have pious ones. With all you love, there is an influence at work in this world-and it may spring up any moment in your family-which may clash with the natural affections and the human obligations. And remember (it is almost awful to say it), remember, it has in it the elements of an infinite separation forever and ever. Do I say, that if your child is religious he will love you less? God forbid. But this I say, that if a worldly parent has a religious child, that child may be, and indeed sometimes must be, placed in the most difficult and perplexing of all possible relationships-a relationship of which the result may be most disastrous to peace. On the other hand, what and if the tide of grace rolls into the current of nature? What and if the omnipotence of a heavenly love wrap round and bind the human attachment? What and if relations are one in the unity of the mystical body of Christ? What and if we have our natural fathers spiritual fathers, and our natural children spiritual children, and our natural brothers and sisters brothers and sisters in Christ? How exceedingly, how eternally happy the bond! Now then, brethren, if it be so, what an argument there is here! Never voluntarily form any connection which is not in the Lord! And what an argument is here for continual, earnest prayer, and efforts for the conversion and salvation of those who are nearest and dearest to us. For then are they fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children indeed when the one Christ in all hearts makes one body and one soul; and the ray from heaven meeting the ray from earth, they blend together, till they glow into a perfect flame of light and love. But there is another relative duty which necessarily grows out of these words.

II. And now, God is gathering such a family around Him, and all the feelings and affections which He has planted in these hearts of ours, even the fondest, are only the dim types and shadows of that higher life, when before admiring hosts He shall say, Behold My mother and My brethren. But who are they who are so very dear to Christ? Now mark everywhere Christs jealousy for the Fathers glory, Whosoever shall do the will of My Father. That is the road to the heart of Christ-do Gods will. The determining question is, What is the will of God? Am I doing it? (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

The different phases of the love of Christ

And so it is, my brethren. The love of Christ is represented to us in the text as comprising within itself all those affections which endear our homes to us, and which, being all derived from His fulness, are parted in a fragmentary state among the various relationships of human life. Consider the manifoldness of aspect under which this love is represented to us. Christ Himself is represented to us under manifold aspects-each aspect suitable and satisfying to some want of the human mind. There are four portraitures of Christ-four gospels; and why? Because the subject to be apprehended is infinitely grand, and the minds capabilities of apprehension limited. It is with the mind as with the eye. If an object be real and substantial, the eye does not take it in, in its integrity, by viewing it on one side only. Thus it is with a house or other building. You survey it from a point at which only one side is turned towards you. It presents certain features, a certain arrangement of buttress and arch, doorway and window. This, however, is but a superficial acquaintance with it. Go round, and view another side. You discover there fresh designs of architectural beauty, or fresh adaptations to the convenience of the inmates. And now a third side. It is in shade and frowns-leaving altogether an impression on the mind, totally different from that upon whose white marble the sunlight was sparkling. When you have seen the fourth side, you have seen all: your impression is complete-it is made up of various elements, but all combine to form one whole. Now the mind resembles the eye. It can only become acquainted with objects-especially with large and comprehensive objects-piecemeal. It cannot gain the whole truth from one survey, without planting itself at different standing points. Even so it will help us to realize the love of Christ, if we consider one by one its various elements, those bright lines which enter into its composition.

I. What is the distinguishing trait of a brothers love. The idea is not congeniality of tastes in every respect, but active support in all the struggles and difficulties of life. This, then, is the first phase of the love which is in Christ-the love of active support.

II. The same is My sister. A love remarkable for its tenderness and delicacy-different from that entertained towards a brother. This, then, is the second phase of the love which is in Christ-the being sensitive to the feelings of the person loved.

III. The same is My mother. The love entertained for a sister and mother have the one element in common. But superadded is a feeling of reverence, honour, and gratitude (1Ki 2:19). Them that honour me I will honour (1Sa 2:30). That God and Christ will honour sinful man confers great dignity. Such, then, are the several ingredients of the love of Christ towards all those who come under the terms here specified. Nay, all love and affection, existing among men, in whatever quarter and under whatever circumstances, may be said to be comprised in His love, into be a mere emanation from the fulness of love which is in Him. Again I recur to my image of the light. Light is one thing, though comprising in itself several hues. All the fair hues of nature inhere in the light-so that where there is no light, there is no colour. Wherever the light travels, it disparts its colours to natural objects-to one after this manner, to another after that-the emerald green to the leaves-to the flowers violet, and yellow, and crimson. And in the same manner all love is in Christ, and is from Him, as its Fountainhead and Centre, disparted among the various relations of human life. A ray from His light struggles forth in the care of the father, in the tenderness of the mother, in the active support of the brother or friend, in the sisters refined sympathy-nay, in the affectionate homage of the son. And this whole love, in all its manifold elements, is brought to converge, with unshorn beams, upon that thrice happy man or boy, who does the will of God. (E. F. Goulburn, D. C. L.)

The kinsmen of Christ

I. Christ determines the claims of earthly relationship when compared with the claims of God and duty.

1. His mother and brethren presumed on their relationship.

2. The multitude concurred.

3. Christ practically declared the superior claims of duty-or of God, to those of earthly relations. Relations and duty often clash. But for this decision, how much difficulty, etc. How much support has it given.

II. The weakness of the ties of nature, when compared with those ties to which the gospel gives existence.

1. Christ asked who His mother and brethren were, i.e., who stood to Him in nearest relation?

2. He answered the question-His disciples. The one temporary, the other eternal.

3. Their comparative strength has been tried.

4. How beautiful when united!

III. The honourable position of believers-the kinsmen of Christ.

1. He has entered the human family.

2. He has introduced them into the Divine family.

3. As a kinsman He redeemed the inheritance which was lost.

4. He is not ashamed, in heaven, to call them brethren.

5. They take rank from Him, not He from them.

IV. The character of Christs kinsmen.

1. It is in respect of the moral nature that man is born again.

2. The Divine nature, which through regeneration is imparted, is holiness.

3. Hence the family likeness, i.e., holiness. (Expository Discourses.)

Relationship to Christ

I. Its importance. It is an everlasting relationship.

1. It delivers us from what is earthly and vain. It is only by the formation of a higher kinsmanship that we can be severed from the drag of the carnal.

2. It connects with salvation and eternal life. It is the grafting into the living stem of the vine.

3. It connects us with honour and glory. All that our kinsman has becomes ours.

II. Its formation (Joh 1:12). This is the first point at which we commence doing the will of God.

III. Its manifestation. A life of service, of doing the Fathers will.

1. Are our hearts doing the Fathers will?

2. Are our intellects doing the Fathers will?

3. Are our purposes doing the Fathers will?

4. Is our life doing the Fathers will?

5. Is our family doing the Fathers will?

6. Is our business life doing the Fathers will? Thus let us test our relationship to Christ. (H. Bonar, D. D.)

The test of relationship:-If you go out into the woods in the summer, you may see, high up on some tree, a branch with dry twigs and withered leaves. It seems to be a part of the tree. Yet when you look closer, you find it has been broken away, and now it is only a piece of dead wood encumbering a living tree. The test of relationship with the tree is life-fruit-bearing. That is also the test of relationship with Christ. The power which binds the iron to the magnet is unseen, but real; the iron so bound becomes itself a magnet: the power that binds believers to Christ and makes them members of Him, is as real, though also unseen..

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 31. His brethren and his mother] Or rather, his mother and his brethren. This is the arrangement of the best and most ancient MSS.; and this clause, , and thy sisters, Mr 3:32, should be ADDED, on the authority of ADEFGMSUV, fifty-five others, some editions, the margin of the later Syriac, Slavonic, Gothic, and all the Itala except four. Griesbach has received this reading into the text.

Calling him.] This clause is wanting in one copy of the Itala. The Codex Alexandrinus has , seeking him.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

See Poole on “Mat 12:46“, and following verses to Mat 12:50.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

There came then his brethren and his mother,…. At the same time he was speaking to the Scribes, who seem to be different persons from his friends and kinsmen, Mr 3:21,

and standing without; for Christ was within, in the house, talking with the Scribes and Pharisees, and preaching to the people; and the crowd being so great, that they could not get into the house; they

sent unto him, calling him: they not only sent one in to let him know who they were, and that they were without doors, desirous to speak with him; but also, with a voice as loud as they could, called to him themselves; [See comments on Mt 12:46].

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Family of Christ.

31 There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. 32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. 33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? 34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! 35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

Here is, 1. The disrespect which Christ’s kindred, according to the flesh, showed to him, when he was preaching (and they knew very well that he was then in his element); they not only stood without, having no desire to come in, and hear him, but they sent in a message to call him out to them (Mar 3:31; Mar 3:32), as if he must leave his work, to hearken to their impertinences; it is probable that they had no business with him, only sent for him on purpose to oblige him to break off, lest he should kill himself. He knew how far his strength would go, and preferred the salvation of souls before his own life, and soon after made it to appear with a witness; it was therefore an idle thing for them, under pretence of his sparing himself, to interrupt him; and it was worse, if really they had business with him, when they knew he preferred his business, as a Saviour, so much before any other business.

2. The respect which Christ showed to his spiritual kindred upon this occasion. Now, as at other times, he put a comparative neglect upon his mother, which seemed purposely designed to obviate the prevent the extravagant respect which men in aftertimes would be apt to pay her. Our respect ought to be guided and governed by Christ’s; now the virgin Mary, or Christ’s mother, is not equalled with, but postponed to, ordinary believers, on whom Christ here puts a superlative honour. He looked upon those that at about him, and pronounced those of them that not only heard, but did, the will of God, to be to him as his brother, and sister, and mother; as much esteemed, loved, and cared for, as his nearest relations, v. 33-35. This is a good reason why we should honour those that fear the Lord, and choose them for our people; why we should be not hearers of the word only, but doers of the work, that we may share with the saints in this honour, Surely it is good to be akin to those who are thus nearly allied to Christ, and to have fellowship with those that have fellowship with Christ; and woe to those that hate and persecute Christ’s kindred, that are his bone and his flesh, every one resembling the children of a king (see Jdg 8:18; Jdg 8:19); for he will with jealously plead their cause, and avenge their blood.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Standing without ( ). A late present from the perfect . Pathetic picture of the mother and brothers standing on the outside of the house thinking that Jesus inside is beside himself and wanting to take him home. They were crowded out.

They sent unto him, calling him ( ). They were unwilling to disclose their errand to take him home (Swete) and so get the crowd to pass word unto Jesus on the inside, “calling him” through others. Some of the MSS. add “sisters” to mother and brothers as seeking Jesus.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

NEW RELATIONSHIP IN CHRIST, V. 31-35

1) “There came then His brethren and His mother, and, standing without,” (kai erchontai he meter autou kai hoi lphoi autou) “And His mother and His paternal brothers came to Him of their own accord,” (kai echo stekontes) “And standing outside the house or residence,” where Jesus was. Jesus had four brothers, James, Joses, Juda, and Simon, and two or more sisters, unnamed; Mar 6:3; Luk 8:19-21.

2) “Sent unto Him, calling Him.” (apesteilan pros auton kalountes auton) “They sent a message to Him,” calling for Him. This passage certifies that Mary, the mother of Jesus, did not remain a virgin after the birth of Jesus, but gave birth to those children, by Joseph the carpenter.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Mar. 3:31. His brethren.The word means nothing more than His nearest male relatives. Probably either the sons of Joseph by a previous marriage, or of the Mary mentioned in Mar. 15:40. It is inconceivable that our Lord should have assigned His mother to the care of John, if she was the mother of four other sons.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mar. 3:31-35

(PARALLELS: Mat. 12:46-50; Luk. 8:19-21.)

Kinship to Christ.Notwithstanding the organized opposition of the religious leaders, crowds continue to surround Christ, eagerly listening to His gracious words. But His friends and relatives, already convinced that He is beside Himself (Mar. 3:21), now induce His mother to accompany them into His presence. The reason must have been, observes Calvin, either that they were anxious about Him, or that they were desirous of instruction; for it is not without some good reason that they endeavour to approach Him, and it is not probable that those who accompanied the Holy Mother were unbelievers. The warmth of natural affection may have carried them beyond the bounds of propriety; but I have no doubt that they were led by pious zeal to seek His society. One would fain believe that this estimate of their conduct is the true one, rather than the harsher judgment of Chrysostom, that the Blessed Virgin wanted to make a public display of her maternal authority. But, whatever the motive may have been, whether wholly innocent or partly blameworthy, Christ seizes the opportunity to set forth eternal truths of far-reaching import.

I. A sad fact.So far from blood relations being, as a matter of course, helpers and promoters of spiritual duty or lofty sacrifice in the home of which they are inmates, the history of all times goes to prove the very contrary; in the persecutions endured for the faiths sake the daughter has risen against her mother, and the father against his son, and the house has been divided against itself; and the sword (not of the Spirit) has invaded it. We may have to choose between Christ and some one who, after the flesh, is as dear to us as our own soul. Which shall we go with? (Mat. 10:37.) A call to the mission field, or the preference of a quiet Christian life to a career of splendour and fashion, or a profession which implies the reproach of Christ rather than the riches of Egypt, has often disturbed families and parted kinsfolk (Bishop Thorold).

II. A great principle.Christ here declares most emphatically, that obedience, not privilege, constitutes true kinship to Himthat the spiritual fellowship which He came from heaven to establish, and which all may equally participate in, is a far higher and more precious thing than any mere earthly tie. So far, however, from in any way depreciating the natural relationships of brother, sister, mother, He adds to them fresh dignity and interest, by adopting them as fit terms for the description of His closest union and communion with believers. It was not that He denied the claims of the flesh, but that He was sensitive to other, subtler, profounder claims of the spirit and spiritual kinship. He would not carelessly wound a mothers or a brothers heart, but the life Divine had also its fellowships and affinities, and still less could He throw these aside (Dean Chadwick). As Bengel puts it: He contemns not the mother, but He places the Father first.

III. An abiding law.There is no tie so close, so holy, so blessed, so exquisitely tender, as that which joins one regenerate soul to another in the mystical body of Christ. The joy of the common salvation, the inheritance of the faith once delivered to the saints, the fellowship in the gospel, the inexplicable experience of the love which passeth knowledge, the hope laid up in heaven, the sympathy and zeal and ardour for the honour of the Saviourthese constitute an unity closer, surer, fonder, deeper, than the dearest earthly tie which human souls can know (Bishop Thorold). The tender bonds of family affection can find stability nowhere but in Christ, the Elder Brother, who is the Only Begotten Son of the Eternal Father, from whom every family both in heaven and earth is named.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Mar. 3:31. The family visit.We place this visit of the mother and brethren of Jesus immediately after His return to Capernaum, and we attribute it to Pharisaic opposition, which either filled those relatives of Jesus with fear for His safety, or made them sincerely concerned about His proceedings. Only if it meant some kind of interference with His mission, whether prompted by fear or affection, would Jesus have so disowned their relationship.A. Edersheim, D.D.

Christs outside kindred.They were withoutthat is, not in the inner circle of the crowd standing by Him and with Him, but on the outside of the crowd, loving Him, but wanting to get Him away from His present surroundings. They no doubt thought Him unwisely carried away with enthusiasm, and that He was spoiling or hurting His cause as well as imperilling His life. Jesus has many outside kindredthose who admire Him, and appreciate to some extent His sublime teaching on ethical points; but they do not understand Him as the worlds Saviour; especially they do not understand the significance of His death and His relations to all men irrespective of persons, and the nature of that new kingdom of men and women born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God.G. F. Pentecost, D.D.

Weigh the calls.This was a call to give up His work. We must be careful to weigh the calls that come to us. Even the calls of kindly consideration may need to be resisted.

Mar. 3:33-35. Lessons.

1. The power of interfering with others in such a way as to do good is a very rare possession.
2. Sometimes it is our duty to take a course that grieves dear friends. In such cases aim at doing as Jesus didblending perfect gentleness with perfect firmness.
3. Nearness to Christ is a matter not of race, or place, or time, but of heart.
4. Let all seek this essential grace that was the root grace of Christs characterand live daily, hourly, doing the will of our Father in heaven.R. Glover.

The false and the true family of Jesus.

1. The one would watch over Him and His cause; the other will be watched over by Him.
2. The one would lead Him; the other will be led by Him.
3. The one would save Him; the other will be saved by Him.
4. The one would restrain and bring Him into danger; the other will be restrained and bound by His Word and Spirit.J. P. Lange, D.D.

Mar. 3:34. The Churchs relationship to Christ.Christ here speaks of the relationship which the Church on earth can hold to Him.

1. It can be, as it were, a mother to Himcan, as that highly favoured and blessed among women, bear Him, again and again, to a perishing world which needs Him,can, I say, be as she was, but is not, because lofty purity and lowly submission to Gods will are lacking.

2. Or the Church can be as those brothers werethose who tenderly cared for Himthose who misunderstood Him, and would fain protect Him from Himselfthose who at length learned to believe in Him, and to suffer with Him, and to stand witness before kings for His sake: thus can the Church be, when it gets the brotherly heart, and thinks more of Christ than of self.
3. Notice that Christ did not say, when He spoke of the relationship man can hold to Him, Behold My Father. That is a position no man by himself, nor all men put together, can hold to Him. For the fathers position (and half the worlds evils, domestic, political, and religious, have arisen from forgetfulness of this) is the originating and governing position. The true son only then lives when he does the will of his father. And the Christ, who saves, admits no mans right to stand in this governing, regulative position to Him.J. W. Owen.

Mar. 3:35. Christs spiritual kindred.Wonderful words!

1. Think of it, busy toiler, far away, perhaps, from the home of your youth; a young man here in this city, it may be, with few friends. Here is an assurance of the Saviours brotherly kindness.
2. Or you may be a daughter trying to lift a mothers burden or a fathers care. No matter how poor or needy, if you are doing Gods will, Christ calls you His sister.
3. You may be a wearied, perplexed mother, with many little ones, and disheartened with the work and burden of home, where the bitter and sweet mingle. Jesus calls you Mother, and makes Himself your Son!E. P. Parker, D.D.

The gospel of the family of God.We have had the gospel of the kingdom of God, and glad tidings it has been indeed; but have we not here something even better? It is much to be permitted to hail the Son of God as our King: is it not better still to be encouraged to hail Him as a Brother, to know that all that is sweetest and tenderest in the dear words brother, sister, mother, can be imported into our relation to Him? How it endears the heavenly relationship, and hallows the earthly!J. M. Gibson, D.D.

The family of love and service.All those who have been impelled by a higher inspiration, and those who, subjugated by Gods call, have dedicated their whole life to His service, will understand without difficulty these words of Jesus. Every strong conviction ends by taking possession of us; it overcomes and absorbs us, and tears us ruthlessly from everything else; it becomes our sole object, and outside it nothing seems to touch us: those who do not understand it are strangers to us; those who attack it are our enemies; those who love and serve it with us are our true, our only family.Father Didon.

All to each.He does not say that one of us is to Him as a brother, and another is to Him as a sister, and another is to Him as a mother, according to the several features of our different characters; but the man who does the will of God, the same occupies, at one and the same time, all those endearing relationships. He stands in the confidence of the brother, in the fondness of the sister, and in all the holy and respectful attachment even of a mother.Jas. Vaughan.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3

Mar. 3:35. The test of relationship is life.If you go out into the woods in summer, you may see, high up on some tree, a branch with dry twigs and withered leaves. It seems to be a part of the tree. Yet, when you look closer, you find it has been broken away, and now it is only a piece of dead wood encumbering a living tree. The test of relationship with the tree is lifefruit-bearing. That is also the test of relationship with Christ. The power which binds the iron to the magnet is unseen, but real; the iron so bound becomes itself a magnet: the power that binds believers to Christ, and makes them members of Him, is as real, though also unseen.

All love in Christ.Light is one thing, though comprising in itself several hues. All the fair hues of nature inhere in the lightso that where there is no light, there is no colour. Wherever the light travels, it disparts its colours to natural objectsto one after this manner, to another after thatthe emerald green to the leavesto the flowers violet, and yellow, and crimson. And in the same manner all love is in Christ, and is from Him, as its Fountain-head and Centre, disparted among the various relations of human life. A ray from His light struggles forth in the care of the father, in the tenderness of the mother, in the active support of the brother or friend, in the sisters refined sympathynay, in the affectionate homage of the son. And this whole love, in all its manifold elements, is brought to converge, with unshorn beams, upon that thrice happy man or boy who does the will of God.Dean Goulbourn.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

D. THE HOUSEHOLD OF CHRIST 3:31-35

TEXT 3:31-35

And there come his mother and his brethren; and, standing without, they sent unto him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them, and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren? And looking round on them which sat round about him, he saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 3:31-35

151.

Are we to associate this incident with the one in Mar. 3:21? If so how?

152.

How many half-brothers did Jesus have? (Cf. Mat. 13:56; Mar. 6:3)

153.

Why had His mother and brothers come?

154.

Did Mary or the brothers speak to Jesus personally?

155.

What was the purpose behind the reply of Jesus?

156.

Did Jesus ignore the request of His mother? What impression did this make upon the multitude?; upon His mother?; upon His brothers?

COMMENT

TIMEAutumn A.D. 28.
PLACEAt home in Capernaum or on hill outside the city.

PARALLEL ACCOUNTSMat. 12:46-50; Luk. 8:19-21.

OUTLINE1. The arrival from Nazareth of His mother and brothers, Mar. 3:31. 2. The message relayed to Jesus, Mar. 3:32. 3. The response of Jesus to the visit, Mar. 3:33-35.

ANALYSIS 3:31-35

THE ARRIVAL FROM NAZARETH OF HIS MOTHER AND BROTHERS, Mar. 3:31.

They stood without the door of the house.

They requested an audience with Him.

II.

THE MESSAGE RELAYED TO JESUS, Mar. 3:32.

Word sent in to the house from the family to the multitude.

Someone told Jesusprobably one of His apostles.

III.

THE RESPONSE OF JESUS TO THE VISIT, Mar. 3:33-35.

Answered with a question.

He was now speaking with His family.

Their needs were met in doing the will of God.

EXPLANATORY NOTES 3:31-35

THE ARRIVAL FROM NAZARETH OF HIS MOTHER AND BROTHERS, Mar. 3:31.

Mar. 3:31-32. They had come to take him. (See note on Mar. 3:21). Mark has meanwhile described the scene in which they found him and the conversation in which he was engaged. He graphically shows them coming, standing without, and sending their message in through the crowd which they could not penetrate.

II.

THE MESSAGE RELAYED TO JESUS, Mar. 3:32.

A multitude sat about him. Not the multitude. Some manuscripts (and Tischendorf, not the revisers) read, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren and thy sisters without are seeking thee. The sisters are mentioned at Mar. 6:3, but we know nothing of their names or history. His mother, coming as his mother, would doubtless have been welcomed; but an intrusive coming of his kindred to interfere with his work was quite another matter. Now that he was fully about his Fathers business, it was even more necessary than at the beginning of his work (Joh. 2:4) that his mother should leave him to his Fathers guidance. The moment, too, was a solemn one; he had just been speaking of the deadly opposition between the two kingdoms, and was in a frame of mind to prize most highly those who were with him and were not scattering abroad. Any attempt to scatter abroad, to weaken his work, would then be especially painful to his soul, and the more if it came from those who ought to know him well. Yet in their coming, (at least, we may be sure, in his mothers) there was kindness, but kindness how ignorant and mistaken! With what faults of friends he had to bear, as well as with evil in enemies! Not without pain, however, can he have given to his mother this rebuff. It was necessary; but he was a genuine son, and had a sons grateful and loyal heart toward his mother. His dying act of care for her (Joh. 19:26) was a more congenial act to his heart.

III.

THE RESPONSE OF JESUS TO THE VISIT, Mar. 3:33-35.

Mar. 3:33-35. Who is my mother, or my brethren? As if he did not know any from without who might appeal to him in that name.He looked round about on them which sat about him. Literally, in a circle about him. A graphic touch of Mark, to which Matthew adds another Stretching out his hand toward his disciples, The gesture impressed one beholder, the look another. Very full of tenderness and solemnity must the look have been, accompanying such words, for here is the adoption of the obedient.Behold (these are) my mother, and my brethren! for whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and my mother. In Luke, My mother and my brethren are these, who hear and do the word of God. Compare Every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them (Mat. 7:24). The center of his true kindred is not the mother, the brother, or the sisters, but the Father. This, he says, is the only center; there is no true unity with him except through spiritual harmony with the will of God: Whoever would be a brother to me must be a child to him. Without this even natural kinship is as nothing. This, he also says, is the real centerthe center of an actual unity; whoever is doing the will of God is united to Jesus by a tie stronger than any tie of flesh and blood: Whoever is my Fathers own is my own, one of my true kindred, in the closest bonds. Does he not even imply that the relation is as close and tender on one side as on the other?toward the true brother, sister, and mother as toward the Heavenly Father? Do not God and they that do the will of God thus come into one family for Jesus, in which one and the same love reaches out in both directions? He said elsewhere, As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you; and this is almost saying, As I love my Father, so do I love you. Does this passage make God (or the doing of the will of God) the way to Christ, rather than Christ the way to God? Yes, in a sense. Whoever comes to Christ does the will of God in doing so, and it is in (not by the merit of) the doing of what God appoints that Christ accepts him. In all this Jesus did not disown the ties of kindred or put any slight upon them; rather did he show how highly he esteemed them. What must the natural relations be to him if he can make them the illustration of his relations both to God who sent him and to the people whom he saves?Notice that the two misstatements respecting Jesus, He is beside himself and He hath Beelzebul, are morally very far apart, One was a misunderstanding of his workan ignorant, mistaken misrepresentation in which there was at least room for the anxiety of affection, and in which he was regarded as unfortunate. It implied spiritual ignorance, but not malignity. The other was a malignant refusal to see good in him, and a spontaneous judgment that his highest good was highest evil. The one corresponds to speaking a word against the Son of man; while the other at least approaches the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.It is a satisfaction to find that after the resurrection of Jesus, Mary, the mother of the Lord, and his brethren were with the apostles in the upper room, where they waited for the fulfillment of Jesus promise (Act. 1:14). (W. N. Clarke)

FACT QUESTIONS 3:31-35

182.

Who probably instigated the visit of the family?

183.

Read Mar. 6:3 and Joh. 19:26 and notice the expression son of Mary as in contrast to the way the brothers are mentioned.

184.

Why did Jesus commit the care of his mother to John if He had brothers?

185.

Is there any contradiction in the accounts concerning the message of Mary and His brothersCf. Mat. 12:47; Luk. 8:20; Mar. 3:31.

186.

What type of rebuke did Jesus give to His relatives? Show how this was needed.

187.

Why look round about Him and stretch forth His hand?

188.

Please explain how doing the will of God makes us brothers and sisters to Christ.

SUMMARY 2:13:35

There are three facts set forth in the preceding section, which have an important bearing on the claims of Jesus. The first is the fact that he had authority to forgive sins. This was demonstrated in the case of the paralytic (Mar. 2:1-12), and it is the one fact which proves Jesus adapted to the highest demands of human salvation. Sins being forgiven, all other blessings follow as a consequence.

In the second place, it is shown that his conduct as a man was irreproachable. He was attacked in reference to the company he kept (Mar. 2:13-17); in reference to his neglect of fasting (Mar. 2:18-22); and in reference to Sabbath-keeping (Mar. 2:23-28; Mar. 3:1-6); but in all these matters he vindicated his conduct, and put his accusers to shame. That they made no more serious attacks on his conduct, proves that they could not, and that in morals he was irreproachable.

In the third place, it was demonstrated by his discussion with the Jerusalem scribes, that the power by which he cast out demons, and, a fortiori, the power by which his other miracles were wrought, was not, as they alleged, satanic, but divine. Finally, his answer to the people, in reference to the call of his mother and his brothers, is in perfect keeping with the character and position which the text assigns him. It is a singular infatuation which has led the Roman Catholic Church to attribute to Jesus even in heaven, a subserviency to his mother which he so expressly repudiated while on earth. (J. W. McGarvey).

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(31-35) There came then his brethren and his mother.See Notes on Mat. 12:46-50.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

45. JESUS’ MOTHER AND BRETHREN; WHO HIS RELATIVES, Mar 3:31-35 .

(See notes on Mat 12:38-45.)

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

31. There came then his brethren and his mother Fulfilling the purpose they expressed in Mar 3:21. But when they arrived from Nazareth they found him so surrounded as to be unable to get access to him. That the brothers of Jesus disbelieved in him was clearly a fact. But there is no proof that his mother ever doubted his miraculous conception or his divinity. At the first miracle in Cana of Galilee, her faith is impatient for the demonstration of his power, which she truly expected.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And there come his mother and his brothers, and standing outside they sent to him, calling for him.’

Earlier the crowds had come to Jesus (Mar 3:8). And now His relatives had come. But what a different reason there was for their coming. Mark probably intends us to see ‘standing outside’ as significant. They were of those who were on the outside, not of those who ‘came in’. Indeed they wanted Him away from His listeners so that they could carry Him off with them (Mar 3:21).

So they sent someone in to bring Him out to them (they dared not go in and seize Him with so many people there). No doubt Mary was the bait. Surely He would come out to His mother. But she was standing among the unbelievers as one with them and she could therefore have no say in what He did. That is why He could not respond to her. She was seeking to interfere with His mission. The fact that Jesus’ father did not come may indicate that he did not approve of this interference. Or it may signify that he was already dead.

We should not be too surprised at her attitude (unless we have unjustifiably over-exalted her). Although a good and godly woman she was still an earthly woman. She had pondered much in her heart (Luk 2:51), and had had confidence in what Jesus could do (Joh 2:5). But she was not fully at one with Him in His mission (Joh 2:4 and here) and clearly did not like it, and thus was mistakenly trying to interfere. Understandably she vacillated between the fact that He had come from God on the one hand, and her own doubts and prejudices, and especially what she had seen happen to John the Baptiser, on the other. She did not want that to happen to Him. She had been happy at the thought of being the mother of the Messiah (Luk 1:35; Luk 2:46-52) but had had no comprehension of the suffering Servant, or any willingness for Him to be such. Only His later ministry and the resurrection would cause her to change her mind about that (Act 1:14; note the lack of mention in Luk 8:2 and compare Mar 8:19. And even by Luk 23:49; Luk 23:55; Luk 24:10 she was not one of the number).

Naturally she would be there at the cross, for it was the Passover and it was her custom to be in Jerusalem for that, and He was the son of her flesh. What mother would not have been there under such circumstances? And there Jesus made provision for her care (Joh 19:27). But note that that is precisely how John interpreted it. He did not go to her home, he took her into his. He recognised that as a result of the words of Jesus He had a responsibility to care for her as a man has responsibility to care for his own mother, because Jesus had asked him to do so, presumably because Joseph was now dead. Thus Jesus committed His mother to the care of His best friend who was also at the cross. In all this there is not even a hint of the later myths and absurdities that would grow up around Mary.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Mary and Jesus’ Brothers Are Firmly Reminded of Their True Position. In Their Present State And Attitude They Do Not Count As Much As Genuine Believers For They Are Not Part of the Kingly Rule of God (3:31-35).

The section began with the initial manifestation of the One sent from God to drench men and women in the Holy Spirit, and to bring them under the Kingly Rule of God, Who was God’s own beloved Son. Now it ends with an initial indication of the new community that is being formed thereby. These are His new ‘brothers’.

This small but important passage comes as quite a shock to us. And this is especially so in the light of the fifth commandment to honour father and mother, which was treated very seriously by the Jews, and hopefully by us. But we must see it in its context. This was not an unfilial, unthinking act. It was an attempt to diffuse a difficult situation and to make clear how things now stood. And it is placed here because it is a further example to Mark of Jesus’ new status and authority. For by it Jesus made clear to all what the position now was. He was now no longer a carpenter and family man, He was, as God’s chosen One, the foundation and central pillar of the new people of God, the new Israel, and it was with such that His loyalties now lay. But it was brought on by the implacable attitude of His mother and His brothers.

For as a result of their decision in Mar 3:21 Mary and her other sons had arrived in order to ‘lay hold of’ Jesus and take Him away with them. They were truly concerned and had come to save Him from Himself. They had not come to listen and to learn, but to interfere with His ministry. They ‘stood outside’, not only outside where He was, but outside His ministry and outside the will of God. And they called for Him to come out, and He had to make clear where His loyalties lay.

Had His mother come privately as a mother to see her son she would have been treated differently. He would have greeted her warmly. But when she came publicly with her sons in an overt attempt to counter His chosen course and to force at least a temporary withdrawal from it, He could not receive her. And yet His reply was not so much a rebuke as an attempt to diffuse a difficult situation. The message they receive gently emphasises that they must not interfere. He is about His father’s business and must not be troubled (compare Luk 2:49). We should note here that Mark makes no attempt to exonerate Mary, and nor does Jesus. She takes her place with His brothers as those who are at present seeking to thwart the will of God.

But it was necessary for all to recognise that having commenced His Messianic mission heavenly ties had become more important than earthly ties and He thus had to point out that those who truly believed and obeyed God, and were in full tune with His ministry, counted for more at this time than loved ones who sought to interfere with His ministry. It was the former who were His true relatives. They were His brother and sister and mother in God. The mention of mother in this description stresses that He included Mary as equally worthy of blame and as therefore at least temporarily replaced. It was because at this stage Mary was not a full believer that she had no part in Him when it came to His ministry and she could not be permitted to use her relationship to seek to interfere with it. He was responsible to a higher authority.

From Mar 3:7 onwards Mark has been emphasising the authority of Jesus’ ministry continuing the stress begun in chapters 1 and 2. And this incident is another example of it. The One to Whom the world was seeking and Who was fulfilling the Isaianic ideal by healing and releasing captives (Mar 3:7-10), Who has established the new Israel by choosing the twelve (Mar 3:13-21), and has made known His successful and victorious confrontation with the very powers of darkness (Mar 3:22-30), is now revealed as One Who is above family ties because of Who He is, and because of His love and concern for His new community.

This is intended by Mark to powerfully bring out His special status, for it was only because of Who He is that His actions here are justified. Had He been just a healer or teacher they might not have been so (although even then He might have resisted interference with an important work). But because He was more than that, and it was their intention to interfere with His manifestation of Himself, it made it necessary for Him, while they had the attitude that they had, to repudiate them. For the alternative was to relinquish His mission, (which was in fact actually their aim). The incident, which would certainly not have been invented by the church, establishes quite clearly that He saw Himself as having a unique mission, the mission of being the Messiah Who had uniquely come to bring men to God.

That the sons are genuine sons of Mary and not half-brothers comes out in a number of ways. Firstly because Jesus was called ‘the carpenter’s son’ and ‘the carpenter’, an indication that He was prospective head of the family business, and head of the family, taking on His earthly father’s role (Mat 13:55; Mar 6:3). Secondly because He was also the ‘firstborn son’ (Mat 1:25; Luk 2:7) with no suggestion that He was not seen as Joseph’s firstborn. Had He not been seen in this way it would surely have been mentioned at this point, for the title of ‘firstborn’ indicated the prospective head of the family. Thirdly because it is doubtful if as a half-brother would James have been called ‘the Lord’s brother’ (Gal 1:19). A half brother would not have been accorded such status. And fourthly, and emphatically, because had Jesus not been the firstborn of Joseph, He would not have been in direct line to the throne of David and David’s heir. Indeed there are no grounds anywhere in Scripture, or even in first or second century literature, for any other view. Tertullian accepted it without any indication that it was not the norm. It was only centuries later for doctrinal reasons that other ideas began to develop.

Indeed had Jesus not been seen as the firstborn of Joseph He would not have had the right to be called ‘the king of the Jews’ (Mat 2:2). His elder brothers would have had that right. He would have been low in the line of descent. But His importance as ‘the son of David’ arose from an earthly point of view from the fact that He was the firstborn to the one who was first in line of descent, Joseph.

(That His grandfather was alive at the time of His birth comes out in that ‘the main room’ (‘kataluma’ – ‘guest-chamber’ (Mar 14:14; Luk 22:11) and not therefore an inn) in the family home was not available for Joseph and Mary when they travelled to Bethlehem so that they had to make do with the ground floor room among the domestic animals where, as in many such houses, there was a manger. To use this room for guests was a regular feature of life in Jewish households and was not seen as at all degrading).

Analysis.

a And there come His mother and His brothers, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling for Him (Mar 3:31).

And a crowd was sitting round Him, and they say to Him, ‘See, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you’ (Mar 3:32).

And He answers them, saying, “Who is My mother and My brothers?” (Mar 3:33).

And looking round on those who sat round Him He says, “See, My mother and My brothers” (Mar 3:34).

For whoever will do the will of God, the same is My brother and My sister and My mother” (Mar 3:35).

Note that in ‘a’ His mother and brothers are outside calling to Him, and in the parallel He declares who are His true brother, sister and mother. In ‘b’ the crowd of believers are sitting round and say, ‘See your mother and brother are outside looking for you’, and in the parallel Jesus looks round at the crowd of believers and says, ‘See My mother and My brothers’. Centrally in ‘c’ He asks the vital question, who is it who are truly related to Him?

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The true relatives of the Lord:

v. 31. There came then His brethren and His mother, and, standing without, sent unto Him, calling Him.

v. 32. And the multitude sat about Him, and they said unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren without seek for Thee.

v. 33. And He answered them, saying, Who is My mother, or My brethren?

v. 34. And He looked round about on them which sat about Him, and said, Behold My mother and My brethren!

v. 35. For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and My sister, and mother.

Jesus had barely finished His discourse directed to the Pharisees, when there came an interruption. We were told that His kinsmen had gotten ready to save Him against the probable loss of His reason, v. 21. They had, in the meantime, reached the house where Jesus was sitting with His disciples, the people, and the scribes. They sent a message to Him, calling Him. They believed that the demands of relationship superseded all other considerations. They had made up their mind to take Him away for a while. The message was gradually transmitted to the Lord while He was still sitting there in the midst of His hearers, for the people sat round about Him, willing enough, for once, to listen to His preaching. But when Jesus received the message, telling that His mother and His brothers (stepbrothers, half-brothers, or cousins) were anxiously looking for Him and wanted Him outside, He gave a characteristic answer. Slowly letting His gaze travel round about in the circle, where His twelve disciples were sitting in the first row, and many others that had learned to believe on Him as near as possible, He called these men (and women) His mother and His brethren, His true relatives. Not that Christ intended to disparage the claims of relationship. He Himself was a model in the obedience and respect toward His mother, Luk 2:51-52; Joh 19:27. But He wanted no unwarranted interference with His work and office. He desired to repudiate, first of all, the assumption as though He were not quite master of Himself and His actions. And He wanted them to understand, now and always, that the claims of earthly relationship did not dare to interfere with the business in hand, that of carrying out His ministry for the salvation of mankind. Under certain circumstances, it may happen even now, does happen, in fact, very frequently, that a man’s enemies are those of his own household, chapter 7:11-13; Mat 10:36. But the will of God may require that the relationship of blood, even the nearest and dearest relationship be denied in fulfilling His will. It may often take a great deal of spiritual knowledge and prudence, and at other times it may require an extraordinary amount of courage and determination, but the will of God in the government and work of His Church must be the paramount issue in all instances. There can be no divided allegiance in this case, Pro 23:26; Mat 10:37.

Summary. Jesus heals the man with a withered hand, performs miracles by the seaside, calls the twelve apostles, gives a discourse on the casting out of devils, and teaches wherein true relationship with Him consists.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mar 3:31-35 . See on Mat 12:46-50 . Comp. Luk 8:19-21 .

] points back, by way of resuming, to Mar 3:21 . See Krger, Cyrop. i. 5. 14; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 718. corresponds with , Mar 3:21 , where Bengel pertinently observes: “Exitum sequetur venire , Mar 3:31 .” Ebrard resorts to harmonistic evasions.

] They are named at Mar 6:3 . Of a “position of guardianship towards the Lord” (Lange), which they had wished to occupy, nothing is said either here or at Joh 7:3 , and here all the less that, in fact, the mother was present.

] outside, in front of the house , Mar 3:20 , Mat 12:47 .

Mar 3:32 . The mention of the sisters here for the first time is an inaccuracy.

Mar 3:34 . . ] Comp. Mar 6:6 ; Hom. Od. viii. 278; Herod. iv. 182; Plat. Phaed. 72 B, and the passages in Sturz, Lex. Xen. II. p. 803 f.

The expressive looking round was here an entirely different thing from that of Mar 3:5 . Bengel: “suavitate summa.” How little did His actual mother and His reputed brothers and sisters as yet comprehend Him and His higher ministry!

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1422
CHRISTS LOVE TO HIS PEOPLE

Mar 3:31-35. There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother [Note: Another on nearly the same words (Mat 12:46-50.) has occurred before. But on a comparison of the two they are so exceedingly different, that without altering a word in either, they are both presented to the public, in hope that both of them may be profitable, as illustrating different modes of treating the same text.].

IT is common for persons to feel an undue degree of solicitude for the bodily welfare of their friends, whilst they have little anxiety for the spiritual and eternal welfare of mankind at large. Hence, if a minister be in danger of impairing his health by his exertions, they are ready to say to him, Spare thyself but, if thousands be perishing all around them for lack of knowledge, they are not so ready to stir him up to increased activity and diligence. The near relations of our Lord were under the influence of this partial regard, when they went out to lay hold on him, and said of him, He is beside himself; or, as it might rather be translated, He is transported too far [Note: ver. 20, 21. .]. It should seem that it was with that view that they called for him at this time: they were afraid that he would sink under the weight of his continued labours. But he felt, that both health, and life too, were well sacrificed in such a cause: and therefore he disregarded their message, and turned it into an occasion of expressing the greatness of his regard for his obedient followers.

From this declaration of our Lord, we shall be led to shew,

The character of those whom Jesus loves

This is expressed in few, but comprehensive words; They do the will of God. But what is this will? It includes two things:

They believe in Jesus Christ

[This is eminently the will of God [Note: 1Jn 3:23. Joh 6:29.]: and till this be done, nothing is done to any good purpose: the persons remain, and ever must remain, objects of his wrath [Note: Joh 3:18; Joh 3:36.] This therefore they do in the first place And they do it humbly, renouncing utterly every other ground of hope and thankfully adoring God from their inmost souls for such a refuge ]

They seek after universal holiness

[This also is the will of God [Note: 1Th 4:3.]; nor are the loudest professions of attachment to Christ of any avail without it [Note: Mat 7:21.] And, this also they do. And they do it unreservedly, accounting no commandment grievous [Note: 1Jn 5:3.] and in a progressive manner, never thinking they have attained, while any thing remains to be attained [Note: Php 3:12-14.]

We pass on to consider,

II.

The regard he bears towards them

Our Lord gives them the preference to his nearest relations, as such; and honours them with the most endearing appellations of brother, sister, mother. Now from this we must understand, that,

He bears the tenderest affection towards them

[We naturally expect the warmest affection to subsist between persons so closely allied to each other. But the love that is found amongst earthly relatives is but a faint image of that which both Christ and his Father feel towards all their obedient followers [Note: Joh 14:21.] ]

He will give them the most familiar access to him

[His mother and his brethren were all this time without, whilst Jesus and his attentive followers were within, the house: and, though solicited by his own mother, he would not go out to her, because it would deprive them of the instructions which they were anxious to receive. And who can tell, what gracious communications Jesus will vouchsafe to those who serve him in spirit and in truth? They shall never seek his face in vain: they shall never call for him, but he will answer them, Here I am [Note: Compare Joh 14:23. with Isa 58:9; Isa 65:24.] ]

He will order every thing for their good

[Any man that is not devoid of principle will consult the good of his family, when the management of their affairs is committed to him. And will not Jesus, who is constituted Head over all things for the express benefit of his Church [Note: Eph 1:22.], be attentive to the interests of his obedient people? Will he not supply all their wants, mitigate all their sorrows, and over rule all things for their eternal good [Note: Rom 8:28.]? ]

He will own them as his, in the last day

[Suppose him in that day surrounded by the whole assembled universe; and many who were once related to him in the flesh, or who once professed themselves his followers, calling upon him, and saying, We want a nearer access to thee; we have eaten and drunk in thy presence; we have cast out devils in thy name, and in thy name done many wonderful works; we are thy brethren, thy sisters, thy nearest and dearest relatives. Methinks he will then renew the same gracious declaration that is contained in our text; Who is my mother, or my brethren? And then, stretching out his hand towards his obedient followers, he will say, Behold my mother, and my brethren: for, whosoever did the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.]

Infer
1.

How reasonable are the terms on which Christ proposes to acknowledge us as his disciples!

[He requires that all who would be his disciples should apparently cast off all regard for their nearest friends and relatives [Note: Luk 14:26.]. I say apparently; for nothing is really farther from his intentions, than to encourage, either by this declaration, or by that in the text, any disrespect to our parents: on the contrary, we are commanded to honour our parents; and are told by the Apostle, that that is the first commandment with promise. But when our love or obedience to earthly parents stands in competition with our obedience to Christ, then we must resemble Levi; in commendation of whom it is said, He said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children [Note: Deu 33:9. with Exo 32:26-28.]. And shall this appear harsh or unreasonable? See what Jesus has done for us: He knew not his mother and his brethren in comparison of his believing and obedient people: and shall we prefer our earthly relatives to him? If he has so loved us, who are altogether polluted, and deserve nothing but evil at his hands, how much more should we so love him, who is altogether lovely, and deserves infinitely more love at our hands than eternity will be sufficient to express!]

What encouragement have we to comply with these terms!

[In complying with the terms which Christ has proposed, and adhering to him in opposition to the will of earthly friends, we may possibly incur their displeasure, and feel to the uttermost of their power the effects of their resentment: they may frown upon us, disown us, disinherit us. But when father and mother forsake us, the Lord will take us up. His express promise is, that for one father, mother, brother, sister, house, or estate we lose for his sake, we shall even in this life receive a hundred fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, houses, and estates [Note: Mar 10:29-30.]. Does any one ask, How shall this be accomplished? We might answer, that it is abundantly verified in the regard shewn to us by the Lords people: but, independent of that, we say, the Lord Jesus will give himself to us, and be to us more than ten thousand relatives, or ten thousand worlds. Let any one say, whether the love of Christ, the grace of Christ, and the glory of Christ, do not compensate a hundred-fold for all the creature-love, and all the temporal advantages, that we can lose for him? Let the determination then of Joshua be ours; that whatever course others may follow, and whatever obstacles they may lay in our way, we, with Gods help, will serve the Lord.]

How unlike to Christ are they, to whom a compliance with these terms is odious!

[None are so odious in the eyes of the ungodly world as the true, faithful, determined Christian. The generality, instead of loving him in proportion to his advancement in piety, will despise him; and will make his high attainments, not only the occasion, but the measure, of their contempt. They will be ashamed to acknowledge a pious character as a relation, or friend, or even as an acquaintance. They would rather be seen in public with an infidel or debauchee, than with one who was eminent for his love to Christ. But how unlike to Christ are they; when the very thing which endears them to him, renders them odious in their eyes! Surely it will be well for such persons to consider what Christs views of them must be? for if the godly are so precious to him because they are godly, surely the haters and despisers of godliness must for that very reason be most hateful in his eyes. Accordingly he has told us, how he will resent the contempt shewn to his people; and that it were better for a man to have a millstone hanged about his neck, and to be cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of his little ones [Note: Mat 18:6.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

(31) There came then his brethren and his mother, and standing without sent unto him, calling him. (32) And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. (33) And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? (34) And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! (35) For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

For the Comment on this passage. See Mat 12:46 , etc.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

XXX

OUR LORD’S GREAT MINISTRY IN GALILEE

Part V THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT (Continued)

Harmony pages 59-60, same as for the preceding chapter and Mat 12:38-50 ; Mar 3:31-35 ; Luk 8:19-21 .

We are now ready to consider the unpardonable sin itself. Here, at the outset we meet a difficulty that needs to be removed. It is a question concerning the true text of the latter clause of Mar 3:29 . Our common version reads: “But is in danger of eternal damnation,” while the revised version reads: “But is guilty of an eternal sin.” Evidently these two renderings cannot be differences in translating the same Greek words. It is unnecessary to cite all the variations of the text in the several manuscripts on this short clause. For our present purpose we need to note only one. The revised version, on the authority of older and more reliable manuscripts than were before the King James translators, recognized as the true text hamartematos instead of kriseos. The former is rendered “sin,” the latter “damnation.” But the difficulty is not yet entirely explained. All the texts have the same Greek word enochos , which the common version renders “in danger of.” The question arises: How can there be such vast difference in rendering this one word? The difference is great and obvious since “in danger of” expresses a mere liability which may be averted, while “guilty of” expresses a positive, settled transaction. This difficulty is grammatical, and not textual so far as the word enochos is concerned, but is textual when we look at the case of the noun connected with it. If the noun in the true text is in one case, say the dative, then “in danger of,” “liable to” or ” exposed to” would fairly translate enochos . But if the noun with which it is connected is in a different case, say the genitive, then “guilty of” is the better translation. Well, it so happens that in the true text that is, the one so regarded by such scholars as Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, and others, and the one so accepted by both the English and American companies of the revisers of the new version in this text the noun hamartematos, rendered “sin,” is in the genitive case, hence enochos hamartematos with its modifying words is rightly translated “guilty of an eternal sin,” while enochos kriseos with the same modifying words might well be rendered “in danger of eternal judgment.” So that in the true text we find not only a different word meaning “sin,” instead of “damnation” or “judgment,” but we find that word in a case which will necessarily give color to the meaning of another word connected with it, about which there is no textual difficulty.

We accept, then, the text and rendering of the revised version. We hold it as the word of God, that whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit is at once, not liable to, but guilty of an eternal sin.” What, then, is an eternal sin? Does it mean an “eternal sinning”? That is, does the perpetuity refer to the committing? Evidently not. Doubtless one who has blasphemed the Holy Spirit will, as a matter of fact, continue to sin, but the language under consideration refers not to such fact. An eternal sin, as here intended, is an act already completed, whose guilt and judgment have already been incurred. It is called an eternal sin because its penalty can never be blotted out. Any sin would be eternal in this sense, if there were no possible way to escape its punishment. A sin becomes eternal, then, when all gracious means of forgiveness are withdrawn. For example: David committed a great sin. Its penalties, or chastisements, lasted to the border of this world. But it was not an eternal sin, because those penalties had an end. They did not continue forever. Grace stopped them with this life and blotted them out forever. What is blotted out has no existence. But the sin against the Holy Spirit is eternal, because thereby the sinner at once puts himself beyond the only means of pardon. Remember the principles already stated: Outside of grace no salvation; outside of Christ no grace; outside of the Spirit no Christ. Or without regeneration, justification, and sanctification, no salvation; and apart from the Spirit no regeneration, justification, and sanctification.

We have seen that as human governments become more civilized very few offenses are made capital, and these must be very heinous in character. Moreover, the conditions under which such crimes are possible are very stringent, to wit: discretionary age, sanity, premeditation, and malice. Not only so, but the accused is additionally hedged about by a liberal construction of all provocation and of the right of self-defense, and of the amount and character of the evidence necessary to conviction. Now since this benevolent modification of hitherto rigorous human law has been brought about by the influence of the Bible, we would naturally expect to find in that good book that the only unpardonable offense against divine law calls for a rare degree of heinousness, and such extraordinary conditions under which the sin could be possible, as would on their face vindicate the divine procedure from all appearances of harshness, with all right thinking intelligences. This high degree of heinousness and these extraordinary conditions are just what we do find.

It is not a sin to be committed by a thoughtless child immature youth nor by one of feeble mind, nor by the ignorant. It must be knowingly done, wilfully done, maliciously done, presumptuously done.

The whole matter may be made more forcible by stating clearly and considering separately the constituent elements or conditions of the unpardonable sin:

It is a sin of character crystallized in opposition to God.

By this is meant such a confirmed state of heart, and such fixedness of evil character, such a blunting or searing of moral perceptions as mark the incorrigibly wicked. Indeed, this reflection embodies the essence of the sin.

It is no impulsive, no hasty act, but proceeds from such a state of heart, such a character, such a servitude to evil habits, such a violent distortion or utter perversion of moral vision, such an insensibility to spiritual impressions as would indicate the hopelessness of benefit in the continuance of remedial appliances, since there is a point beyond which we cannot go without destroying individuality and moral agency.

The case in point is abundantly illustrative. Let us carefully examine each step of our way just here. Let us be sure we are right before we go ahead. Milton not inaptly represents the crystallization of Satan’s character in five words: “Evil, be thou my good.” Isaiah, in rapt, prophetic vision, forecasts the very characters fitted to commit the unpardonable sin. He denounces six woes which may well be compared to the eight woes denounced by our Lord (Isa 5:8-23 ; Mat 23:13-36 ). They all refer to character incorrigibly evil, such as (a) inordinate covetousness and selfishness that join house to house and field to field until there is no place for other people to have a home; (b) inveterate and confirmed drunkards that rise early and sit up late to inflame themselves with strong wines until they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands; (c) incorrigible sinners that draw iniquity with cords of vanity and defy the judgments of God; (d) moral perverts that justify the wicked and take away the righteousness of the righteous; (e) inveterate vanity and self-conceit; (f) but especially this one: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” Now this answers to Milton’s devil: “Evil, be thou my good.” And it was this very distortion and perversion of moral vision of which the Pharisees of this passage were guilty, and which constituted the essence of their blasphemy or slander of God. They called the Holy Spirit an unclean spirit. Upon this point the testimony of Mark is explicit. They are expressly declared to be guilty of an eternal sin, “Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.” But the words were significant only because they were symptoms of expressions of a state of heart a heart of overflowing, implacable hate and malice.

So, in the context, our Saviour declares: “How can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” It is therefore evidently out of harmony with the Bible concept of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, that thoughtless boys and girls, who sometimes in revival meetings manifest an irreverent spirit, do thereby commit the unpardonable sin.

I have myself conversed with a now genuinely good and converted mother, who, when young, once conspired with nine or ten other girls to practice on the credulity of a conceited young preacher by joining the church in a body and by being baptized, when the whole procedure was meant for a practical Joke. Some of these parties are now living and one of them is the exemplary wife of a Baptist preacher. The irreverence and impiety of the act were not realized until afterward. This was no blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. They were immature, ill taught girls, without malicious intent against God, and some others of them, as I have since learned, afterward most cordially repented of their great sin and received the gracious forgiveness of the Heavenly Father whose institutions and ordinances had been outraged by their folly. If we compare with this incident the act of Ananias and Sapphira, we may readily perceive the difference in degree of guilt.

It is an old proverb: “Nature has no leaps.” Character is a result of long working forces tending to permanency of type. We have thus reached a view of the first and most important element in this awful sin an element of character resulting from cumulative forces and habits.

It is a sin against spiritual knowledge. Far, far from us, however, be the thought that every sin against light or knowledge is unpardonable. Do allow me to make this very clear and very emphatic, because a host of good people have tortured themselves needlessly just here by misapprehension. They are conscious of having sinned, and of having sinned when they knew beforehand that what they were tempted to do and did was wrong. Misapplying the Scripture they have said to themselves: “The unpardonable sin is a sin against knowledge. I have sinned against knowledge. Have I not committed the unpardonable sin?” Here again let us step carefully. Let us be sure we are right before we go ahead. Look closely at a little catechism mark the emphatic words: The unpardonable sin is a sin against what knowledge? Against what degree of that knowledge? Is every sin against even that particular kind of knowledge necessarily unpardonable? Note the emphasis on the discriminating word in this second constituent element of the unpardonable sin. It is a sin against spiritual knowledge. How else could it be a sin against the Holy Spirit as specially distinguished from and contrasted with a sin against the Father or the Son?

Let us illustrate by the case of Paul. (a) According to his own testimony he was, before his conversion, “a blasphemer, and a persecutor and injurious” (1Ti 1:13 ). (b) By persecution and torture he “compelled others to blaspheme” (Act 26:11 ). (c) Yet he says, “I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief” (1Ti 1:13 ). What are the salient points of this case? We find here first an indisputable case of blasphemy, but it is blasphemy against the Son, which this passage declares to be pardonable. Next we find a case of ignorance which again makes the sin pardonable. This second finding is most pertinent to the matter in hand. It furnishes the clue, which properly followed leads us safely out of the maze of discussion on the unpardonable sin. What was Paul’s ignorance? We cannot deny that he had the Old Testament with all its shadows, symbols and prophecies pointing to the Messiah. We cannot deny that he had knowledge of the historical and argumentative proofs, certifying Jesus to be that Messiah. Wherein then was he ignorant? In this material point: Light from the Holy Spirit had not convinced him that Jesus was the Messiah. He had not spiritual knowledge and hence had not sinned against the Holy Spirit. In his soul he thought Jesus was an imposter. He “verily thought within himself he was doing God’s service” in warring against Jesus. His conscience was void of offense. Compare this with the demons: “We know thee, who thou art, thou Holy One of God.” Paul hated Jesus from an utter misconception of him, and loved him when the misconception was removed. The demons hated him the more, that they did not misconceive his mission and character. Because they knew he was the Messiah and because they painfully felt the presence of his holiness as a wolf is shamed or an owl is pained by the light; therefore they hated him.

Just here we approach a borderland whose precise boundary line has never been fixed by theological controversy. And yet in this narrow strip lies the unpardonable sin. Where the great have stumbled let guides of less degree walk humbly, circumspectedly, and prayerfully. I trust, at least, to make myself intelligible here. Some hyper-Calvinists hold that all subjects of influence from the Holy Spirit are necessarily saved, basing their arguments on such scriptures as, “Being confident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phi 1:6 ). From which they argue that the Holy Spirit never really touches any man except those pre-ordained to salvation. I hold unswervingly to the doctrine that in every case of genuine conversion the good work thus commenced will be graciously completed. But, in my judgment, the Bible is very far from teaching that the lost never had any spiritual light never were subject to any impressions made by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it would seem impossible otherwise to commit the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit.

With all light comes responsibility to accept it and walk in it. With all light comes liability. As said the Saviour, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not the sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin” (Joh 15:22 ). Unquestionable the degree of both guilt and penalty is measured by the degree of light against which one sins. This sentiment readily finds universal acceptance. It accords with our instinctive and intuitive ideas of justice. Certainly the Bible, at least, is very clear on this point. On what other principle could our Lord declare the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, more tolerable in the day of judgment than the punishment of the cities which rejected him and his servants (Mat 10:15 ; Mat 11:20-24 ; Mar 6:11 ; Luk 10:12-14 ) ? How else account for the difference in penalty between “a few stripes” and “many stripes” when the act of offense is precisely the same in both cases (Luk 12:47-48 ) ? How otherwise account for David’s distinction between “secret sins and presumptuous sins”? How otherwise could Paul represent God as “winking at” [i. e. a mercifully overlooking] “times of ignorance” (Act 17:30 ) ? How else could the men of Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba condemn at the judgment the generation that rejected Jesus (Mat 12:41-42 )? Now mark the application of this argument to the matter under consideration. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, and Jerusalem were guiltier than Sodom and Tyre, because a greater light, in a greater person than Lot, Solomon or Jonah, was in their midst.

But our Saviour himself teaches that the light is brighter still when the Holy Spirit works. And hence a sin against the Son of man may be pardonable while a sin against the Holy Spirit is unpardonable. But as Lot, Jonah, Solomon, and Jesus, the light-bearers, were all personally present in a way to be known and felt, so it must follow that the Holy Spirit, as bearer of a brighter light, must be personally present in a way to be known and impressively felt. Therefore none can commit this unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit unless he has known and felt his presence as a light-bearer. I say the presence of the Holy Spirit must be known and felt. The mind must be convinced of his presence, and the heart must feel it, and the inmost judgment of conscience must acknowledge it. This is precisely why the unpardonable sin is oftenest committed in great revivals. It is a sin against light spiritual light light known and felt, light so painfully, gloriously bright that a man must run from it, blaspheme or be converted. What miracle affecting only the physical man can equal the Spirit’s display of power over mind and soul in a great revival? When he fills a house or a whole city; when he is demonstrably convicting and converting on the right and left; when strong men are broken down; when hard hearts are melted; when long-sealed fountains of tears are opened; when hardened sinners fall as oak trees before a sweeping tempest; when all around the guilty confess their sins; when the saved rise up with love-lighted eyes and glorified faces to joyfully declare that God for Christ’s sake has forgiven their sins ah I the power the felt Presence! Then some sinner, seeing and knowing and feeling the truth of it all, pierced through and through with the arrows of conviction, riven to the marrow with the bolt of demonstration, trembling like Belshazzar before the mysterious, awful, but certain Presence, overwhelmed by memory of a thousand sins, yet so knowing, so feeling, clings with death-grip to some besetting sin and to justify rejection of Jesus, so witnessed by the Holy Spirit, lies unto God as to his real motives of rejection, reviles the Holy One, turns away and dies forever. Yes, a soul dies! As I have been impressed with the presence of physical death, so, only far more vividly, have I felt the presence of spiritual death. Once during a great meeting I felt it; I felt a soul had died that I was in the presence of the hopelessly lost.

It must be a sin of malice. In the special case before us the presence of malice is most evident. One expression of our Lord sufficiently tells the whole story: “Ye offspring of vipers I” See the snake in his coil! Mark his cold, steely eye of hate! Behold the lightning play of his forked tongue! See the needle fang and the venom of secreted poison! That snake means death to his innocent victim. So Satan’s devotee, about to commit the unpardonable sin. Hear him: “I hate this light. It exposes my secret sins. It strips me of my mask of self-respect. It humiliates me. This light shows how sensual, how groveling, how beastly, how devilish I really am. It exposes my chains. It advertises my bondage to pride, lust, and money. It makes me loathesome to myself. I hate this painful light, this awful purity. 0, prince of darkness, restore my self-esteem, re-establish my respectability!”

Hear Satan’s rejoinder: “You must away from that light. You cannot put it out. It is the unquenchable shining of immaculate holiness. Here is your only expedient: Lock all the doors of your soul. Close the blinds of every window. Pull down every curtain. Now call that light ‘& superstition.’ Call your rejection of it ‘superior intelligence,’ or ‘science,’ or ‘higher criticism,’ or ‘progress,’ or ‘broadmindedness,’ or whatever you will. Put evil for good and good for evil. Blaspheme. And that light will never disturb you any more.”

Ah, no! Never more. “The die is cast. The Rubicon is crossed that soul is free no more.” In his case is fulfilled the scripture: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.” He has joined that outlawed host to whom this scripture applies: “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit.” Here is genuine striving and genuine resisting. The Spirit strives the man resists. The gnashing upon Stephen with their teeth expresses desperate malice. It was malice proceeding from deep conviction that Stephen was right and they were wrong. It followed “being cut to the heart.”

The sin must be wilful. This involves the double idea of premeditation and decision. The mind has not only deliberated it has chosen. The love of pleasure, or of money, or of power, is deliberately preferred to the love of God. The “will” settles the matter. However long the time, complex the forces, or inscrutable the processes which determine the resultant character which makes the decision, that decision itself is one definite act of the will. The preparation of mind and heart which fitted the man to make such awful choice may indeed have extended over a period of years, the man meanwhile waxing worse and worse, the heart indurating, the soul petrifying. Yet, in one moment, at last, the border of possible salvation is crossed over forever. The “will” steps across the line. “I will not to do the will of God.” “I will not go to Jesus. I will not have this Man to reign over me.”

It is a sin of presumption. It is not difficult to get a clear idea of the meaning of this word. An irreverent, overweening, daring confidence for which there are no just grounds. Presumption draws false conclusions from God’s forbearance. Because sentence against an evil deed is not speedily executed the presumptuous heart is fully set to do evil. God suspended judgment that the man might repent. The sinner concludes that God does not mark iniquity. So many times has he trifled with the overtures of mercy) he presumes that he may continue to trifle with impunity. God’s patience, erroneously construed, has made him irreverent and daring. He can recall, and despise as he recalls, the number of times he has been touched somewhat in other meetings. He presumes that what has been will be again, in case it becomes necessary to revise his decision. Time enough for that if one chooses to turn back later on. Nothing tells him that this is the last time. He presumes as if he had a lease on life and as if the sovereign and eternal Spirit of God must come to his call.

Just here I desire to quote a scripture which some high human authorities affirm to be applicable to the subject under consideration. I very greatly respect them and very readily concede my own fallibility of judgment. But where my convictions are strong I speak. Here is the scripture: “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace” (Heb 10:26-29 ). My present brief comment on the passage is:

There appears to be a manifest reference, in some sort, to apostasy. I mean by apostasy the final loss of all that is accomplished by regeneration and justification.

It clearly teaches, and for obvious reasons, that in case of such a loss, renewal would be impossible. The remedial resources of grace in such case being completely exhausted, there would be nothing more to draw upon for recovery.

But the reference is not to such calamity as objectively possible. The context and all the letter to the Hebrews as unequivocally teach the final perseverance of all the saints as does the letter to the Romans, or any other scripture. And to my mind the Bible teaches no doctrine more clearly than the ultimate salvation of all the elect. The reference then is to apostasy as hypothetically and even, perhaps, subjectively possible.

If then the reference is to apostasy, though not hypothetically and not really possible, how can it be applicable to the sin under discussion? This pertinent question I will now answer. While only a hypothesis concerning one thing, it yet contains an argument fairly applicable to another thing. It discusses wilful sin after enlightenment. The greater the enlightenment, the greater the sin. In the hypothetical, but actually impossible case of apostasy, there would be no more sacrifice for sin. The blood of Christ, and the Spirit power, beyond which grace has nothing to offer, would have been found inefficacious after fair trial. Now apply this same principle of argument to an unregenerate man. To him the Father’s love is offered and rejected. To him Christ as the highest expression of that love is offered and rejected. To him, the Spirit’s testimony to Christ is offered in such a way that he knows and feels that Spirit’s presence and power, and in such a way that his conscience recognizes and confesses the truth of the testimony. But from love of sin and hatred of known truth he blasphemes that Holy Spirit. Then in his case it would be true that “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin,” not because he had experimentally tried its efficacy and used up all its power to save, but that from his rejection of such sacrifice in the blaze of spiritual light demonstrating its efficacy, such efficacy is no longer available to him. On this passage Dr. Kendrick says: “If others fall away who have reached a very high grade of spiritual enlightenment, who have experienced all of the divine influence but regeneration, their recovery is morally impossible. God will not bless the efforts for their renewal but, like the field that has answered the rains and sunshine only with thorns and thistles, will give them over to the burning.” (See American Commentary Hebrews.)

Now our theory of the unpardonable sin necessarily supposes spiritual light to make it a sin against the Spirit, and a very high degree of spiritual light to make it so heinous as to constitute it the only unpardonable sin. That there is shed forth such spiritual light, that there is put forth such spiritual influence light which may be seen and influence which may be felt, and yet light and influence which, through the sinner’s fault, do not eventuate in salvation is the clear and abundant teaching of the Bible. I know of no great theologian in the Baptist ranks who denies it. I refer to such acknowledged teachers of systematic theology as Gill, Boyce, Strong, Dagg, Hovey, Pendleton, and Robinson, and among the Presbyterians such authors as Calvin, Hodge, and Shedd all of whose books I have studied on this specific point.

We may here, I think, conclude the analysis of this sin. Its conditions are clearly before us: The age of discretion, a sound mind, a high degree of spiritual light, a character fixed in opposition to God, a life under the dominion of confirmed evil habits. Its constituent elements are: Premeditation, or deliberation, a decisive choice, presumption and malice. We come now to consider the state of one guilty of this eternal sin. This is an important phase of the subject. Such a state surely evidences itself in some way. The marks which distinguish it from other states ought, one would naturally suppose, to be sufficiently visible for recognition. As an introduction to my discussion of these marks it is thought appropriate to give the most remarkable poem on the subject in all literature. It is Alexander’s hymn:

There is a time, we know not when, A point, we know not where, That marks the destiny of men, To glory or despair.

There is a line by un unseen, That crosses every path, The hidden boundary between God’s patience and His wrath.

To pass that limit is to die To die as if by stealth; It does not quench the beaming eye, Nor pale the glow of health.

The conscience may be still at ease, The spirit light and gay; That which is pleasing still may please, And care be thrust away.

But on that forehead God hath set Indelibly a mark, Unseen by man, for man as yet Is blind and in the dark.

And yet the doomed man’s path below, Like Eden may have bloomed; He did not, does not, will not know Or feel that he is doomed.

He knows, be feels that all is well, And every fear is calmed; He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell, Not only doomed, but damned.

Oh I where is this mysterious bourne, By which our path is crossed? Beyond which God himself hath sworn, That he who goes is lost?

How far may we go on in sin? How long will God forbear? Where does hope end, and where begin The confines of despair?

An answer from the skies is sent; Ye that from God depart, While it is called to-day, repent, And harden not your heart.

Confining my own diagnosis strictly to the Scriptures I would say that the state of one who has committed the unpardonable sin is one of awful deprivation. We say “Darkness is deprivation of light; death deprivation of life.” The deprivation in this case is:

Of the Holy Spirit whom he has reviled and despised. To that Spirit God has said, “Let him alone; he is wedded to his idols.” This insures his death. This makes his sin eternal. He cannot now ever find Christ, the door. Without the Spirit he can never repent, believe, be regenerated, be justified, or sanctified. “There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin,” that is, to him there is no Christ. I think that there are such men today, from whom the Holy Spirit has taken his everlasting flight.

It is a deprivation of the prayers of God’s people. God who said to his Spirit, “Let him alone,” now says to his people who would pray for such a man, “Let me alone.” Awful words: Let him alone let me alone!

The friends of Job had sinned, but not beyond the reach of prayer (Job 42:7-10 ). Paul had sinned by persecution and blasphemy of Jesus, but not beyond the reach of Stephen’s dying prayer: “Lord Jesus, lay not this sin to their charge” (Act 7:60 ). The crucifiers of Jesus had sinned, but not all of them beyond the reach of his dying prayer: “Father forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luk 23:34 ). But God’s people cannot pray acceptably without the Spirit’s prompting (Rom 8:26-27 ). The Spirit never prompts one to pray against the will of God. Hear the word of God (1Jn 5:16 ): “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.” (Jer 15:1 ): “Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.”

It is a deprivation of the protection usually afforded to the wicked by the presence of the righteous. The presence of ten righteous men would have protected Sodom and Gomorrah from overthrow (Gen 18:23-32 ). The righteous are the salt of the earth. Their presence preserves it from immediate destruction. Paul and Christ taught that when the righteous are garnered off the earth then comes the deluge of fire. But one who has committed the unpardonable sin, at once is deprived of all protection arising from the contiguity of the righteous. To repeat a scripture: “Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the city, as I live saith the Lord they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness” (Eze 14:20 ). No Spirit, no prayers) no protection.

It is a deprivation of spiritual sensations. What is meant here? Speaking naturally, our sensations are from our five senses. One who is blind loses the sensations that come from sight; one who is deaf, those from hearing. So with taste, and smell, and touch or feeling. A body that cannot see, hear, feel, taste or smell is dead to the world around it. So with the senses of the inner man. When the spiritual or moral perceptive faculties are so paralyzed that they cannot take hold of God, that soul is dead to God, however much it may be alive to the devil. Having eyes it sees not. Having ears it hears not. Having a heart it feels not. The conscience is seared as with a hot iron. They are past feeling (Eph 4:18-19 ) : “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: who being past feeling having given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” Old soldiers recall that when mortification took place in a wounded limb there was no longer any pain. The wounded man felt unusually well. It was the prelude of death.

In his book, Over the Teacups, Oliver Wendell Holmes says: “Our old doctors used to give an opiate which they called ‘the black drop.’ It was stronger than laudanum, and, in fact, a dangerously powerful narcotic. Something like this is that potent drug in Nature’s pharmacopeia which she reserves for the time of need, the later stages of life. She commonly begins administering it at about the time of the ‘grand climacteric,’ the ninth septennial period, the sixty-third year. More and more freely she gives it, as the years go on, to her gray-haired children, until, if they last long enough, every faculty is benumbed, and they drop off quietly into sleep under its benign influence. Time, the inexorable, does not threaten them with the scythe so often as with the sandbag. He does not cut, but he stuns and stupefies.”

But the “black drop” administered by Satan, when, at any age, the unpardonable sin is committed, has no such kindly intent. It puts one past feeling as to heaven, but full of sensation as to hell. There are no kindlings to repentance, however keen may be the biting and sting of remorse. It is quite possible that one who is past feeling to spiritual impressions may dream as Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Richard III , or Scott’s “Glossin” in Guy Mannering. And so to such a one there may remain nothing “but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.” What time these apprehensions last they are the foretaste of hell.

It is not only a state of deprivation, but of positive infliction. When “the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him” (1Sa 16:14 ). To the man who closes his eyes to the Spirit’s testimony, God sends judicial blindness and hardness of heart. Not only so, when the Lord refused to answer Saul, “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets,” he allowed him to return to spiritualism and “inquire of one who had a familiar spirit” (1Sa 2:5-7 ). God chooses the delusions of the hopelessly lost. He sends them a strong delusion that they may believe a lie and be damned (Isa 66:4 ; 2Th 2:11 ). This delusion may be spiritualism, or science, or philosophy, or anything else. Whatever it is, for the time being it fills the vision and the heart. It points out a path “whose steps take hold on death and hell,” and though the end thereof is death, it seems right to him.

Such, I think, is the Bible teaching concerning the unpardonable sin. It is a sin of today as well as yesterday. The liability of its commission is greatly increased during revivals of religion.

That hazard is unspeakably awful when men know and feel God’s presence and power, and though convicted and trembling, turn away with a lie on their lips and hatred of holiness in their hearts.

To younger people would I urgently say:

Beware of those insidious beginnings which tend to the formation of an evil character. Cultivate most assiduously such tenderness of heart, such susceptibility to religious impressions as you now have. Follow every prompting toward heaven. Transmute every spiritual emotion to action. Beware of becoming hardened. Beware of dominant passions, such as the love of pleasure, the pride of opinion, the pride of life, the love of money. Distrust as an enemy, anything or anybody, whose influence keeps you apart from the use of the means of salvation. Shun, as you would a tiger’s Jungle, all associations that corrupt good manners. Beware of all people who make a mock at sin and speak irreverently of holy things.

Oh, the beginnings! The beginnings I These are the battlegrounds of hope. Hear today, turn today, escape for thy life today. For when once under the dominion of pleasure, or lust, or wine, or pride, or especially the love of money, that root of all kinds of evil, then O then how easily, how unconsciously you may commit the unpardonable sin.

And then, though the world were full of Bibles to the stars, and Christians more numerous than the sands and forest leaves, and every church ablaze with revivals for you there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. You are now and forever lost.

In response to this discussion of our Lord upon the sin against the Holy Spirit the Pharisees demanded of him a sign, to which he replied that no sign should be given them except the sign of Jonah, i. e., his burial and resurrection. This test of his messiahship he submitted time and again both to his enemies and to his disciples. Here he again announces a principle of the judgment, viz: that men will be judged according to the light they have here. The Ninevites and the queen of the south will stand up in the judgment and condemn the Jews of his day because with less light than these Jews had they responded to God’s call while that generation rejected their light. Then he closes that discussion with a comparison of the Jewish nation to a man whom the evil spirit volunteered to leave and re-enter at pleasure with the assurance that every time he returned, after a leave of absence, the last state was worse than the first.

It is necessary to add a word of comment on Section 50 (Mat 12:46-50 ; Mar 3:31-35 ; Luk 8:19-21 ) of the Harmony. Here on the same day and on this same occasion the mother of Jesus and his brothers come to him for an interview, ostensibly to arrest him from so great a zeal. Perhaps they thought he ought to stop and eat, but he, knowing their purpose toward him, announced the principle of spiritual relation above the earthly relation that whosoever would do the will of God was nearer to him than earthly relations. What a lesson for us!

QUESTIONS

1. What is the difficulty of Mar 3:29 and what is its solution?

2. What is the meaning of “eternal sin”?

3. By whom and how must this sin be committed?

4. What is the first constituent element, or condition, of the unpardonable sin? Give biblical illustrations and proof.

5. What is the second constituent element? Explain and illustrate by the case of Paul.

6. What theological controversy here and what is the author’s position?

7. What principle of judgment here involved and what is the biblical proof?

8. Describe the spiritual conditions under which a soul may commit the unpardonable sin.

9. What is the third element and what is the proof? Recite the struggle of a soul on the verge of this awful sin and Satan’s rejoinder.

10. What is the fourth element and what is involved in it?

11. What is the fifth element and what its meaning? Illustrate.

12. What passage of Scripture here introduced, what is the author’s points of interpretation, and how does this passage apply to the subject under discussion?

13. What is the state of one who is guilty of the unpardonable sin and what poem quoted on this point? Quote it.

14. What are the items of deprivation which constitute the state of such a soul? Explain each.

15. In response to our Lord’s discussion of this sin against the Holy Spirit what demand did the Pharisees make, what was our Lord s reply and what does he mean?

16. How does our Lord here characterize these Jewish people?

17. What was the incident of Section 50 of the Harmony and what is its lesson for us?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

31 There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.

Ver. 31. Then came his brethren ] Here the Evangelist returneth to the history he had begun to set forth Mar 3:21 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

31.] . , one of Mark’s precise details.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mar 3:31-35 . The relatives of Jesus (Mat 12:46-50 , Luk 8:19-21 ).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mar 3:31 . , even without the following in T. R., naturally points back to Mar 3:21 . The evangelist resumes the story about Christ’s friends, interrupted by the encounter with the scribes (so Grotius, Bengel, Meyer, Weiss, Holtz.; Schanz and Keil dissent). , from , a late form used in present only, from , perfect of .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mark

THE MISTAKES OF CHRIST’ S FOES AND FRIENDS

CHRIST’S KINDRED

Mar 3:31 – Mar 3:35 .

We learn from an earlier part of this chapter, and from it only, the significance of this visit of Christ’s brethren and mother. It was prompted by the belief that ‘He was beside Himself,’ and they meant to lay hands on Him, possibly with a kindly wish to save Him from a worse fate, but certainly to stop His activity. We do not know whether Mary consented, in her mistaken maternal affection, to the scheme, or whether she was brought unwillingly to give a colour to it, and influence our Lord. The sinister purpose of the visit betrays itself in the fact that the brethren did not present themselves before Christ, but sent a messenger; although they could as easily have had access to His presence as their messenger could. Apparently they wished to get Him by Himself, so as to avoid the necessity of using force against the force that His disciples would be likely to put forth. Jesus knew their purpose, though they thought it was hidden deep in the recesses of their breasts. And that falls in with a great many other incidents which indicate His superhuman knowledge of ‘the thoughts and intents of the heart.’

But, however that may be, our Lord here, with a singular mixture of dignity, tenderness, and decisiveness, puts aside the insidious snare without shaming its contrivers, and turns from the kinsmen, with whom He had no real bond, to draw closer to Himself, and pour out His love over, those who do the will of His Father in heaven. His words go very deep; let us try to gather some, at any rate, of the surface lessons which they suggest.

I. First, then, the true token of blood relationship to Jesus Christ is obedience to God.

‘Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and My sister, and mother.’ Now I must not be betrayed into a digression from my main purpose by dwelling upon what yet is worthy of notice-viz., the consciousness, on the part of Jesus Christ, which here is evidently implied, that the doing of the will of God was the very inmost secret of His own being. He was conscious, only and always, of delighting to do the will of God. When, therefore, He found that delight in others, there He recognised a bond of union between Him and them.

We must carefully observe that these great words of our Lord are not intended to describe the means by which men become His kinsfolk, but the tokens that they are such. He is not saying-as superficial readers sometimes run away with the notion that He is saying-’If a man will, apart from Me, do the will of God, then he will become My true kinsman,’ but He is saying, ‘If you are My kinsman, you will do the will of God, and if you do it, you will show that you are related to Myself.’ In other words, He is not speaking about the means of originating this relationship, but about the signs of its reality. And, therefore, the words of my text need, for their full understanding, and for placing them in due relation to all the rest of Christ’s teaching, to be laid side by side with other words of His, such as these:-’Apart from Me ye can do nothing.’ For the deepest truth in regard to relationship to Jesus Christ and obedience is this, that the way by which men are made able to do the will of God is by receiving into themselves the very life-blood of Jesus Christ. The relationship must precede the obedience, and the obedience is the sign, because it is the sequel, of the relationship.

But far deeper down than mere affinity lies the true bond between us and Christ, and the true means of performing the commandments of God. There must be a passing over into us of His own life-spirit. By His inhabiting our hearts, and moulding our wills, and being the life of our lives and the soul of our souls, are we made able to do the commandments of the Lord. And so, seeing that actual union with Jesus Christ, and the reception into ourselves of His life, is the precedent condition of all true obedience, then the more familiar form of presenting the bond between Him and us, which runs through the New Testament, falls into its proper place, and the faith, which is the condition of receiving the life of Christ into our hearts, is at once the affinity which makes us His kindred, and the means by which we appropriate to ourselves the power of obedient submission and conformity to the will of God. ‘This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.’

So, then, my text does not in the slightest degree contradict or interfere with the great teaching that the one way by which we become Christ’s brethren is by trusting in Him. For the text and the doctrine that faith unites us to Him take up the process at different stages: the one pointing to the means of origination, the other to the tokens of reality. Faith is the root, obedience is the flower and the fruit. He that doeth the will of God, does it, not in order that he may become, but because he already is, possessor of a blood-relationship to Jesus Christ.

Then, notice, again, with what emphatic decisiveness our Lord here takes simple, practical obedience in daily life, in little and in great things, as the manifestation of being akin to Himself. Orthodoxy is all very well; religious experiences, inward emotions, sweet, precious, secret feelings and sentiments cannot be over-estimated. External forms, whether of the more simple or of the more ornate and sensuous kind, may be helps for the religious life; and are so in view of the weaknesses that are always associated with it. But all these, a true creed, a belief in the creed, the joyous and deep and secret emotions that follow thereupon, and the participation in outward services which may help to these, all these are but scaffolding: the building is character and conduct conformed to the will of God.

Evangelical preachers, and those who in the main hold that faith, are often charged with putting too little stress on practical homely righteousness. I would that the charge had less substance in it. But let me lay it upon your consciences, dear brethren, now, that no amount of right credence, no amount of trust, nor of love and hope and joy will avail to witness kindred to Christ. It must be the daily life, in its efforts after conformity to the known will of God, in great things and in small things, that attests the family resemblance. If Christ’s blood be in our veins, if ‘the law of the spirit of life’ in Him is the law of the spirit of our lives, then these lives will run parallel with His, in some visible measure, and we, too, shall be able to say, ‘Lo! I come. I delight to do Thy will; and Thy law is within my heart.’ Obedience is the test of relationship to Jesus.

Then, still further, note how, though we must emphatically dismiss the mistake that we make our selves Christ’s brethren and friends by independent efforts after keeping the commandments, it is true that, in the measure in which we do thus bend our wills to God’s will, whether in the way of action or of endurance, we realise more blessedly and strongly the tie that binds us to the Lord, and as a matter of fact do receive, in the measure of our obedience, sweet tokens of union with Him, and of love in His heart to us. No man will fully feel living contact with Jesus Christ if between Christ and him there is a film of conscious and voluntary disobedience to the will of God. The smallest crumb that can come in between two polished plates will prevent their adherence. A trivial sin will slip your hand out of Christ’s hand; and though His love will still come and linger about you, until the sin is put out it cannot enter in.

‘It can but listen at the gate,

And hear the household jar within.’

‘He that doeth the will of God, the same is’-and feels himself to be-’My brother, and sister, and mother.’

II. This relationship includes all others.

That is a very singular form of expression which our Lord employs. ‘Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.’ We should have expected, seeing that He was speaking about three different relationships, that He would have used the plural verb, and said, ‘The same are My brother, and sister, and mother.’ And I do not think that it is pedantic grammatical accuracy to point out this remarkable form of speech, and even to venture to draw a conclusion from it-viz., that what our Lord meant was, not that if there were three people, of different sexes, and of different ages, all doing the will of God, one of these sweet names of relationship would apply to A, another to B, and the other to C; but that to each who does the will of God, all the sweetnesses that are hived in all the names, and in any other analogous ones that can be uttered, belong. Of course the selection here of relationships specified has reference to the composition of that group outside the circle. But there is a great deal more than that in it. Whether you accept the grammatical remark that I have made or no, we shall, at least, I suppose, all agree in this, that, in fact, the bond of kindred that unites a trusting obedient soul with Jesus Christ does in itself include whatsoever of sweetness, of power, of protection, of clinging trust, and of any other blessed emotion that makes a shadow of Eden still upon earth, has ever been attached to human bonds.

Remember how many of these, Christ, and His servants for Him, have laid their hands upon, and claimed to be His. ‘Thy Maker is thy husband’; ‘He that hath the Bride is the bridegroom’; ‘Go tell My brethren’; ‘I have not called you servants, but friends.’ And if there be any other sweet names, they belong to Him, and in His one pure, all-sufficient love they are all enclosed. Fragmentary preciousnesses are strewed about us. There is ‘one pearl of great price.’ Many fragrances come from the flowers that grow on the dunghill of the world, but they are all gathered in Him whose name is ‘as ointment poured forth,’ filling the house with its fragrance.

For Christ is to us all that all separated lovers and friends can be. And whatsoever our poor hearts may need most, of human affection and sympathy, and may see least possibility of finding now, among the incompletenesses and limitations of earth, that Jesus Christ is waiting to be. All solitary souls and mourning hearts may turn themselves to, and rest themselves on, these great words. And as they look at the empty places in their circle, in their homes, and feel the ache of the empty places in their hearts, they may hear His voice saying, ‘Behold My mother and My brethren.’ He comes to us all in the character that we need most. Just as the great ocean, when it flows in amongst the land, takes the shape imposed upon it by the containing banks of the loch, so Christ pours Himself into our hearts, and there assumes the form that the outline of their emptiness tells we need most. To many, in all generations, who have been weeping over departed joys, He says again, though with a different application, turning not away from but to Himself mourning eyes and hearts, ‘Woman, behold thy Son’-not on the cross nor in the grave, but on the throne-’Son, behold Thy mother.’

III. Lastly, this relationship requires always the subordination, and sometimes the sacrifice, of the lower ones.

We have to think of Christ here as Himself putting away the lower claims, in order more fully to yield Himself to the higher. It was because it would have been impossible for Him to do the will of His Father if He had yielded to the purposes of His brethren and His mother, that He steeled His heart and made solemn His tone in refusing to go with them.

That group that had come for Him suggests to us the ways in which earthly ties may limit heavenly obedience. In regard to them the situation was complicated, because Jesus Christ was their kinsman according to the flesh, and their Messiah, according to the spirit. But in them their earthly love, and familiarity with Him, hid from them His higher glory; and in them He found impediments to His true consecration, and would-be thwarters of His highest work. And, in like manner, all our earthly relationships may become means of obscuring to us the transcendent brightness and greatness of Jesus Christ as our Saviour And, in like manner as to Him these, His brethren, became ‘stumbling blocks’ that He had decisively to put behind Him, so in regard to us ‘a man’s foes may be those of his own household’; and not least his foes when they are most his idols, his comforts, and his sweetnesses. If our earthly loves and relationships obscure to us the face of Christ; if we find enough in them for our hearts, and go not beyond them for our true love; if they make us negligent of duty; if they bind us to the present; if they make us careless of that loftier affection which alone can satisfy us; if they clog our steps in the divine life, then they are our foes. They need to be always subordinated, and, so subordinated, they are more precious than when they are placed mistakenly foremost. They are better second than first. They are full of sweetness when our hearts know a sweetness surpassing theirs; they are robbed of their possible power to harm when they are rigidly held in inferiority to the one absolute and supreme love. There need be no collision-there will be no collision-if the second is second and the first is first. But sometimes beggars get upon horseback, and the crew mutinies and would displace the commander, and then there is nothing for it but sacrifice. ‘If thy hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee.’ ‘I communed not with flesh and blood,’ and we must not, if ever they conflict with our supreme devotion to Jesus Christ.

These other things and relationships are precious to us, but He is priceless. They are shadows, but He is the substance. They are brooks by the way; He is the boundless, bottomless ocean of delights and loves. Shall we not always subordinate-and sometimes, if needful, sacrifice-the less to the greater? If we do, we shall get the less back, greatened by its surrender. ‘He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me’ commands the sacrifice. ‘There is no man that hath left brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, for My sake and the Gospel’s, but he shall receive a hundredfold now , in this time’ promises the reward.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mar 3:31-35

31Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him. 32A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.” 33Answering them, He said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” 34Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! 35For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

Mar 3:31-35 These verses are related to Mar 3:21. There is an obvious contrast between the ignorant, but compassionate, unbelief of Jesus’ family (cf. Joh 7:5) and the willful, hostile unbelief of the religious leaders. Jesus specifically states that God’s will is belief in Himself (cf. Joh 6:40; Joh 14:6).

Mar 3:33 “‘Who are My mother and My brothers'” This shocking question shows Jesus self-understanding and the radical nature of biblical faith that can only be described in terms of a new birth, a new family. Family life was such an important aspect of Jewish life that to use these family terms for fellow believers is significant. Believers relate to deity as family members; God is Father, Jesus is the unique Son and Savior, but we, too, are children of God.

Mar 3:35 “‘For whoever does the will of God'” Faith in Christ is God’s will for all humans (cf. Joh 1:12; Joh 3:16; Joh 6:40; Joh 14:6; 1Jn 5:12-13). See Special Topic: The Will of God at 1Pe 2:15. Notice the inclusive, universal invitation to respond in faith to Jesus and His message.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

His brethren and His mother: i.e. the kinsfolk of Mar 3:21.

and. Note the Figure of speech Polysyndeton (App-6), in verses: Mar 3:31-35.

without. That they might more easily seize Him (Mar 3:21).

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

31.] . , one of Marks precise details.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mar 3:31.[30] ) See App. Crit. Ed. ii. on this passage.[31] Mark has placed the brothers first in order, implying that the brothers had made the first move in seeking Him, and the mother followed them. [She is not, however, on that account, to be held free from all blame in the case.-V. g.] There is a similar account to be given for the order of the words in Num 12:1; Num 12:10, where Miriam, being the more prominent of the two in opposing Moses, is placed before Aaron. So Rachel and Leah, in inverse order, Gen 31:14; Gad and Reuben, Num 32:6. She who was blessed among women, suffered less from the taint of human infirmity than others, yet she was not entirely exempt from it.-, without) outside of that circle [the multitude about Him], Mar 3:32; or even outside of the house, where He was teaching.-, calling Him) with a loud voice.

[30] , There come then) This expression refers us back to the , Mar 3:21.-V. g.

[31] A supports Rec. Text in this order of the words. But CDGLabc Vulg. read them thus- .-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Mar 3:31-35

11. CHRIST’S MOTHER AND BRETHREN

Mar 3:31-35

(Mat 12:46-50; Luk 8:19-21)

31 And there come his mother and his brethren;–This gives the arrival of friends at Capernaum, who probably came from Nazareth to take charge of Jesus. (Verse 21.) The names of his brethren are recorded in Mar 6:3 and Mat 13:55; James, Joses, Simon, and Judas.

and, standing without, they sent unto him, calling him.–Jesus was teaching when they came seeking him. The report of his strange teaching and the dangerous antagonism he had provoked had of course reached them. Mary’s heart doubtless was much troubled, and she wished he were out of the crowd, and with her again in the home at Nazareth. This is natural for a mother. The crowd was so packed that they could not reach him (Luk 8:19) on their arrival so had to “stand without.” Either outside of the house, or beyond the circle of his hearers in the open. Not being able to reach him they “sent unto him.” That is, passing the message probably from one to another until it reached him that they were waiting for him. The fact that his mother would join his brethren in disturbing him while publicly engaged in teaching shows her great anxiety for her son.

32 And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.–This was the message passed from one to another until it reached him. (Mat 12:47.)

33 And he answereth them, and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren?–[He made this the occasion of teaching them that there is a relationship to him as strong and near as the dearest fleshly relation. He doubtless knew the object of the coming of his brethren.] Our Lord did not despise human relationship. He loved his mother. (Joh 19:26-27.) He esteemed the spiritual relationship the more. He knew better than they what, when, and how long to speak. This and other scriptures (Luk 2:48-49; Joh 2:4) show the folly of the Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary as an object of invocation and worship. She regarded herself by nature a sinner, and in need of a Savior. (Luk 1:47.) It was as necessary for Jesus to suffer and die to redeem his mother from sin as it was to redeem others. He used these fleshly relationships as an illustration of the divine. He taught them that his earthly relations had no control of his divine work and that the spiritual must come first. They were not competent to judge correctly as to his duty. The time had come to impress a lesson as to life’s truest relationships.

34 And looking round on them that sat round about him,–These were they who were so drawn to him as to forsake all to follow him.

he saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren!–How strangely the words must have echoed to the hearts of those who stood without desiring to see him, but what a glow of joy –the joy of being tenderly loved–must have come to the little band of disciples near by! They knew he held a deep and holy love for his mother and his brethren; and it was even so to them. [His disciples were near him. He looked on them arid said: “Behold, my mother and my brethren!” Those he recognized as his mother and brethren were among these. Let none think he lightly esteemed his mother, who had borne him and nursed him and followed him with anxious heart. If they should so think, go with him to the cross, see him there forget the anguish and pain of the cross in his anxiety to provide for the comfort of his mother for her few remaining days on earth. (Joh 19:26-27.) He committed her to his beloved and loving John. He loved his mother tenderly, and could forget his own anguish to provide for her. His example in this love for his mother is worthy of commendation to all children. But as dear to him as was that relation of mother, there is a spiritual relation just as near and as strong into which we may enter.]

35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.–Here Jesus enlarges the circle, and takes in the dutiful souls of all the ages. Whoso shall do the will of God, he is a child of God. The truest relationships of life are not of flesh and blood, these are the accidental and artificial ties. The truest ties are ever of the spirit. They are his brother, sister, and mother because born of the same Father. (Joh 3:3; Joh 3:5.) [He defines here how the humblest and the lowest may enter into the relation as near and dear to him as that of his own fleshly mother, brother, sister. Whoso will do the will of my Father, the same is my mother, brother, sister. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Mat 7:21.) “If a man love me, he will keep my word:and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” (Joh 14:23.) “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” (1Jn 5:3.) Jesus loved the human family while in sin. He so loved it that he gave up heaven with its glories to redeem man from sin and the ruin sin brings upon man.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

CHAPTER 14

The Masters Family

There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

(Mar 3:31-35)

In the previous verses (Mar 3:22-30) we saw our all glorious Savior accused by pompous, self-righteous religionists of being in league with the devil. They said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of devils casteth he out devils. But the absurd charges and scandalous accusations of the Scribes were not the only trials our Lord had to endure at this time.

In these last verses of chapter 3 we are told that, His brethren and his mother came, and standing without, sent unto him, calling him. In these five verses the Son of God identifies himself with his disciples and owns his disciples as his true family. Our Masters earthly family didnt understand the beauty of his life, the necessity of his obedience, and the purpose for which he had come into the world.

I do not doubt that they loved him as a brother. I have no doubt that they were, at least somewhat, concerned for his physical welfare. They must have been concerned about him over-exerting himself, not getting enough rest, exposing himself to too much danger. They understood very little, or gave little regard to those words spoken by the Lord Jesus when he was just a boy twelve years old, Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business? (Luk 2:49) They probably did not understand the implications of their actions recorded in this passage. But these things are written for our learning.

Mary the Sinner

The words of this passage, and the many other passages in the gospel narratives, which identify Marys sinfulness and weaknesses in the flesh, were intended by God the Holy Spirit to prevent the idolatrous worship of Mary, which is so much a part of popish idolatry. We recognize, and the Scriptures clearly teach, that our Saviors human body was conceived in Marys virgin womb by the Holy Spirit. But the papists would have us believe that Mary herself was immaculately conceived and that she had no sin. Nothing could be further from the truth.

No doubt, Mary was a woman of honorable character. But she was no more spiritual and holy by nature than Rahab, or you, or me. Mary was the sinful daughter of sinful parents. She was made holy and honorable by the free grace of God in Christ, whom she herself worshipped as her Savior and Lord (Luk 1:46-48).

Mary is to be called blessed, because she was and is blessed of God in Christ and for Christs sake. But we must never look upon her as being blessed in any way or to any degree, except as she was and is blessed of God in Christ in exactly the same way as all chosen sinners are blessed, eternally and immutably blessed of God in Christ and for Christs sake (Eph 1:3). Mary was a sinner loved and chosen of God, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and justified, regenerated, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit in exactly the same way we are. She was a sinner saved by grace.

Papists also assert, contrary to the plain statements of Holy Scripture, that Marys virginity was perpetual. But this reference to our Saviors brothers tells us that other sons of Joseph and Mary were born after the Lord Jesus. His younger brothers are named in Mat 13:55. The papists doctrine of Marys perpetual virginity, like most of Romes teaching, is nothing but religious superstition.

There is no religious practice more completely destitute of biblical foundation than the exaltation and adulation of Mary. The blasphemous practice of offering prayers to Mary are as foolish and idolatrous as offering prayers to me! The only sinless human being ever to live in this world is the sinless Son of God, our Savior. The only Mediator between God and men, by whom and through whom sinners may come to God, is the God-man, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The only human being to whom prayer is to be made and through whom we may hope for grace is that Man who is God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Family Hindrance

Here we see a clear example of the fact that even the best intentions of flesh and blood may often hinder us, as we seek to do the will of God. Regarding spiritual matters, particularly matters of obedience to the will of God, family and friends are never safe guides.

As I said before, our Saviors family appears to have been concerned for his health and well-being. Perhaps they feared that he was needlessly exposing himself to danger. They must have been aware of the plots of the Scribes, Pharisees, and Herodians to kill him. So they sent a messenger to fetch the Lord Jesus home.

Some read into their words suggestions of impertinence and disrespect. But that does not appear to have been the case at all, especially on Marys part. She was, at times, a weak believer; but there is no doubt that she was a genuine believer.

Still, though Mary, and probably our Masters other family members as well, had only the best of intentions and desired only that which they thought was best for him, they were in no position to make that judgment. This incident is not recorded here by accident. It is written for our learning. Be sure you do not miss the lesson here given by the Spirit of God. In spiritual matters we must not confer with flesh and blood (Gal 1:16). If we would know the state of our souls, we must not be satisfied with the good opinions of others. If we would know and do the will of God, we must not take into account the desires of our own flesh, the desires of our families, or the counsel of human wisdom.

No one knows the will of God for you in any given area of your life, but you. It is your responsibility to do what you know the Lord would have you to do. Abraham would never have taken Isaac up to Mt. Moriah, if he had consulted with Sarah. Had Moses listened to Zipporah, the Lord would have killed him before he ever got back to Egypt. Nathan would never have taken Gods word to David, if he had considered what the consequences might have been.

Faithfulness Required

In this passage our Lord Jesus exemplifies the fact that the one thing required in all true servants of God is faithfulness. In the face of constant opposition from his enemies and the misguided concerns of those people who were by nature dearest to him, our Saviors resolve was firm and unrelenting. He had set his face like a flint. He had a baptism to be baptized with and was straitened until it was accomplished. He was determined to fulfil his Fathers will, to finish his work of establishing perfect righteousness for his people, and to drink the cup of wrath as our Substitute upon the cursed tree to satisfy the justice of God for us.

May God give us grace as his people and his servants to be like minded. Let nothing turn you from the narrow way. Have you put your hand to the plow? Let nothing persuade you to look back. Have you entered the race? Look not to the right hand, nor to the left. Look only to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith. If well meaning friends would dissuade you, reply like Nehemiah of old, I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down (Neh 6:3). If those who truly love you and truly love Christ would unknowingly turn you aside from doing that which you know to be the will of God, respond as Paul did to his friends, None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God (Act 20:24). What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus (Act 21:13). Keep the eyes of your heart, the eyes of your soul focused upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and the great host of men and women who have gone before us into heaven who were found faithful even unto death (Heb 12:1-4).

The Lord our God requires only one thing of us. And the one thing he requires of us is the very least that we can give. Yet, it is the best we can give. God requires faithfulness. May he give us grace to give it. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful (1Co 4:2).

Christs Family

The Lord Jesus tells us plainly in Mar 3:33-35 that all who are truly his disciples, and only they, are the members of his family.

And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

Who can imagine the depth of love our Savior had for his physical family as a man? Who can imagine how he loved that woman who nursed and nurtured him as a baby? Who can imagine how he must have loved his brothers and sisters, those who were born from the same womb as he was? No mortal has ever come close to knowing the affection of Christs heart as a man for his aunts, uncles, and cousins. Yet, in comparison to his chosen, in comparison to you and I who believe on his name our Lord Jesus gave no regard to the desires of his own family and dearest kinsmen.

There is great comfort to be found in the things recorded here for every true believer. There is One in heaven, who is both God and man, One who is both bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, who knows us, loves us, cares for us, and counts us to be his own family. We may be poorer than dirt; but we have no cause to be ashamed. We are the brothers and sisters of the Son of God! We may be persecuted and mistreated, even in our own families, because of our faith in him. If that is the case with you, take Davids words for your own, When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up (Psa 27:10). To be numbered among those who are in this family is to be the object of Gods constant care, the beneficiary of Gods special providence, and an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ.

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1Jn 3:1-3)

Solemn Warning

This passage also contains a solemn warning for the persecutors of Gods saints. All who abuse, harass, and persecute the children of God have reason to tremble. If you are inclined to slander, abuse, malign, or persecute one of Gods children, or one of Gods servants, you would be wise to remember, they are the sons and daughters of God almighty. Those who are the objects of your scorn are the true blood-kin of the Son of God. This is the family of him who is King of kings and Lord of lords.

We have a mighty, mighty Friend, who has sworn that he will avenge his own elect in all things. Our Redeemer is mighty; and he will plead our cause (Pro 23:11). The Lord Jesus Christ in heaven always pleads our cause. Let us ever be found faithful in his cause.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

Mat 12:46-48, Luk 8:19-21

Reciprocal: 2Ch 15:16 – he removed Mar 3:21 – friends Joh 7:3 – brethren Act 1:14 – with his 2Co 5:16 – know we no

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Chapter 21.

Christ and His Kinsfolk

“And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when His friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on Him: for they said, He is beside Himself…. There came then His brethren and His mother, and, standing without, sent unto Him, calling Him. And the multitude sat about Him, and they said unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren without seek for Thee. And He answered them, saying, Who is My mother, or My brethren? And He looked round about on them which sat about Him, and said, Behold My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and My sister, and mother.”-Mar 3:20-21, Mar 3:31-35.

Our Lord and His Kinsfolk.

The story of our Lord’s relations and their well-meant but mistaken intervention is divided into two brief paragraphs by the interpolation of the account of our Lord’s controversy with the Jerusalem scribes. Mar 3:20-21 tell us how reports of Christ’s doings reached them in Nazareth; how they concluded He was beside Himself, and resolved to go and lay hold on Him. Mar 3:31-35 tell us what was the upshot of the journey which they made to Capernaum in order to carry out their resolve. These separated verses clearly belong to one another, and between them tell us the story of the attempt our Lord’s relations made to interfere with Him. We will think first of the interference and the charge brought against our Lord.

The Charge of Madness.

Our Lord’s kinsfolk, when reports of His tireless activities and sacrificial labours reached them in Nazareth, saw in them proof that His mind had lost its balance. “He is,” they said, “beside Himself.” Now it sounds a terrible thing that members of our Lord’s own household should have thought Him mad, and should therefore have tried to put Him under restraint. But that was one of the sorrows Christ had to bear; He was misunderstood in His own home, for “neither did His brethren believe in Him” (Joh 7:5).

The World and its Enthusiasts.

What we really get in their assertion that Christ was mad is often the world’s verdict upon religious and philanthropic enthusiasm. The world honours the man who for the sake of fame risks his life in battle; but if a man risks his life for souls for whom Christ died, it counts him a fool. The only kind of religion the world tolerates is religion of the tepid, Laodicean sort. But religion that breaks through the bonds of respectability and convention, religion that is earnest, red-hot, and means business, it calls “madness.”

It has called it so all down the centuries. “Paul,” cried Festus, “thou art mad; thy much learning doth turn thee to madness” (Act 26:24, R.V.). “What crack-brained fanatics!” was the remark the gentlemen of the eighteenth century made about Wesley and Whitfield. When Christian and Faithful refused even to look at the wares of Vanity Fair, but turned their eyes to heaven, what could the dwellers in the Fair, who regarded these wares as the only things worth having, think of them but that they were Bedlams and outlandish men? And when men like Henry Martyn in modern times let themselves “burn out” for God, when they cheerfully sacrifice every hope of worldly wealth and fame, and think only of the soul and heaven and the unseen Christ, what can men who regard worldly wealth and pleasure and fame as the only things worth living for think of them, except that they are “beside themselves”? It is just the necessary and inevitable verdict of the world upon those who seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

What is the Verdict on Ourselves?

Has the world ever said this about us? Is not this what is amiss with the Christian Church to-day? We lack zeal, enthusiasm, earnestness. We make compromises with the world. We are not out and out. The world sees nothing to be surprised at in us. And we are impotent as a result. Victory will come back only when we are willing to be counted fools for Christ’s sake, and give ourselves ever, only, all to Him.

The Solitariness of Christ.

“He is beside Himself”-it was just the verdict of the unspiritual person upon the zealous and sacrificial Christ. But it illustrates also the solitariness of Christ. How completely and utterly misunderstood He was! He was misunderstood even in His own home. Men can bear a great deal of opposition and misrepresentation from the world outside, if they find love and sympathy and appreciation waiting for them at home. But Jesus had none. He was the loneliest man who ever walked this earth; the loneliest just because He was the best. In the midst of the crowds that pressed upon Him and thronged Him, in the circle of the Twelve, at the family hearth, Jesus was a lonely man. There was none to understand or appreciate or sympathise. And this solitariness was part of the sore and heavy burden He took upon Himself when for us men and our salvation He consented to live His life of sacrifice and die His death of shame. “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the peoples there was no man with Me” (Isa 63:3, R.V.).

A Claim Resisted.

Persuaded thus that Jesus was mad and needed to be put under restraint, His brethren, along with His mother Mary, make their way to Capernaum. They found Him engaged in preaching, with a great multitude listening to Him. For some time they seemed to have waited, and then, growing impatient, they send a message to Him-“Thy mother and Thy brethren without seek for Thee” (Mar 3:32). Did Jesus know what they wanted him for? I believe He did. He knew, at any rate, that there was no sympathy for Him amongst His kinsfolk. And so He declined to interrupt His work. “Who is My mother and My brethren?” was His reply to the message. “And looking round on them which sat round about Him, He saith, Behold, My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother” (Mar 3:32-33, R.V.).

The Cost of Resistance.

What it must have cost Jesus to say this! For what does it mean? It means the setting of God’s work above home-ties and family affection. A young fellow wanting to join the Church came to see his minister in trouble about that verse, “If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luk 14:26, R.V.) That seemed to him a harsh demand, and he did not know that he was equal to it. But it comes even to that sometimes. It comes to choosing between one’s nearest and God. It came to that with Jesus Christ. He had to hate mother and sister and brethren for the Gospel’s sake. “A sword shall pierce through thine own soul,” (Luk 2:35), said Simeon to the exultant Mary when she presented her first-born in the Temple. Mary felt the stab of the sword that day; yes, and Jesus felt it too. He was pierced to the heart that day when He forsook mother and sisters and brethren for the Kingdom of God’s sake.

The True Kinship.

“Who is My mother and My brethren?… Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother” (Mar 3:33, Mar 3:35, R.V.). There are affinities, our Lord says, more subtle and close and real than those of blood. The real kinship is a kinship of soul and spirit. Our Lord’s one aim in life was to do God’s will. It was for that He came into the world. And it was amongst those who cherished the like aim that He found His real kith and kin. The truth that spiritual kinship is the only real kinship is emphasised again and again in the New Testament. The true sons of Abraham are those who do the works of Abraham. The true circumcision is not the circumcision of the flesh, but of the spirit. The true sons of God are they that are led by the Spirit of God. So our Lord found His real kinsfolk, not in Joseph and Judah and James and Simon; He found His real kinsfolk in Peter and John and Nathanael and Matthew, and in that multitude of unnamed folk who heard the word of the Lord and received it

-In the Kingdom of God.

This was a hard saying for Mary and her sons; but what a glorious word it has been for the world! It has enlarged the limits of Christ’s family. It has multiplied the number of His brothers and sisters. Had kinship been a matter of blood, then you and I, my reader, had been for ever excluded from Christ’s family. But kinship is a matter of spirit, and so it becomes possible to you and me. One day, the Evangelist tells us, a woman in the crowd cried out, “Blessed is the womb that bare Thee” (Luk 11:27). There were many in Palestine who envied Mary the honour of being the mother of such a son. “Yea rather,” was our Lord’s reply, “blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it” (Luk 11:28). There is no need for any woman, as St Chrysostom says, to envy Mary. She can become as closely related to Jesus as His holy mother. “Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is-My mother.” So it becomes open to any one to enter Christ’s family, on condition they do the will of God.

The Family Speech.

“To me to live is Christ” (Php 1:21), said Paul-that is the family speech. “I have but one passion, ’tis Jesus only,” said Count Zinzendorf-that is the family speech. “I worship Thee, sweet Will of God,” sang Faber-that is the family speech. Are we members of the family? How shall we know? Are we doing God’s will? Notice, it is not mere outward connexion with Christ’s Church, nor the observance of the form of religion that gives us a place in the family, but only the doing of the will. Can Christ, as He looks upon us, say, “Behold My brother, My sister, My mother!”?

Fuente: The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Devotional Commentary

There came then. Verse 21 tells of the “friends” of Jesus who wanted to take charge of him but were not able to do so. Whether these family relatives were the ones meant in the former verse I cannot say, or perhaps they were anxious to attempt what the other relatives failed to accomplish. At any rate, they came as near as they could and tried to get the attention of Jesus.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

IN the verses which immediately precede this passage, we see our blessed Lord accused by the Scribes of being in league with the devil. They said, “He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.”

In the verses we have now read, we find that this absurd charge of the Scribes was not all that Jesus had to endure at this time. We are told that “his brethren and his mother came, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.” They could not yet understand the beauty and usefulness of the life that our Lord was living. Though they doubtless loved Him well, they would fain have persuaded him to cease from His work, and “spare himself.” Little did they know what they were doing! Little had they observed or understood our Lord’s words when He was only twelve years old, “wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luk 2:49.) [Footnote: The remarks of Scott on the conduct of our Lord’s mother on this occasion, are worth quoting: “It is plain that many of these intimations were suited, and doubtless prophetically intended, to be a Scriptural protest against the idolatrous honor, to this day, by vast multitudes, rendered to Mary the mother of Jesus. She was, no doubt, an excellent and honorable character, but evidently not perfect. She is entitled to great estimation, and high veneration, but surely not to religious confidence and worship.” It is difficult to mention any doctrine more completely destitute of Scriptural foundation, than the Romish doctrine of the efficacy of Mary’s intercession, or the utility of addressing our prayers to her. As to the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary, which has been lately accredited by the Romish Church, it is a mere man-made figment, without a single word of Scripture to support it. Holy and full of grace as Mary was, it is plain that she regarded herself as one “born in sin,” and needing a Saviour. We have her own remarkable words in evidence of this last point: “My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” (Luk 1:47.)

As to the opinion of the Fathers on the conduct of the mother of our Lord in this place, Whitby has collected some curious expressions:-“Theophylact taxes her with vain-glory and guilt, in endeavoring to draw Jesus from teaching the word. Tertullian pronounceth her guilty of incredulity-Chrysostom of vain-glory; infirmity and madness, for this very thing.”]

It is interesting to remark the quiet, firm perseverance of our Lord, in the face of all discouragements. None of these things moved Him. The slanderous suggestions of enemies, and the well-meant remonstrances of ignorant friends, were alike powerless to turn Him from His course. He had set His face as a flint towards the cross and the crown. He knew the work He had come into the world to do. He had a baptism to be baptized, and was straitened till it was accomplished. (Luk 12:50.)

So let it be with all true servants of Christ. Let nothing turn them for a moment out of the narrow way, or make them stop and look back. Let them not heed the ill-natured remarks of enemies. Let them not give way to the well-intentioned but mistaken entreaties of unconverted relations and friends. Let them reply in the words of Nehemiah, “I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down.” (Neh 6:3.) Let them say, “I have taken up the cross, and I will not cast it away.”

We learn from these verses one mighty lesson. We learn, who they are that are reckoned the relations of Jesus Christ. They are they who are His disciples, and “do the will of God.” Of such the great Head of the Church says, “the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

How much there is in this single expression! What a rich mine of consolation it opens to all true believers! Who can conceive the depth of our Lord’s love towards Mary the mother that bare Him, and on whose bosom He had been nursed? Who can imagine the breadth of His love towards His brethren according to the flesh, with whom the tender years of his childhood had been spent? Doubtless no heart ever had within it such deep well-springs of affection as the heart of Christ. Yet even He says, of all who “do the will of God,” that each “is his brother, and sister, and mother.”

Let all true Christians drink comfort out of these words. Let them know that there is One at least, who knows them, loves them, cares for them, and reckons them as His own family. What though they be poor in this world? They have no cause to be ashamed, when they remember that they are the brethren and sisters of the Son of God.-What though they be persecuted and ill-treated in their own homes because of their religion? They may remember the words of David, and apply them to their own case, “When my father and mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.” (Psa 27:10.)

Finally, let all who persecute and ridicule others because of their religion, take warning by these words, and repent. Whom are they persecuting and ridiculing? The relations of Jesus the Son of God! The family of the King of kings and Lord of lords!-Surely they would do wisely to hold their peace, and consider well what they are doing. These whom they persecute have a mighty Friend: “Their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause.” (Pro 23:11.)

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Mar 3:31-35. Comparing these verses with the account of Matthew (Mat 12:46-50), we find that Mark omits the introductory phrase; While He yet talked to the people; in Mar 3:31 he tells us that His mother and brothers sent unto him; in Mar 3:32 he inserts: And a multitude was sitting about him; in Mar 3:34 he mentions our Lords glance: And he looked round, instead of the gesture preserved by Matthew: And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples. The look was probably one of affectionate recognition; contrast the look of anger and grief (Mar 3:5). That the look as well as the word applied to more than the Twelve is evident. The blessed truth belongs to multitudes who sit about Jesus and feel His look of affection in a higher spiritual sense.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Observe here, 1. The truth and verity of Christ’s human nature; he had affinity and consanguinity with men, persons near in blood to him by the mother’s side, called here his brethren; that is, his kinsmen.

Observe, 2. That the mother of Christ, though she was a blessed and holy woman, yet she was not free from sin, but failures and infirmities are found with her. It was a fault to interrupt our Saviour unreasonably at this time, when he was preaching to the people. The like we see in her at other times, Luk 2:48, and Joh 2:3. No saint here on earth ever was in a state of sinless perfection.–Blessed be God, we are hastening to such a state.

Observe, 3. That Christ did not neglect his holy mother, or disregard his poor kindred and relations, but only showed that he preferred his Father’s work and business before their company and acquaintance at this time.

Observe, 4. How exceedingly dear obedient Christians are to Jesus Christ; he prefers his spiritual kindred before his natural. Alliance by faith is more valued by our Saviour than alliance by blood. To bear Christ in the heart, is a greater honour than to bear him in the womb. Blessed be God, this great and gracious privilege is not denied us even now. Although we cannot see Christ, yet love him we may. His bodily presence cannot be enjoyed by us, but his spiritual presence is not denied us. Though Christ be not ours in house, in arms, in affinity, inconsanguinity; yet in heart, in faith, in love, in service, he is, or may be ours. Verily, spiritual regeneration bringeth men into a more honourable relation to Christ than natural generation ever did.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mar 3:31-35. There came then his brethren and his mother Having at length made their way through the crowd, so as to come to the door. His brethren are here named first, as being first and most earnest in the design of taking him; for neither did these of his brethren believe on him. They sent to him, calling him They sent one into the house, who called him aloud by name. Looking round on them who sat about him With the utmost sweetness: he said, Behold my mother and my brethren In this preference of his true disciples even to the Virgin Mary, considered merely as his mother after the flesh, he not only shows his high and tender affection for them, but seems designedly to guard against those excessive and idolatrous honours which he foresaw would, in after ages, be paid to her. See the notes on Mat 12:46-50.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

CHRIST’S TEACHING AS TO HIS MOTHER AND BRETHREN.

(Galilee, same day as the last lesson.)

aMATT. XII. 46-50; bMARK III. 31-35; cLUKE VIII. 19-21.

a46 While he yet speaking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without seeking to speak to him. [Jesus was in a house, probably at Capernaum– Mar 3:19, Mat 13:1.] c19 and there came {bcome} cto him his mother and bhis brethren; cand they could not come at him for the crowd. aand, standing without, they sent unto him, calling him. 32 And the multitude was sitting about him [We learn at Mar 3:21, that they came to lay hold of him because they thought that he was beside himself. It was for this reason that they came in a body, for their numbers would enable them to control him. Jesus had four brethren ( Mat 13:55). Finding him teaching with the crowd about him, they passed the word in to him that they wished to see him outside. To attempt to lay hold of him in the midst of his disciples would have been rashly inexpedient. The fact that they came with Mary establishes the strong presumption that they were the children of Mary and Joseph, and hence the literal brethren of the Lord. In thus seeking to take Jesus away from his enemies Mary yielded to a natural maternal impulse which even the revelations accorded to her did not quiet. The brethren, too, acted naturally, for they were unbelieving– Joh 7:5.] a47 And one said {bthey say} unto him, c20 And it was told him, aBehold, thy mother and thy brethren bseek for thee. cstand without, desiring to see thee. aseeking to speak to thee. [310] [This message was at once an interruption and an interference. It assumed that their business with him was more urgent than his business with the people. It merited our Lord’s rebuke, even if it had not behind it the even greater presumption of an attempt to lay hold on him.] 48 But he answered {b33 And he answereth} aand said unto him that told him, band saith, {cand said unto them,} aWho is my mother? and who are my brethren? b34 And looking round on them that sat round about him, ahe stretched forth his hand towards his disciples, and said, {bsaith,} aBehold, my mother and my brethren! cMy mother and my brethren are these that hear the word of God and do it. b35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, amy Father who in heaven, he {bthe same} is my brother, and my sister, and mother. [In this answer Jesus shows that he brooks no interference on the score of earthly relationships, and explodes the idea of his subserviency to his mother. To all who call on the “Mother of God,” as Mary is blasphemously styled, Jesus answers, as he did to the Jews, “Who is my mother?” Jesus was then in the full course of his ministry as Messiah, and as such he recognized only spiritual relationships. By doing the will of God we become his spiritual children, and thus we become related to Christ. Jesus admits three human relationships–“brother, sister, mother”–but omits the paternal relationship, since he had no Father, save God. It is remarkable that in the only two instances in which Mary figures in the ministry of Jesus prior to his crucifixion, she stands forth reproved by him. This fact not only rebukes those who worship her, but especially corrects the doctrine of her immaculate conception.] [311]

[FFG 310-311]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

CONSANGUINITY OF THE HOLY GHOST

Mat 12:46-50; Mar 3:31-35; & Luk 8:19; Luk 8:21; Luk 11:27-28. And it came to pass while He was speaking these things, a certain woman, lifting up her voice from the crowd, said to Him, Blessed is the womb having born Thee, and the breast which Thou didst suck. And He said, Truly, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it. This is simply the gushing ejaculation of a woman in the crowd, so carried away with admiration of His mighty works and wonderful preaching that she is electrified with the conception of the glorious honor appertaining to the woman who enjoyed the privilege and the blessing of motherhood, thus giving the world such a Son. Matthew: And He, speaking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers are standing without, seeking to speak to Him. And responding, He said to the one having spoken to Him, Who is My mother and who are My brothers? Reaching forth His hand toward His disciples [Mark says they were all sitting down around Him in a circle], said, Behold, My mother and My brothers. For whosoever may do the will of My Father who is in the heavens, the same is My brother, My sister, and My mother. Luke says, My mother and My brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it. His reputed father, Joseph, is not mentioned here in connection with the family, neither have we a single word in reference to him since Jesus accompanied them to the temple when He was twelve years old. There is not doubt but he died during the ensuing eighteen years. We hear of Jesus having sisters living in Nazareth; doubtless married. Questions arise in reference to these brothers of Jesus four in number, James, Judas, Simon, and Joses the Roman Catholics, conservatively to their Mariolatry, claiming that they were the sons of Joseph by a former marriage; and the Protestants, certainly with more plausibility, that they were the uterine brothers of Jesus, and of course younger than Himself, as we have not an intimation that Joseph had a former marriage, and especially from the fact that we always find them in company with Mary, which looks much like she was their mother. Jesus then being thirty-two years old, if they were children of Joseph by a former marriage, it would put them up considerably in bachelorhood, and not seem very plausible that they would have been giving a stepmother so much attention. There is no doubt but they, thinking that He was wearing Himself out, wanted to prevail on Him to relax labor, and go home with them, and take a good rest, which was incompatible with the urgency of His important ministry. We see here, His natural relatives go into eclipse when contrasted with the spiritual. So we all find, as we become more spiritual, our physical consanguinity sinks into deeper eclipse; not that we love our natural relatives less, but the consanguinity of the Holy Ghost is so much sweeter and richer than that of this world, that we find our affections absorbed and literally captured by the saints of God, admiring and appreciating them in proportion to their approximation to that Perfect Man, the fairest among ten thousand and altogether lovely.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 31

There came; that is, in consequence of the excitement against him expressed in the preceding verses.–Standing without; the pressure of the crowd preventing their coming in to him.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

Mar 3:31 There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him calling him. Mar 3:32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. Mar 3:33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? Mar 3:34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! Mar 3:35 For whosoever shall do the will of God the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

Christ’s family came to visit or show concern for Him but could not get close to him – this is stated in Luk 8:19 “and they could not come at him for the crowd.” They sent word to him and he asked the group who his family was.

This is a definite principle of life that many ignore today. He was saying quite clearly that his family was anyone that heard the Word and did it. Not any claim to deity or anything is it? He is the spiritual head of the family that He is gathering together. Anyone in God’s family that hears God’s word and does it is a part of the family.

We won’t get into the discussion that “do it” might bring, but it seems that works are closely tied to Christ’s recognition of His family. (Mark and Matthew speak of doing the Will of God while Luke mentions hearing the word and then doing it.)

This is in no way a rejection of his blood family, but recognition of His spiritual family.

We also see that Mary had other children after the birth of Christ. Plural brothers are mentioned.

(Not to throw rocks at the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary which some teach, but it does throw a rock in front of their truck in my mind.)

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

3:31 There came then his {q} brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.

(q) By the name “brother” the Hebrews understand all that are of the same stock and blood.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The interference of Jesus’ family 3:31-35 (cf. Matthew 12:46-50; Luke 8:19-21)

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Mary, along with Jesus’ half-brothers, finally arrived from Nazareth (cf. Mar 3:20-21). By inserting Jesus’ conflict with the scribes in this story Mark heightened the readers’ suspense about the results of Jesus’ conflict with His family. Perhaps the house where Jesus was was so full of people that His family could not get in but had to send word to Him that they had arrived. This approach reflects normal family relationships. Jesus’ mother and brothers were not being rude but were expecting that Jesus would acknowledge their presence by respectfully coming out to meet them. They wanted to talk to Him privately and to restrain His activity.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

CHAPTER 3:31-35 (Mar 3:31-35)

THE FRIENDS OF JESUS

“And there come His mother and His brethren; and, standing without, they sent unto Him, calling Him. And a multitude was sitting about Him; and they say unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren without seek for Thee. And He answereth them, and saith, Who is My mother and My brethren? And looking round on them which sat round about Him He saith, Behold My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.” Mar 3:31-35 (R.V.)

WE have lately read that the relatives of Jesus, hearing of His self-sacrificing devotion, sought to lay hold on Him, because they said, He is beside Himself. Their concern would not be lightened upon hearing of His rupture with the chiefs of their religion and their nation. And so it was, that while a multitude hung upon His lips, some unsympathizing critic, or perhaps some hostile scribe, interrupted Him with their message. They desired to speak with Him, possibly with rude intentions, while in any case, to grant their wish might easily have led to a painful altercation, offending weak disciples, and furnishing a scandal to His eager foes.

Their interference must have caused the Lord a bitter pang. It was sad that they were not among His hearers, but worse that they should seek to mar His work. To Jesus, endowed with every innocent human instinct, worn with labor and aware of gathering perils, they were an offense of the same kind as Peter made himself when he became the mouthpiece of the tempter. For their own sakes, whose faith He was yet to win, it was needful to be very firm. Moreover, He was soon to make it a law of the kingdom that men should be ready for His sake to leave brethren, or sisters, or mother, and in so doing should receive back all these a hundredfold in the present time (Mar 10:29-30). To this law it was now His own duty to conform. Yet it was impossible for Jesus to be harsh and stern to a group of relatives with His mother in the midst of them; and it would be a hard problem for the finest dramatic genius to reconcile the conflicting claims of the emergency, fidelity to God and the cause, a striking rebuke to the officious interference of His kinsfolk, and a full and affectionate recognition of the relationship which could not make Him swerve. How shall He “leave” His mother and His brethren, and yet not deny His heart? How shall He be strong without being harsh?

Jesus reconciles all the conditions of the problem, as pointing to His attentive hearers, He pronounces these to be His true relatives, but yet finds no warmer term to express what He feels for them than the dear names of mother, sisters, brethren.

Observers whose souls were not warmed as He spoke, may have supposed that it was cold indifference to the calls of nature which allowed His mother and brethren to stand without. In truth, it was not that He denied the claims of the flesh, but that He was sensitive to other, subtler, profounder claims of the spirit and spiritual kinship. He would not carelessly wound a mother’s or a brother’s heart, but the life Divine had also its fellowships and its affinities, and still less could He throw these aside. No cold sense of duty detains Him with His congregation while affection seeks Him in the vestibule; no, it is a burning love, the love of a brother or even of a son, binds Him to His people.

Happy are they who are in such a case. And Jesus gives us a ready means of knowing whether we are among those whom He so wonderfully condescends to love. “Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven.” Feelings may ebb, and self-confidence may be shaken, but obedience depends not upon excitement, and may be rendered by a breaking heart.

It is important to observe that this saying declares that obedience does not earn kinship; but only proves it, as the fruit proves the tree. Kinship must go before acceptable service; none can do the will of the Father who is not already the kinsman of Jesus, for He says, Whosoever shall (hereafter) do the will of My Father, the same is (already) My brother and sister and mother. There are men who would fain reverse the process, and do God’s will in order to merit the brotherhood of Jesus. They would drill themselves and win battles for Him, in order to be enrolled among His soldiers. They would accept the gospel invitation as soon as they refute the gospel warnings that without Him they can do nothing, and that they need the creation of a new heart and the renewal of a right spirit within them. But when homage was offered to Jesus as a Divine teacher and no more, He rejoined, Teaching is not what is required: holiness does not result from mere enlightenment: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Because the new birth is the condition of all spiritual power and energy, it follows that if any man shall henceforth do God’s will, he must already be of the family of Christ.

Men may avoid evil through self-respect, from early training and restraints of conscience, from temporal prudence or dread of the future. And this is virtuous only as the paying of a fire-insurance is so. But secondary motives will never lift any man so high as to satisfy this sublime standard, the doing of the will of the Father. That can only be attained, like all true and glorious service in every cause, by the heart, by enthusiasm, by love. And Jesus was bound to all who loved His Father by as strong a cord as united His perfect heart with brother and sister and mother.

But as there is no true obedience without relationship, so is there no true relationship unfollowed by obedience. Christ was not content to say, Whoso doeth God’s will is My kinsman: He asked, Who is My kinsman? and gave this as an exhaustive reply. He has none other. Every sheep in His fold hears His voice and follows Him. We may feel keen emotions as we listen to passionate declamations, or kneel in an excited prayer-meeting, or bear our part in an imposing ritual; we may be moved to tears by thinking of the dupes of whatever heterodoxy we most condemn; tender and soft emotions may be stirred in our bosom by the story of the perfect life and Divine death of Jesus; and yet we may be as far from a renewed heart as was that ancient tyrant from genuine compassion, who wept over the brevity of the lives of the soldiers whom he sent into a wanton war.

Mere feeling is not life. It moves truly; but only as a balloon moves, rising by virtue of its emptiness, driven about by every blast that veers, and sinking when its inflation is at an end. But mark the living creature poised on widespread wings; it has a will, an intention, and an initiative, and as long as its life is healthy and unenslaved, it moves at its own good pleasure. How shall I know whether or not I am a true kinsman of the Lord? By seeing whether I advance, whether I work, whether I have real and practical zeal and love, or whether I have grown cold, and make more allowance for the flesh than I used to do, and expect less from the spirit. Obedience does not produce grace. But it proves it, for we can no more bear fruit except we abide in Christ, than the branch that does not abide in the vine.

Lastly, we observe the individual love, the personal affection of Christ for each of His people. There is a love for masses of men and philanthropic causes, which does not much observe the men who compose the masses, and upon whom the causes depend. Thus, one may love his country, and rejoice when her flag advances, without much care for any soldier who has been shot down, or has won promotion. And so we think of Africa or India, without really feeling much about the individual Egyptian or Hindu. Who can discriminate and feel for each one of the multitudes included in such a word as Want, or Sickness, or Heathenism? And judging by our own frailty, we are led to think that Christ’s love can mean but little beyond this. As a statesman who loves the nation may be said, in some vague way, to love and care for me, so people think of Christ as loving and pitying us because we are items in the race He loves. But He has eyes and a heart, not only for all, but for each one. Looking down the shadowy vista of the generations, every sigh, every broken heart, every blasphemy, is a separate pang to His all-embracing heart. “Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee,” lonely, unconscious, undistinguished drop in the tide of life, one leaf among the myriads which rustle and fall in the vast forest of existence. St. Paul speaks truly of Christ “Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” He shall bring every secret sin to judgment, and shall we so far wrong Him as to think His justice more searching, more penetrating, more individualizing than his love, His memory than His heart? It is not so. The love He offers adapts itself to every age and sex: it distinguishes brother from sister, and sister again from mother. It is mindful of “the least of these My brethren.” But it names no Father except One.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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