THE UNPARDONABLE SIN: Mark 3

(Matt. 12 24-32, Luke 12 10)

28-30

We have already examined, in the source common to Matthew and Luke, the words of Jesus about a sin for which there is no forgiveness. The saying on this subject in Mark, though it differs by not mentioning the Son of Man, throws an equally striking light on Jesus' consciousness of Himself. It is pronounced with a solemn assurance of its truth. 'Verily I say unto you that all things shall be forgiven to the sons of men, the sins and the blasphemies wherewithsoever they have blasphemed. But whoso shall have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit hath not forgiveness for ever, but is guilty of an eternal sin.' How is this sin committed? The Holy Spirit is that divine power which is manifested in Jesus as He casts out evil spirits; it is not something distinct from Him and to be contrasted with Him; it is simply God acting through Him for the deliverance of men from Satan. There are cases in which God acts, as it were, from behind a screen, and it is possible not to recognise Him, and to sin or blaspheme inadvertently and therefore pardonably; but in the case before us it is different. The works that Jesus did were so palpably the works of God, the operations of His holy redeeming power, that inadvertent failure to recognise them for what they were was impossible. The dullest spectator was bound to say, as the magicians of Egypt did of Moses, This is the finger of God (Ex. 819, Luke 11 20): nothing but the blackest malignity could whisper, He has an unclean spirit, He casts out demons by Beelzebub. Nothing could more convincingly show how entirely Jesus identifies Himself with the cause of God and His Kingdom. That absolute significance of his Person and His work to which reference has been so frequently made already is the

fundamental idea here also. The solemnity and vehemence with which He speaks-'hath not forgiveness for ever,' 'is guilty of an eternal sin'-reminds us of the words in which He pronounces woes on the impenitent cities (it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, for Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment than for you'), or of the awful warning to whoso shall deny Him before men ('him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven"). The cure of demoniacs had a peculiar value for Jesus as a demonstration that God's victory over Satan was actually in process of accomplishment, that the Kingdom of God, if one might dare to say it, was no longer a thing to be waited for, but had come to men while as yet they did not realise it (Matt. 12 28); but the victory of God and the coming of His Kingdom are identified with Jesus. and His work. They are mediated for the world through Him, and it is because things so great are mediated through Him that unpardonable guilt attaches to those who slanderously misinterpret what He does. One may be excused if he hesitates between the forms in which Jesus' saying has been preserved by Mark and by the other early source, but there is no doubt that in either form the divine power of God at work for the redemption of men is identified with Jesus in His own words. In His own mind-we have the most solemn assurance of it-He had the same place as the Mediator of God's salvation which He has always had in Christian faith.

THE MESSIAH AND THE CROSS
(Mark 8 -10 *5)

Such passages as those we have just examined reveal or rather betray the consciousness of Jesus as to His place in the world, and in the working out of God's purposes towards men. What He is, however, cannot be told, unless it has been in a sense discovered. The

impression which He made on those who were in close contact with Him-the impression produced not by explicit words only, but by His life as a whole, and especially by the attitude He assumed towards them and expected from them—this impression, especially if He confirmed it, is an important part of the revelation of what He was. Scholars generally have agreed that in the gospel according to Mark there is a historical sequence traceable, in a large way, which is less evident in the later gospels. At first Jesus works among His own people, and at first, too, not without response. His mighty works naturally excited enthusiasm. Such as it was, this enthusiasm seems to have reached high-water mark in the feeding of the five thousand, and from that time forward it ebbed. The feeding of the five thousand has greatly exercised those who cannot believe in it, and the most various attempts have been made to rationalise it and get rid of the miracle. Either it is said the miracle was a spiritual oneJesus, to speak in the language of the fourth gospel, fed the multitudes with the bread of life, the word of His teaching; or He and His disciples, sharing their scanty store of provisions with the crowd, prompted others to follow their generous example, and drew forth more than enough for all. Such explanations fail to do justice to the fact that, according to all our records, the feeding of the five thousand produced an immense excitement from which Jesus and the disciples found it necessary but hard to make their escape. Jesus compelled the Twelve, who no doubt shared the popular enthusiasm, to go out to sea and face a rising storm rather than founder in this spiritual whirlwind; and He Himself retired to the mountain to pray (Mark 6 45 f.). He deliberately

1

The account given in the fourth gospel of the feeding of the multitudes has many features which suggest that it came from an eye-witness. Incidentally it explains the otherwise perplexing word váykaσev in Mark 6 15 and || Matthew. The multitudes wanted, in the enthusiasm of

45

refused to enlist under the banner of Jewish expectations; and from this time forward the breach between Him and His countrymen widens. A little later, apparently, there is a decisive rupture with the recognised religious authorities about the traditions of the elders, and He retires with the Twelve into the country north of Galilee (Mark 7 1 ff.). So far, it may be said, He has failed to make on the people the impression He desired, and His interest is henceforth concentrated on the few who have been more intimately related to Him. Have they penetrated His secret? Are they able to take Him for what He is in His own estimation, and so to continue His work in His own sense?

This is the decisive question with which we are confronted at the beginning of what Wellhausen has described as the Christian section of the gospel of Mark: 'And Jesus went forth, and His disciples, into the villages of Caesarea Philippi: and in the way He asked His disciples, saying unto them, Who do men say that I am? And they told Him, saying, John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but others, one of the prophets. And He asked them, But who say ye that I am? Peter answereth and saith unto Him, Thou art the Christ. And He charged them that they should tell no man of Him' (Mark 8 27 ff.). We have seen already that the unique self-consciousness of Jesus, which is divinely assured the moment, to take Jesus by force and make Him a king. The disciples, whose hopes were still in many respects like those of the multitudes, were only too ready to fall in with this revolutionary movement, and it was against their will that Jesus compelled them to start for the other side. For Him personally it meant the recurrence of the temptations in the wilderness: all three of them can easily be discerned in the narrative. His own sense of this would be marked by His withdrawal to the mountain to pray-His flight (pevyɛ) as some ancient authorities read in John 6 15. The way in which the fourth gospel explains Mark at this point supports the accuracy of both, and makes it impossible to reduce the feeding of the five thousand to an improvised picnic. Whether we can explain it or not, it was an extraordinary event of some kind, agitating in its immediate circumstances for all concerned, and a turning-point in the history of Jesus and in His relations with His people.

from the baptism onward, breaks forth at intervals in Mark, especially when His authority or His work is challenged: here we see that it is an interest to Jesus Himself, that He has reflected on what He is, and is concerned that men should apprehend Him truly. The question, it might almost be said, is more significant than the answers. Jesus is not only conscious that He is a problem to men, He assumes that He ought to be. It is not right that people should be indifferent to Him, should never give Him a thought, or should dispose of Him summarily by saying that of course He is what other people are, and that no more need be said. To His mind, evidently, there can be nothing so important as that men should have received a true impression of Him, should think of Him as He thinks of Himself, and in their attitude to Him respond to what He knows Himself to be.

The opinions of the people are of little interest except as showing that no one regarded Jesus as a commonplace person. Every one recognised in Him a divine messenger of some kind-the Baptist returned from the dead; Elijah, the promised forerunner of the Messiah; or an ordinary prophet-one of those who appeared long ago. These are, without exception, the opinions of people who can hardly have known Jesus at all. No one who had been in His company could imagine that He was any one redivivus, any one but Himself. He was not the reanimation of any dead past, but an absolutely living Person, with His hand on the present and the future. When He turns to the Twelve, whom He had chosen that they might be with Him (314), and so come to know Him truly, and asks them, But you, who do you say that I am? He gets an answer which does justice at least to this difference. Peter, expressing apparently the faith or the conviction of all, says to Him, Thou art the Christ.

We cannot tell all the thoughts and hopes which gath