The Identity of Jesus: Lord, Liar, or Lunatic? (Mark Sermon 13)

I. The Most Important Question: Who Is Jesus?

Turn in your Bibles as we continue our study, our walk through the Gospel of Mark.  As we look at the text, Mark 3: 20-35, we come to this section of Mark’s Gospel to the most important question that we can ever face in life: Who is Jesus Christ? Who is He? Certainly, all of us face many important questions in life. Ultimate questions of being, of purpose, of identity. Who am I? Why am I alive? What is my purpose in life? Where am I going? What do I believe? Lesser questions come along the way also. What should I major in in college? What should my profession be? Who should I marry? Where should I live? What kind of car should I buy? Who should I vote for?  Of all the questions you will ever face, there is nothing more important than this one: What do I believe about Jesus Christ? Why is that question more important than any of the others? It’s because your eternal destiny hangs on your answer. The right answer to that question results in you spending eternity in heaven with God. The wrong answer to that question results in you spending eternity in hell and torment. For all  the other questions I listed which mostly  shape your life experience temporarily here in this world, they  don’t even come close to the significance of that question: Who do I believe Jesus Christ is? This is the ultimate fork in the road for all of us.

“Of all the questions you will ever face, there is nothing more important than this one: What do I believe about Jesus Christ? … The right answer to that question results in you spending eternity in heaven with God.

This question is not overtly posed in this chapter, but it is actually the whole point, not just of this chapter, but of the entire gospel of Mark, and indeed of all the gospels. Later, we will come directly to this question in Mark 8:29, when Jesus said, “‘Who do you say I am?’ and Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ.'” All four Gospels are written to bring you to the right answer from the heart, to give you sufficient reasons to confess that Jesus is Lord God, the Son in human form, and that His mission from heaven to earth was for your salvation from sin, personally. All four Gospels have that same ultimate purpose, to give you enough information to make the right answer. If you see His miracles properly, if you listen to His teachings properly, if you see all of this evidence, you’ll come to the right conclusion: Jesus is God. Now, there are many faulty answers to that question. There were faulty answers then, and there are faulty answers now. In that same  chapter, Mark 8, Jesus and His disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea of Philippi. On the way, He asked them, “Who do people say I am?” And they replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still others, one of the prophets.” That list, those are all positive answers, generally positive, but insufficient., they speak well of Jesus but far less than they should have spoken of Him.

In our text today, we’re going to see some toxic answers to the question, utterly poisonous, degrading Him to the lowest level, speaking very poorly of Jesus. In our day, if you just went around and talked to your non-Christian friends and coworkers and neighbors and family and ask them what they generally thought about Jesus, you’ll find that Jesus has a generally good reputation. People generally think well of Jesus. The most common wrong answer about Jesus is that He was a great man, a great moral teacher.  Ligonier did a survey in 2020 on this very issue: who is Jesus Christ? Stunningly, 30% of people who identify themselves as evangelicals agreed with the following statement: Jesus was a great teacher, but He was not God. 30%, it’s almost a third of people identifying as evangelicals would say yes to that statement: Jesus was a great moral teacher, but He was not God. This is a great danger for the so-called evangelical church, that people think it is enough to have a generally positive view of Jesus as a kind, loving leader who taught great things and who loved people, but who was not actually God in human form. Actually, I think this is the normative view in America today. More broadly, back in 2002, Gallup did a similar survey, and while 80% answered that they believed that Jesus was the Son of God, it’s like, “Well, that sounds good,” a closer look of the data showed that only half of those that gave that answer held that Jesus was incarnate God, fully God, fully man. The rest said that Jesus was the Son of God in the sense that He was a man uniquely called by God to reveal God’s purpose in the world. In other words, again, that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but not the Son of God.

This brings us into the land of something that many of you will be familiar with C. S. Lewis’ trilemma. C. S. Lewis, a great Christian thinker from England, wrote a book on the basics of the Christian faith called Mere Christianity, one of the most popular books in recent Christian history. Since 2001, it has sold 3.5 million copies in English,  and has been translated into many other languages. It’s been instrumental in the conversion of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. One of the most famous parts of C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity was his trilemma, on the identity of Jesus Christ— Lord, liar, lunatic. Essential to the trilemma is that Jesus claimed to be God, which He did in many ways. You look across the four Gospels, and again and again you see this. For example, in Mark 2, He heals the paralyzed man right from the start of all of His sins, past, present, and future. Rightly, His enemies said, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” The answer is no one, but Jesus took to Himself that authority, and He did the miracle to prove that He had the authority to forgive sins. He called Himself the Lord of the Sabbath. You may have read right through that without realized what an incredible claim that was in that Jewish context; “Lord of the Sabbath, I’m in charge of the Sabbath.”

In other places, He said to His enemies, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” You don’t have to be any kind of Jewish scholar to know what that claim is. He is speaking the language of the burning bush and also claiming to be timeless and eternal. No doubt that’s a claim to deity. He said, “Moses wrote about Me.” He defended His working on the Sabbath with these words, “My father is always at His work. To this very day, and I too am working.”  He said, “I and the Father are one.” He said, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen Father,” and many other such claims. There’s no doubt Jesus claimed to be God, that’s foundational to the problem of the trilemma. A man who makes such a claim cannot be merely a good moral teacher. That’s just not possible. That’s been taken off the table by that claim. Either His claim is true or it’s false. Either He was God as He claimed, or He was not. If He was God, we should all bow down and worship Him and trust in Him and follow Him. But if He was not, if the claim was false, either He knew it was false or He didn’t. If He knew it was false and made it anyway, then He’s a liar, a very bad liar. It’s not a minor lie either. He was the deceiver of the people. If He didn’t know it was false, if He really thought it was true but it was false, He was insane. Because He’s in an intensely monotheistic religion,  they would’ve told Him from the beginning of the claim how faulty and blasphemous it was. Indeed, they did. So He had to be crazy if He actually really thought it was true and it wasn’t. That’s how the trilemma works.

C.S. Lewis did not invent this trilemma. Actually, Scottish preacher John Duncan first wrote it in 1859. Watchman Nee also repackaged it in 1936. But Lewis’ version is most famous because it was in Mere Christianity. Lewis wrote: “I am trying here prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him, about Jesus. ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That’s the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg. Or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool. You can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. Now, it seems to me that He was neither a lunatic, nor a fiend, and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”

We’re going to walk through this complex passage which you heard read earlier, Mark 3:20-35. The context here is that we have had a broad survey of Jesus’ public ministry in Mark 3:8-12. Jesus was overpoweringly popular because of a river of healing miracles and exorcisms, driving out demons,  so that there were thousands of people around Him every day. The issue of the popular opinion of Jesus starts to come to the fore: Who is Jesus? This text addresses that, raises up different opinions about Jesus. In verse 20-21, Jesus’ earthly,  biological family have deep concerns about Jesus. They think He’s out of His mind so they go to take charge of Him. Then in verses 22-30, it describes that teachers of the law from Jerusalem have heard about Jesus, and they come down from Jerusalem to investigate. They don’t deny the miracles, but they conclude exactly the opposite from the truth. It is by Satan, by evil power, supernatural power that Jesus is driving out demons. Jesus addresses their accusations and interpretations. Then in verses 31-35, Jesus’ family arrives to take charge of Him and Jesus defines His true family: those who do God’s will, a larger teaching of the New Testament. We know exactly what that means. To do God’s will means to believe properly about Jesus, to believe in Jesus as Lord. Those are His true family. So that’s the three parts of this section in Mark.

The issues are many. Issue number one, the main issue which I’ve been talking about since I began here today is, who is Jesus? The identity of Jesus. What are we to make of this amazing man and His astonishing works? The second issue is Jesus’ biological family, what do they believe about Jesus, including His mother and His brothers? The third issue, what is the origin of Jesus’ supernatural power? Where does His power come from? The fourth issue in this text is the nature of Satan’s kingdom. We get this from Jesus’ first answer, “How can Satan drive out Satan?” What is the nature of His dark kingdom? The fifth issue in this text is the nature of Jesus’ ministry. What’s actually going on as He’s doing exorcisms, as He’s saving souls? What’s actually happening? And that’s Jesus’ answer number two, He’s actually overpowering the strong man, Satan, and plundering his house. We, the redeemed, are rescued from Satan’s dark kingdom by an act of spiritual violence. We have been rescued powerfully by a mightier king. That’s the nature of Jesus’ ministry. The sixth issue is, what about this issue of the unpardonable sin, a sin that can be committed in time which can never be forgiven, not in this age or in the age to come, never be forgiven, the unpardonable sin? The seventh issue is the true family of Jesus, the true nature of Jesus’ family. Who is my mother, who are my brothers? What does it mean to be a brother to Jesus and the nature of His family?

That’s far too much for one sermon, especially with this long intro I’ve already given you.  It is too much to cover in one sermon, so our focus today is just going to be on this initial topic, the identity of Jesus, pulled by the gravitational pull of C. S. Lewis’ famous trilemma, I can see it in the structure of the text. First, His earthly family will reveal their answer to who is Jesus, or at least at that point. They thought He was out of His mind, and so I’m going to cast that section as Jesus as diluted lunatic. Then the scribes from Jerusalem will reveal their answer that Jesus was possessed by a demon or even Satan himself, so He was a demonic liar,  a deceiver of the people through demon power. And finally, when Jesus’ family arrives to take charge of Him, Jesus will put them in their place. I mean, basically He’s rebuking them by not going out to them, continuing with those that are sitting around Him and asking this question, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? “Those who do God’s will, who sit at my feet and drink in my teaching and love it and believe in me, the teacher.” The answer for them is that Jesus is divine Lord.

II. His Earthly Family’s Answer: Deluded Lunatic

Let’s walk through that. First, His earthly family’s answer that Jesus is a diluted lunatic. Look at verse 20-21. “Then Jesus entered a house, and again, a crowd gathered so that He and His disciples were not even able to eat. When His family heard about this, they went to take charge of Him because they said, ‘He’s out of His mind.'” Again, is this issue that we have week after week after week,  the overpowering press of the crowd. We’ve got thousands of people around Jesus at every moment. They are desperate for healing or that a loved one be healed. They’re pressing Him so much, and Jesus’ compassion is so relentless, they match together, their needs are relentless, His compassion is relentless, so He has staggeringly long days, especially because He prefers to heal one at a time. There’s no evidence ever of mass healing, so He’s just touching people, talking to people, interacting with people. It’s an exhausting day so that He and His disciples are not able to eat, they’re not able to rest, that’s His lifestyle. In this particular case, He goes into the house to get away, but they won’t let Him alone. Would you, if you’d come a long distance with a dying child or you yourself were desperate, you’ve been paralyzed, you’re carried by some friends, or you’re blind, whatever your need, you want to be healed. Whatever Jesus’ needs are not that important to you. His family hears about this. The text literally in the Greek says “those near Him”, but at the end when He says, “Who is my mother and my brothers?” you know you’re talking about His biological family.

Jesus had biological half brothers and sisters. Mary was not a perpetual virgin, but she and Joseph had normal family life together, and they had four sons and an unnamed number of daughters.  Mark 6 names Jesus’ brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, and then says sisters, two, they’re not named, but so there’s at least six half siblings. I say half because they shared a biological mother, Mary, but Jesus had God as His father, they all had Joseph as their father. In John 7, we learn an important thing about Jesus’ brothers. At that point, Jesus says, “I’m not going up to the feast.” His brothers take Him aside and try to give Him ministry advice, saying, “You’re doing all these miracles. No one does miracles like this and tries to stay secret. If you’re going to do this, show yourself to the world.” They want to be His PR agents. Let me tell you something, Jesus doesn’t ever need your advice for anything. Who has been the counselor of the Lord? The text then openly says, “For even Jesus’ brothers did not believe in Him.” They had seen Him grow up. They’d been in the house with Him. He had never sinned, though. His first miracle we’re told in John 2 is the changing of water into wine. He didn’t know miracles as a child, as an adolescent, as a young man. He didn’t do any miracles before His public ministry, but He was still utterly unique for he never sinned. He was completely unique. They did not believe in Him, but after His resurrection, Jesus specifically appeared to His brother James, and James would eventually become a pillar in the church in Jerusalem, and would write the epistle of James that we have in the New Testament. We believe that the epistle of Jude was also written by one of Jesus’ half brothers called Judas, also Jude. In Acts 1, they are waiting for the outpouring of the Spirit, which would come on the day of Pentecost. They’re there with Mary, they’re all waiting.

After the resurrection, that problem is solved, praise God. They do believe in Him, but not at this point. The proof is this text verse 20-21. They hear about what’s going on, and instead of praising God and saying, “The kingdom of God is making progress,” they go to take charge of Him because they’re saying He’s out of His mind. That’s pretty emotional when you think about that. His family was saying He’s crazy, as C. S. Lewis would say it, lunatic.They thought, “We need to save Him from this crowd and this weird lifestyle. We really need to save Him from Himself.” They go to take charge of Him. The Greek word  used usually  means “concerning arrest”, to arrest a man. You can imagine in our setting now it’s something that’s called involuntary commitment. You have to have legal grounds for that, to basically imprison someone, the reason  being that the person is a danger. The person’s a danger to themselves and to the society. They thought He was crazy. You may stop and say, “What about Mary? I mean, what’s going on with Mary here?” Most commentators give her a pass. Most commentators say, “She’s not included in this, but she’s just along for the ride.” They actually even give her a ministry of reducing the half brothers in their virulent unbelief at this point. We have no such data. We do know that He, Jesus, mildly rebukes her at the end of this by saying, “Who is my mother? And who are my brothers?” We should not think it beyond. I know that Mary knew she was a Virgin when Jesus was conceived and born. There’s no doubt. She knew what the angel said., she believed it. We know the Magnificat, Luke 1.  For even, John the Baptist receded from his pure strong faith in Jesus toward the end of his life. You remember when he is in prison he said, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” That was John the Baptist. “You mean someone else other than the lamb of God, someone else other than the Son of God.” How could that be? But that’s what happened, people are weak. Peter was weak, he called down curses on himself if he even knew Jesus. So I don’t know what’s going on with Mary. I do know she ends up a vigorous, healthy believer in Jesus. But at this point, I don’t know what’s happening with her.

“Jesus was the most, really the only truly sane man who ever lived. His mind was pure, pure light, pure love for God, pure love for others, pure love for the truth of God. His teachings were stunningly beautiful. They were rational, reasonable, clear, powerful, timeless.”

Was Jesus a lunatic? This is the easiest part of my sermon. No. No, He was not crazy. Jesus was the most, really the only truly sane man who ever lived. His mind was pure, pure light, pure love for God, pure love for others, pure love for the truth of God. His teachings were stunningly beautiful. They were rational, reasonable, clear, powerful, timeless. His demeanor was perfect in every circumstance. He dealt with every person exactly as they needed to be dealt with. He was rational at every moment. All you had to do was listen to Him and you knew, if you didn’t have a bias, a twisted, wicked bias, you knew. At one point, some combined the whole demon possession and insanity thing. In John 10:20, “Many of them said, ‘He’s demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to Him?’” They packaged the whole thing together there, but the evidence completely refuted that. Right there, in the next verse, others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” So no, Jesus was not insane.

III. The Jerusalem Scribes’ Answer: Demonic Liar

Secondly, the Jerusalem scribes’ answer to the question was demonic liar. Look at verse 22, “And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said ‘He is possessed by Beelzebub. By the prince of demons He is driving out demons.'” So the scribes, the teachers of the law, have met Him again and again, they been sent on mission from Jerusalem.  Jerusalem’s the spiritual center of the nation, so undoubtedly the religious leaders in Jerusalem have heard about Jesus’ public ministry. How could they not? They send down a delegation to make an official evaluation of Jesus and His ministry. Interestingly, Jesus’ enemies never denied His miracles. That would come centuries later, denying that He even did them. They did not deny it. They accept the fact that He’s healing people. They accept the fact that He’s doing exorcisms. That’s a fact, no one else in history had ever done these things. But they had decided already first that Jesus was their enemy and they were His. They hated Him first, then they explained His miracle, second. Why did they hate Him?  Jesus said they hated Him because He testified that what they did was evil. “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, you’ll by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” He crossed swords with them when He cleansed the temple in John 2 at the beginning of His ministry, and then again on the Sabbath. Sabbath after Sabbath, He’s crossing swords with them, so they hated Him, the opposed him.  In John 9  He heals a man born blind and his parents didn’t want anything to do with this court trial on the healing of the blind man, and the parents say, “Ask Him yourself, he’s of age.” It says there, “For already the Jewish authorities had decided that if any Jewish person said that Jesus was the Messiah, they’d be put out of the synagogue.” That’s Jewish excommunication. They’re out of Jewish life. That’s huge, they couldn’t buy or sell,  they couldn’t live in that community if you said Jesus was the Christ. So what explanation then can they give for these miracles? It’s so tragic that they can’t see the most obvious explanation, that the man born blind in John 9 did see. How can you not see, if this man were not from God, He could do nothing? It’s got to be God’s power at work.

But they couldn’t see it. Instead, they ascribe His supernatural power to the king of demons, Beelzebub. Verse 22, “He is possessed by Beelzebub. By the prince of demons, He is driving out demons.”  Beelzebub is the Jewish insult of the Canaanite word, Beelzebul, which literally means “Lord of heaven.” The Jews changed it a bit to Beelzebub, which means “lord of the flies”, but it’s then what they called Satan, he’s the Lord of the flies. Beelzebub, that’s what the word means. So that’s Satan.These scribes are saying it is by Satan’s power that He’s driving out demons. It’s a demonic deception, Jesus is a huge fraud. John 7:12, “Some said, ‘He’s a good man.’ Others said, ‘No, He deceives the people. He’s a deceiver of the people. Liar.'” After His burial, you remember the delegation of Jews went to Pilate and said, “Give orders to make the tomb secure, because we know that while He was still alive, that deceiver said, ‘After three days I’ll rise again.'” Call Him a deceiver. That’s what He is, a liar and a deceiver, demonic liar.

Jesus’ answer is that whole thing that you’re saying is impossible,  it cannot be. Look at verses 23- 26, “So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables. ‘How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand. His end has come.'”  I want to tell you right upfront, some of Jesus’ teachings are easier than others to interpret. This is not easy to interpret actually.  It’s a hard argument, a complex argument, difficult to follow. First of all, Jesus did openly teach that Satan’s a liar and a deceiver, that Satan would do this kind of misdirection is actually well within his character. Furthermore, He warned that at the end of the world false Christs and false prophets would come and perform false miracles to deceive even the elected if it were possible. So false miracles are coming at the end of the world. Paul taught the same thing in 2 Thessalonians 2 that the antichrist, the man of sin, would perform deceptive miracles by the power of Satan. So that Satan actually could do this kind of thing is not beyond his tendency. Then how does Jesus’ argument prove that it’s impossible that His ministry is being done by Satan? I think the only way I could make sense of it is the level of destruction Jesus was doing to Satan’s ministry and kingdom in Palestine. He’s blowing up demonic strongholds everywhere, every day. He’s driving out demons every day. He’s rescuing people from darkness and bringing them into light every day. 1 John 3:8, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” The level of destruction is incalculable. It’s been going on for 2,000 years, praise God. Jesus is leaving Satan’s kingdom in smoking rubble day after day. There’s no way that Satan could do this level of destruction to his own kingdom and still stand. That’s the logic that Jesus is using here.

Let me give an illustration.  Imagine during World War II a specific German general rebelled against the Nazi regime and led a coup and destroyed a whole SS division, slaughtered them all, thousands of fanatical Nazi soldiers, blows up Hitler’s Berlin headquarters, rounds up and disarms an entire German army, forces them to surrender to the allies, and then he wants to work with the allies to bring the rest of the still-fighting Germans to be subdued. Would you believe that guy is on the level? I mean, after that, yes. The level of destruction that he’s done to the former regime is believable. There’s no way this is just a trick, because Jesus is just laying waste to Satan’s kingdom. We’re going to see that as we go on. The demon act of the gatherings, that’s not a satanic trick. Verse 26, “If Satan opposed himself and is divided, he cannot stand. His end has come.”

What is the right explanation? Verse 27, “In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house.” So every sinner saved, redeemed by Jesus Christ is a work of spiritual violence done to Satan’s kingdom. We are all plunder, brothers and sisters, we’re plundered by the stronger one who overpowered Satan and rescued us. We were locked up in a satanic prison, we were wrapped up in invisible chains of deception and sin, and we could not set ourselves free. Jesus, the king of light came in and our chains fell off and the prison doors swung open and there was nothing Satan could do to stop it. That’s what’s going on here. As Luke puts it in Luke 11:21-22, “When a strong man fully armed guards his own outs, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger comes along and attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.” Satan is the strong man, Jesus is the one stronger than the strong man, who strips the strong man of his armor and plunders his house. That’s what’s going on. If you’re a Christian, just praise Jesus for rescuing you. As Colossians 1 said, speaking of God the Father but through Christ, “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves.” He did that through Jesus. Praise God. So that’s what’s happening with these exorcisms, these poor victims are being set free. As we’ll see in Mark 5 with the demonic of the gatherings, he becomes a believer in Jesus and spreads the gospel everywhere in the Decapolis. It’s a work of liberation, praise God.

Now we come to the unpardonable sin. Look at verses 28 through 30, “I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He is guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying He has an evil spirit. Jesus makes it plain in Matthew’s account, you can’t just say these kinds of things. It’s not a freebie to just run your mouth and say it’s of because Beelzebub that He’s doing this. No, no, you’re going to be held accountable. You’re in danger year of committing a sin that will never be forgiven, not in this age or in the age to come. This is such a weighty topic that we’re going to dig deeper into next time, so I’m just going to set it aside. We’ll walk through it next time, the unpardonable sin.

IV. His True Family’s Answer:  Divine Lord

Thirdly, His true family’s answer, divine Lord. So Jesus’s biological family arrive, verse 31-32. Jesus’ mother and brothers arrive, standing outside, they sent someone in to call Him. The crowd was sitting around Him and they told Him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for You.'” So mother and brothers are there. They’re outside because of the huge crowd. “Send in a messenger to summon Him.” Inside the  house, you got a huge crowd of disciples. They’re sitting around Him drinking in His teachings. They’re not there for healing. They’re there to listen to His teachings. We’re going to learn in the next chapter that Jesus would tell parables out with the outsiders and then go to the insiders and give them the true explanations of those parables. They’re just drinking in the teaching of the kingdom of God. They’re true followers of Christ. Jesus knew what was in their hearts. He knew that they loved Him and that they believed in Him and that they were His family.

The messengers come in and say, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for You.” In other words, “Stop what you’re doing and come outside.” Remember, they’re there to take charge of Jesus. You’re not taking charge of Jesus, so Jesus effectively rebukes them. Look at verse 33-35, “‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ He asked. Then He looked at those seated in a circle around Him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God’s will is My brother and sister and mother.'” Jesus is not being unkind to them, He’s not being disrespectful. We already know from the changing the water into wine, He’s not doing whatever His mother tells Him to do.  He’s going to do what His Father tells Him to do.  He’s not being unkind to them, but He does want to put them in their place, and He wants them to be genuine believers in Him. They are dishonoring Him, let’s not minimize that. They think He’s out of His mind. Something’s messed up there, they need to change in their thinking about Jesus. The fact is exactly the opposite. If they’re, to some degree, especially the brothers, if they’re unbelievers, who’s out of their minds? They are, not Him.

Here we have the definition of the true family of God, the true family of Christ. “Whoever does God’s will is My brother and sister and mother.” What is God’s will? John 6 probably says it most clearly of all. “They came to Jesus and said, ‘What must we do to work the works of God?’ Jesus answered, “This is the work of God, to believe in the one He has sent.'” That’s it. That’s what God’s will is in this case, “Believe in Me as Your Lord and savior.” This is a challenge to His biological family. He’s challenging them to come out of the fog of partial unbelief into a full, clear light of understanding His deity and His role as their savior. They will come out, praise God. In a couple of chapters later, He’s going to come to His hometown and He’s going to see overtly the unbelief of His relatives. In Mark 6 He says, “Only in his hometown among his relatives in his own house is a prophet without honor.” He could not do any miracles there except lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them, and He was amazed at their unbelief. It’s time for them to repent of that and to see Him for who He really is. He is their Lord, He is their God, He is their redeemer, He’s their creator, their redeemer, their savior. They’ll see that only by faith.

V. What is Your Answer?

As we finish now, what is your answer? Isn’t that the most important question? We circle back to that now. What is your answer? Who do you say Jesus is? I mean, if you get nothing else out of this sermon, know this, you cannot say, “He’s a good moral teacher, but not God.” That’s just not possible. The question I’m asking is, do you really believe that He is God? Do you really believe the reason He came to earth and took on a human body is to save you personally from your sin and that His bloodshed on the cross is sufficient to do that, and that you’re trusting in that and in His resurrection? Are you trusting in Him to be the savior of your soul? Your eternity hangs on it.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank You for the time we’ve had to walk through this deep, complex passage with so many different themes. Now we thank You, O Lord, for what we can glean from it, but we know the most important thing always in all of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is that we would have evidence sufficient to feed and to strengthen and to buttress our faith that Jesus is, as Thomas said, “my Lord and my God,” that we would come to that saving confession and know that through that our sins are forgiven. We praise You Lord Jesus for that. We praise You Father for sending Your Holy Spirit to us individually to bring us from darkness to light through faith in Christ. It’s in Your name Lord Jesus we pray. Amen.

I. The Most Important Question: Who Is Jesus?
A. This morning, we come to the most important question you will ever face… who is Jesus Christ??

1. Certainly we face many important questions in life

2. Ultimate questions of being, of purpose, of identity… Who am I? Why am I alive? What is my purpose in life? Where am I going? What do I believe?

3. Lesser questions along the way: What should I major in in college? What should my profession be? Who should I marry? Where should I live? What kind of car should I buy? Who should I vote for?

4. Dear friends, of all the questions you will ever face, there is nothing that is more significant than this one… “What do I believe about Jesus Christ?”

5. Why is that more important than any other? Because your eternal destiny hangs on your answer to that one question… a right answer results in eternity in heaven, a wrong answer results in eternity in hell

6. All of the others mostly just shape your temporary existence in this dying world

7. But this one… this is the ultimate fork in your road

B. Not Posed Here in this Chapter… But It Is the Whole Point of the Gospel

1. Jesus asked Peter

Mark 8:29  “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

2. All four gospels are written to bring you to the right answer… to give you sufficient reasons to confess that Jesus is Lord, God the Son, in human form; that his mission from heaven to earth was for our salvation from sin

3. All four gospels give you enough to make the right answer… IF you see his miracles properly and understand his teachings properly

C. Many Faulty Answers… Then and Now

Mark 8:27-28  Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”  28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

1. Those were positive answers… speaking WELL of Jesus; we will see in our text today some TOXIC answers, speaking poorly of him and his teachings and miracles

2. But today, we find a generally POSITIVE view of Jesus; he has a so-called “good reputation” among people of the so-called “Christianized” West

D. The Most Common False Answer: “Great moral teacher”

1. Ligonier survey, 2020: “Who is Jesus Christ?”

Stunningly 30% of people identifying as “evangelicals” agreed with the statement, “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”

2. Great danger for the “evangelical church”… that people think it is enough to have a generally positive view of Jesus as a kind, loving leader who taught great things and who loved people but who was not actually God in human form

3. I think this is the normative view in America today more broadly… back in 2002, Gallup did a similar survey and while 80% answered that they believed that Jesus was “the Son of God,” a closer look at the data showed that only half of that 80% held that Jesus was the incarnate God—God in human flesh—fully God, fully man; the rest said that Jesus was the “Son of God” only in the sense that he was a man uniquely called by God to reveal God’s purpose in the world

4. In other words, that Jesus was a great moral teacher; but not the Son of God

E. C.S. Lewis’s “Trilemma”

1. C.S. Lewis, the great Christian thinker from England; wrote a book on the basics of the Christian faith; Mere Christianity… since 2001 alone it has sold 3.5 million copies in English; it has been instrumental in the conversions of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world

2. One of the most famous parts is the “trilemma”… on the identity of Jesus Christ: Lord, Liar, Lunatic

a. Essential to this trilemma is that Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh… which he did in many ways

i) He forgave all the paralyzed man’s sins, and his enemies rightly said “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

ii) He called himself “Lord of the Sabbath”

iii) He said to his enemies, “Before Abraham was born, I am”

iv) He said “Moses wrote about me”

v) Defending his healing work on the Sabbath, he said “My father is always working and I too am working”

vi) NO DOUBT ABOUT IT… in every way possible, Jesus claimed to be God

b. Here’s where the trilemma comes in… a man who makes such a claim cannot be merely a good moral teacher; his claim is either true or false; if his claim is true, we should worship him as Lord (that is, God); if his claim is false—he wasn’t God—either he knew it was false and was intentionally deceiving the people (liar) or he didn’t know it was false, and he was himself deluded and crazy (lunatic)

c. Lewis did not invent this trilemma… actually Scottish preacher John Duncan first wrote it in 1859; Watchman Nee repackaged it in 1936

d. But Lewis’s version is the most famous

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. . . . Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.

3. The passage we are studying today neatly divides up along these three lines… Lunatic (crazy person), Liar (deceiver of the people) or Lord

F. This Complex Passage

1. Context

a. (Mark 3:8-12) Jesus’ overpoweringly popular ministry… a river of healings, including driving out many demons

b. Popular opinion about Jesus… who is this man??? What are we to make of this unprecedented phenomenon??

2. Structure

a. Vs. 20-21: Jesus’ earthly (biological) family’s deep concerns about Jesus; they think he is out of his mind; they go to take charge of him

b. Vs. 22-30: the Scribes (Teachers of the Law) have also heard about Jesus and they come to investigate; they don’t deny the miracles, but they conclude exactly the opposite from the truth—it is by Satan that Jesus is driving out demons; Jesus addresses their accusations/interpretations

c. Vs. 31-35: Jesus’ family arrives to take charge of him, and Jesus defines his true family: those who “do God’s will”… clearly meaning believing in him as the Son of God

So… an “X” structure… A-B-A

3. Issues

a. [Main issue: identity of Jesus] WHO IS JESUS? What are we to make of this amazing man and his astonishing works????

b. [Jesus’ biological family (his mother and brothers)]… their views of Jesus and his views of them

c. [The origin of Jesus’ supernatural power] The accusation of the scribes of Jerusalem: Jesus is possessed by Satan; by Satan’s power he is driving out demons

d. [The nature of Satan’s kingdom]  Jesus’ answer #1: How can Satan drive out Satan?

e. [The nature of Jesus’ ministry] Jesus’ answer #2: Overpowering the strong man and rescuing his possessions… our salvation as an act of spiritual warfare, spiritual plunder

f. [Sins that can be pardoned and a sin that can NEVER be forgiven] Jesus’ answer #3: Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit… what does that mean? Have I committed the unpardonable sin?

g. [The true family of Jesus] Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?

4. TOO MUCH to cover in one sermon!!

G. Our Focus Today… the Identity of Jesus

1. First, his earthly family will reveal their answer, at least at this point—they thought he was out of his mind… I will call it “deluded lunatic”

2. Then, the Scribes from Jerusalem will reveal their answer… that Jesus was possessed by a demon or maybe even Satan himself… a “demonic liar”

3. Finally, when Jesus’ family arrives to take charge of him, Jesus will put them in their place and declare who his true family is… those who “do the will of God”… and what is that? To believe in the One he has sent! And what must we believe? That Jesus is “divine Lord”

II. His Earthly Family’s Answer: Deluded Lunatic
Mark 3:20-21  Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

A. The Press of the Crowd

1. Overwhelming and demanding; so overpowering that Jesus does not get a moment to himself, and neither do his disciples

2. His relentless compassion led him to push his physical body to the edge day after day; he got little sleep, ministering to huge crowds after sundown, getting up while it was still dark, a great while before dawn; he frequently went without food

3. And the crowds will never let up… there is no end in sight!! Where was all this heading??

4. In this case, he goes into a house to get away… it’s the end of the day, maybe they will give him a chance to eat and get some rest… NO WAY! Their pain and their concern for life itself would drive them on to seek healing

B. Jesus’ Family

1. The text just says literally “those near him” or “those around him”… but it is clear from verse 31 that it includes Jesus’ mother and brothers

2. Jesus had biological half-brothers… Mary was not a perpetual virgin, but she and Joseph had four sons together, along with a number of daughters; Mark 6 names Jesus’ brothers: James, Joseph, Simon, Judas; also said he had SISTERS

3. In John 7, we learn a very important fact about his brothers:

John 7:5  even his own brothers did not believe in him.

4. They had seen him grow up in their parents’ home; they had never seen him sin; it wasn’t until he began his public ministry by changing the water into wine (John 2) that Jesus performed his first miracle; but clearly his sinless perfection made him different than any man who ever lived

5. Though they saw his miracles and acknowledged that he did great signs, they still did not believe in him

6. After his resurrection, Jesus would specifically appear to his half-brother James, and James would become the main leader of the church in Jerusalem and would write the Book of James; church history tells us his brother Judas also called Jude wrote the Book of Jude

7. After the resurrection, in Acts 1, they would be with Mary and the other disciples waiting in the upper room for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, which would come on the Day of Pentecost

8. So God would cure them of their unbelief; BUT here, they did not yet believe in Jesus as Lord

C. Proof: They Came to Take Charge of Jesus

1. When they heard about his lifestyle, and the crush of the crowd and the fact that he would skip meals and sleep in order to heal people, they thought he was OUT OF HIS MIND; literally “outside of himself”

2. Or, as C.S. Lewis would put it, a “lunatic”

3. And they thought, “We need to save him from this crowd and really from himself”

4. They went to TAKE CHARGE of Jesus; same Greek word usually means to arrest a man… to seize him or lay hold of him

5. Involuntary commitment… for his own good, they believed

D. What About Mary?

1. Most commentators exempt Mary from this, although Jesus includes the word “mother” at the end

2. We don’t really know what Mary believed at this point; when Jesus was born, she knew full well what the angel had told her, and that she was a virgin; but the doctrine is infinitely deep, “Son of God, Son of David”… she pondered these things in her heart;

3. BUT others like John the Baptist and Peter struggled with their understanding and their faith along the way

4. So, I really don’t know what Mary understood at this moment.

E. Was Jesus a Lunatic?

1. No.

2. Jesus was the most sane man who ever lived. His teachings were stunningly beautiful, reasonable, clear, powerful

3. His demeanor was perfect… loving to broken-hearted sinners, bold with his enemies, rational at every moment

4. All you had to do was listen to him and you knew. At one point, some combined demon-possession with insanity:

John 10:20 Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”

But the evidence completely refuted that!!

John 10:21  But others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”

III. The Jerusalem Scribes’ Answer: Demonic Liar
Mark 3:22  And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

A. The Scribes (Teachers of the Law) Sent on Mission from Jerusalem

1. Jerusalem was the religious center of the Jewish nation

2. They had heard of Jesus and needed to make an official evaluation

B. Their Official Evaluation

1. They never deny that Jesus is doing stunning miracles

2. They accept that as a fact… the healings, the exorcisms… no one else in history had done such things

3. But they had already decided Jesus was their enemy; they had crossed swords very early in Jesus’ ministry when he cleansed the temple in John 2 and did healings on the Sabbath, in direct defiance of their authority

4. By John 9, we learn that the Jewish leaders had already decided that if anyone said Jesus was the Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue… excommunicated from all Jewish life

5. But what explanation can they give for these miracles?

6. It is so tragic that they couldn’t yield by faith to the most obvious answer… only by the power of God could Jesus do these works

7. Instead… they acknowledge his supernatural power to drive out demons, but ascribe it to the King of Demons, Beelzebub

Mark 3:22  “He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

a. “Beelzebub” is a Jewish insult of the word “Beelzebul” which literally means “Lord of heaven”… Baal who rules in heaven; the Jews rejected that pagan god and mocked his name by calling him “Beelzebul” which means “lord of the flies”

b. BUT that title came to mean Satan himself

c. So… these Scribes were saying it is by the power of Satan that Jesus is driving out demons

C. Demonic Deception

1. A huge fraud

John 7:12  Some said, “He is a good man.” Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.”

Matthew 27:62-64  the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate.  63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’

2. They believed Satan was doing some vast trick through Jesus… driving out his own demons to deceive people

3. Jesus is a DEMONIC LIAR

D. Jesus’ answer: That is IMPOSSIBLE!

Mark 3:23-26  So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan?  24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.  26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.

1. This is a complex argument, not easy to follow

2. First of all, Jesus openly taught that Satan is a liar and the father of lies (Jn. 8:44)

3. Furthermore, he warned that false christs would come and perform false miracles to deceive the people (Mk. 13:22); later, Paul will openly ascribe the miracle-working power of the antichrist to Satan

4. So that Satan could actually do this kind of thing seems eminently possible

5. What then does Jesus mean? I think we have to understand the level of destruction he was doing to Satan’s kingdom… he was driving out demons every single day, and rescuing people from darkness to light; he was wreaking havoc, laying waste Satan’s kingdom… this was not some minor disturbance

1 John 3:8  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.

6. So, the key to the answer lies in the level of destruction Jesus was working on Satan’s dark kingdom

Illus. Imagine during World War II, a German general rebelled against Hitler and led a coup; he destroys a whole SS division, slaughtering thousands of fanatical Nazi soldiers and blows up Hitler’s Berlin headquarters; he rounds up and disarms an entire German army and forces them to surrender to the Allies; he then wants to work with the Allies to bring the rest of the German troops still loyal to Hitler to surrender to the Allies; the level of destruction he has done to the Third Reich is proof… you can trust this man!

There is NO WAY this is just a trick, because Jesus is LAYING WASTE to Satan’s kingdom!!

That’s how this argument goes… if Satan drives out all his loyal henchmen and destroys their jurisdictions, his kingdom itself is ended

Mark 3:26  And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.

E. The Right Explanation: A Vast, Powerful Rescue Operation

Mark 3:27  In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house.

1. Every sinner saved by Jesus Christ is a work of violence done to Satan’s kingdom… Satan held those poor sinners in invisible chains of sin and death

2. Satan was the STRONG MAN…Luke makes it even more vivid

Luke 11:21-22  When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.  22 But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.

3. Jesus severed those invisible chains and lifted the victims up and led them to freedom!!!

4. Our rescue was an act of triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ over his adversary, the devil… we were the devil’s possessions; we were (in his mind) safely held, powerfully held, impossible to be rescued; Jesus is infinitely more powerful that this strong man, this evil tyrant, this dark Warrior King!

Colossians 1:13-14  For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,  14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

5. That is what is happening with these exorcisms… these poor victims are set free

F. The Unpardonable Sin

Mark 3:28-30  I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them.  29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”  30 He said this because they were saying, “He has an evil spirit.”

1. Jesus makes it plain in Matthew’s account, you can’t just say these things… such wicked statements are not free of charge

2. You are in danger of committing a sin that will never be pardoned, not in this age or forever

3. This is such a serious thing that it is worth diving in deeper next time!

IV. His True Family’s Answer: Divine Lord
A. Jesus’ Biological Family Arrived

Mark 3:31-32  Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.  32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

1. The text is clear who they are: his mother and brothers

2. They stood outside because of the huge crowd

3. They sent in a messenger to summon him

B. Inside the House: A Crowd of Disciples

1. They were sitting around him… meaning not merely pushing in on him for healing

2. They were delighting in his teachings

3. As we will learn in the next chapter, Jesus explained the parables and secret teachings to them privately when they were alone

4. These are true followers of Christ… Jesus knew what was in their hearts and how much they delighted in the message of the Kingdom of God

C. The messengers tell him: “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you”

1. It is a summons for him to stop this and come with them

2. Jesus refuses to stop his teaching ministry

D. His Answer:

Mark 3:33-35  “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.  34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

1. Jesus is in no way being unkind to them

2. But he is challenging them to come up to the level of genuine faith

3. It is dishonoring to him for them to have these low thoughts of him… that he’s out of his mind

4. BUT the fact was exactly the opposite… if they were as yet unbelievers, it is they who were out of their minds… sin is essentially insanity

E. Definition of the True Family of Christ

1. “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother”

2. And what is God’s will?

John 6:28-29  Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”  29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

3. Every believer in Christ as LORD, as GOD, is part of Jesus’ true family

F. A Challenge to His Biological Family

1. Jesus is challenging them to come out of the fog of partial unbelief into the clear light of his salvation

When Jesus came to his hometown, with the people he grew up with, who were his relatives, he saw their unbelief

Mark 6:4-6  Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”  5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.  6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith.

2. It was time for them to repent and see him for who he really is

3. To acknowledge that he is actually their LORD, their GOD, their CREATOR and REDEEMER… that their biological, physical relationship with him will do them no good on Judgment Day

V. What Is Your Answer?
A. Today, we have looked at this complex passage

B. There is more to study next week about the unforgiveable sin

C. But the central issue is still before you… WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS IS?

1. What do you make of Lewis’s trilemma? Jesus, the man who did all these amazing signs and wonders, also claimed to be GOD… he either is in fact divine Lord of heaven and earth, worthy of your worship… or he is not. If he is not, he cannot be a good moral teacher… he is either a demonic liar or a deluded lunatic

2. What is your decision? Your eternity hangs on it.