Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat.
When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."
The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebul," and "By the prince of demons he drives out demons."
Summoning them, he began to speak 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 will not be able to stand.
And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him.
But no one can enter a strong man's house to plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house.
Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them.
But whoever blasphemes against the holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin."
For they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."
His mother and his brothers arrived. Standing outside they sent word to him and called him.
A crowd seated around him told him, "Your mother and your brothers (and your sisters) are outside asking for you."
But he said to them in reply, "Who are my mother and (my) brothers?"
And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.
(For) whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
Source: https://dailygospel.org/M/AM/
Analysis
This passage is a long passage, and has at least three different messages contained within this passage. The first part describes how Jesus was going to be taken by His relatives, as they though Jesus has went insane, and then the scribes accused Jesus of driving out demons with power of demons. Jesus then delivered a parable essentially saying how it's impossible for Jesus to drive out demons with the power of demons. In the second part, Jesus spoke of an unpardonable sin, that is the sin of blasphemy against the holy Spirit. And finally, Jesus spoke about who is His mother and brothers and sisters. Let's analyze what each part specifically means.
In the first part, the scribes mocked Jesus by saying that He is using the power of demons to deliver out demons. Jesus then delivered a parable, which shows how nonsensical the scribes' beliefs and accusations are. Obviously there is no such thing as a spirit that is specifically categorized as a demon, what people consider to be "demons" are spirits that have went to spiritual death, the condition of absolute depravity. Unfortunately, the scribes thought that demons do exist and they are organized as a kingdom, literally. Now since the scribes also believed that evil is caused by demons, then by their own words, there shouldn't be evil, let me explain.
In Jesus' words, if a kingdom is divided, then the kingdom should fall, and if demons were to fall, then evil shouldn't exist, however it does. As such, it just shows how idiotic the scribes' beliefs were. Evil as we know, is not caused by demons, but is caused by imperfections and impurities of the consciousness. Such things are caused by earthly desires or desires of the flesh, which drives one to evil and eventually fall down into absolute death. Here, we are shown Jesus' humanly nature, and we can clearly see that He is annoyed by these scribes. As He went so far to compare the ordeal as a thief trying to steal from a strong man. This sentence itself is quite interesting, and warrants further analysis.
It is quite hard to decipher the strong man analogy, as we must make many assumptions to actually find out the true meaning of it. We can however, infer that it is about two parties, and the stealing party wishes to take something of the strong party, and the strong party is weakened first before the stealing party can plunder the belongings of the strong party. The analogy can actually be about two things, one happening after the other. The first case is the house is a human being, and the strong man is the spirit of the human, the consciousness. The belongings are probably the freedom and purity of the spirit. The thief, is the general force of darkness and death, in which the thief weakens the spirit by seducing them into sin, and then taking everything the spirit had, putting the spirit unto death.
The second case happens after the first case, in which the strong man is the forces of darkness, or death and darkness in general. The belongings of the strong man are spirits, which have strayed into sin and has to be saved. The thief is Jesus, or the force of light and life in general, but how is the force of darkness weakened? It is weakened by having the spirits in death lifted from their depravity, while Jesus takes their place and becomes the hostage of the strong man instead. The thief then takes away the belongings, which is rightfully the thief's since the beginning, and the strong man defeated. Of course Jesus never said that the thief runs away, the thief can in fact take the strong man hostage and make the house his. In this case, while He takes the place of hell while everyone else is saved, the spirits returns to the light. This is why there are not many demons in the present day, as all of them have been saved. The worst one can experience is just near death, but not quite, as such still has hope.
The second part is particularly weird and contradicts most of Christ's teachings. We can't disregard this part as Jesus Himself said it, and while He may be incredibly annoyed at that time, it's still His words. He said that if we commit sin against the holy Spirit, we can not be forgiven. I'd love to disregard this as simply a crime of passion, in which Jesus just blurts out whatever He wishes to say as He is annoyed, but that's not very good. As there are times where Jesus got annoyed and even mad and proceeded to mess up the temple, but it is completely justifiable. As such, we must be consistent with our logic. The holy Spirit as we know, is the loving, friendly, and guidance nature of God. This can be manifested through everything in the world. As such, if we mock it, then we would be mocking the power of love itself. And thus by denying love itself, we would put ourselves into automatic death. As long as we mock love itself, we have no chance of redemption, as we are denying redemption itself.
The final part is perhaps the most straightforward part. Of course, Jesus isn't denying His blood family including His mother Mary, which seems to understand Him quite well, He is simply trying to say something. That something is if we do the will of God, then we are equal as the brothers and sisters and mother of Jesus. Basically, by doing the will of God, we will be close to Jesus. But how do we do the will of God? By trying to find out the truth using our rational and logical capabilities, as those who listened Jesus is attempting to do. Which is why Jesus pointed to those sitting near Him when mentioning His brothers and sisters and mother. And talking about Mary, is there a possibility that Mary also thought Jesus was, insane? I don't think so, it's most likely just relatives in general, such as cousins and so on. I believe that is all I have to say, have a nice day and see you later.
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