3:27
The teachers of the law were trying to make out that Jesus’ casting demons out was a sign that He was using demonic power. Having just demonstrated the ridiculousness of their argument, Jesus now goes on to say that casting out demons is one of the very things that one would expect the Messiah to do. Jesus came to set people free. The implication of what Jesus is saying is that people were held captive by Satan (the strongman) and Satan needed to be dealt with in order to set these people free.
3:28,29
These two verses are problematic, for no one is quite sure what blaspheming the Holy Spirit means. Most tend to go for saying it is attributing to Satan what is the work of the Holy Spirit, or for deliberately sinning against God. Jesus begins this statement with “truly I say to you”. This is an indication that what Jesus is about to say needs to be taken most seriously. So we cannot just ignore these verses as being too difficult to make sense of. The first part (v28) is straightforward, meaning that people can be forgiven all sorts of things. This does not mean they will be overlooked, there does need to be repentance. Then we get the difficult bit. This is directed at the teachers of the Law, who were keen on thinking themselves better than the general population, who weren’t really that godly (in the eyes of the Pharisees etc). Jesus is saying that actually it is the Pharisees and teachers of the Law who really need to watch themselves.
3:30
“They were saying He has an unclean spirit”. The teachers of the law insulted Jesus, they did this because they had no reasoned argument against Him. We find exactly the same thing happening with LGBT debates. Rather than engaging with the reasoned arguments of those presenting a rational case, proponents of Biblical morality and worldview are accused of being bigots.
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