The Importance of a Third Opinion

Most health insurance companies require a second opinion before consenting to providing coverage for such things as major surgery or other costly medical procedures.

In the spiritual realm, it is vitally important that one seek a third opinion concerning the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Opinions abound as to the real identity of Jesus. Despite the diversity of opinions about him, they all fall into 3 possibilities: One opinion he was demented. Opinion 2 says he was demonic. Opinion 3 confesses that he was divine.

The amazing, alarming fact is that by judging Jesus, we judge ourselves. For you see our opinion of Christ discloses our whole spiritual state. The author of Amazing Grace, John Newton, never spoke truer words than when he asserted: “What think you of Christ is the test, to try both your state and your scheme: You cannot be right in the rest unless you think rightly of him.”

What is your opinion of Christ?

1. The Unavoidableness of Forming an Opinion – Mk. 3:20-21; Mt. 12:30

The Gospel of Mark portrays Jesus as the Servant-Savior whose authority is demonstrated through teaching, miracles, and mastery over evil. By chapter 3, opposition against Jesus has begun to intensify to the point that the religious leaders are plotting on how to destroy him (3:6).

A. Neutrality is Impossible – Mt. 12:30

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”  Christ is the magnet of the ages. He draws or drives away.  

When the kingdom of God arrives in the person of Jesus – today through the saints of God and the Word of God - people are immediately divided. The kingdom makes demands and forces all who encounter it to decide where our allegiance truly lies. As a sign that his kingdom brings judgment upon those who reject him, Jesus will speak to the scribes and Pharisees in parables, in effect, hiding the truth from them in plain sight. Jesus will have compassion upon the sick and suffering, but he’s already begun the process of forming a new Israel, a spiritual family in which all those who place their faith in him thereby obeying his will, becomes his new brothers and sisters.

One is either for him or against him. Even if one attempts to make no decision in the present or to postpone it until a future date, that is a decision against him. To love Christ is an essential of Christianity; we may be against Christ by enmity or indifference. Those who are not with Christ in gathering, are against him in scattering abroad. Whoever was not on his side was on the other side. Jesus allows no would-be disciples to straddle the fence: one either follows him or opposes him.  Neutrality here is opposition.

2. The Unreasonableness of a Well-meaning but Wrong Opinion - Mk. 3:21

A. The Opinion that He was Demented - 3:20-21

Notice that the crowds pressed so tightly that Jesus and His disciples could not even take a meal. His family (literally “those beside Him”) - likely Mary, his mother, and His half-brothers - heard reports of His activities and concluded He had lost control of Himself. So Jesus’ friends and family reasoned that Jesus was confused, and possibly deranged! The great crowds they saw following Him, and the amazing reports they heard about Him, convinced them that He desperately needed help. He simply was not living a normal life, so His friends came to Capernaum to “take charge of Him.” Then his mother and “brethren” (Mark 6:3) traveled thirty miles from Nazareth to plead with Him to come home and get some rest, but even they were unable to get near Him. This is the only place in the Gospel of Mark where Mary is seen, and her venture was a failure.

When His friends and family hear about what He is doing, their first thought is that Jesus has gone crazy. The phrase, “He is beside Himself” means exactly that!

Their solution was to come and get Jesus. The phrase “to seize Him” literally means “to take by force, to arrest.” They came to grab Jesus, take Him back to Nazareth and if necessary, lock Him away until His thinking was straightened out. If they had had a mental institution in those days, these people would have attempted to have him committed.

Don’t be shocked at what your family and friends will do to get you off this “Jesus kick”. They will try to talk you out of your commitment. They will try to make you feel guilty for putting Jesus and the church ahead of them. They might even try to tempt you to sin. They will try anything they can to draw you away from the Lord.

Nothing has changed over the last 2,000 years. Encountering Jesus through believers or the Bible still compels one to declare their position toward him - for Him or against Him. There are large numbers of modern-day sceptics who deny the New Testament’s assertions about who Jesus really was.

Bart D. Ehrman is a former Baptist preacher and now a prominent New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina who denies Jesus’ divinity and bodily resurrection. While affirming that Jesus existed, Ehrman argues that the early church “deified” Him over time. In How Jesus Became God, Ehrman argues that early Christians exaggerated Jesus’ identity from human teacher to divine Savior.

Dan Brown – Though a novelist, his Da Vinci Code popularized pseudo-historical claims about Jesus’ supposed marriage and secret lineage.  The novel claims that Jesus was a mortal man married to Mary Magdalene, and that their descendants formed a royal bloodline that survives to this day. This secret was supposedly hidden by Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicaea, leading to the suppression of this truth by the Catholic Church. 

3.The Unforgiveableness of a Well-informed but Wicked Opinion – 3:22-30

A. The Opinion that He was Demonized

John 7:40-43, “When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” So there was a division among the people over him.” 

John 9:16, “Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.” 

John 10:19-21, “There was again a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, “He has a demon, and is insane; why listen to him?” Others said, “These are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” 

Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit – 3:22-30

The scribes and Pharisees were prejudiced and offered a second opinion of Jesus that placed him in league with the prince of demons. The word "Beelzebub" means, "lord of dung" or "lord of the flies." Here the Pharisees used this contemptuous insult in saying that Jesus cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, prince of demons.

The sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit - sometimes called “the unpardonable sin” - is mentioned by Jesus in all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 12:31–32; Mark 3:28–30; Luke 12:10). Understanding what it means requires looking carefully at the context and what Jesus was responding to.

Matthew’s account, (Matthew 12:22-37), deals with the issue of the danger of blaspheming the Holy Spirit in the context of another healing. After Jesus healed a demon-oppressed man who was both blind and mute, the crowds responded by saying, "Perhaps this is the Son of David!" (Mt 12:23). They wanted to know if Jesus was the Messiah. This question enraged the Pharisees, causing them to make the outlandish accusation that Jesus was performing miracles by the power of "Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons." This is an unreasonable accusation that Jesus addresses on two primary levels. First, He points out that it is illogical. After all, why would the Devil want demons to be cast out? That would be like casting himself out, destroying his own work. A kingdom divided against itself will not stand (Mt. 12:25).

The second flaw Jesus points out about the Pharisees' accusation is that it is inconsistent. If casting out demons were a demonic activity, then why didn't the Pharisees criticize their own followers for casting out demons? These "sons" of the Pharisees, likely a reference to their followers, claimed to have cast out demons, and we know from Matthew 7 that people who were not followers of Jesus had cast out demons. Jesus points out the inconsistency in all of this, and this leads to three undeniable conclusions.

First and foremost, if this is not by the power of Satan, then this is by the power of God. If Jesus is not casting out demons by the power of the Devil - which would be both illogical and inconsistent—then there's only one other possibility: He is casting out demons "by the Spirit of God," which means that "the kingdom of God has come" (Mt. 12:28). More specifically, the King is here.

This leads to a second undeniable conclusion, which Jesus points out: The One who is stronger than Satan is here. Jesus claimed that He was tying up the "strong man," i.e., Satan (Mt. 12:29). Because Jesus is stronger than Satan, He is plundering his house, the domain where he has temporary rule. Jesus is healing people of diseases, delivering people from demons, raising people from the dead, and forgiving people of sins. And all of these things are shouting one reality: One who is stronger than the Devil is here!

A right interpretation of the “unpardonable sin” begins by looking at these verses in light of the overall biblical context, and then in light of this specific biblical context.

First, Jesus says that blasphemy against the Son is forgivable, and the avenue to forgiveness is repentance. Jesus will graciously pardon those who deny and mock Him, for we see this all over the New Testament. For example, Peter denied Christ three times and he was forgiven (Matt 26:69-75; Mark 14:66-72). Paul tells us that he was "formerly a blasphemer," yet "the grace of our Lord overflowed" (1 Tim 1:13-14). He will forgive blasphemy against the Son for those who repent of their sins.

Second, blasphemy against the Spirit of God is unforgivable, because the avenue to forgiveness is rejected. Jesus is speaking to people who He knows were in serious danger, if not already guilty, of hardening their hearts completely against Him. In attributing the work of the Spirit to the person of Satan, they were setting themselves in total opposition to the Spirit of God, the only Spirit who can draw them to salvation through repentance. They were rejecting even the thought of repentance. Such sin involves willful unbelief, persistent rebellion, and final denial.

The Pharisees had seen Jesus heal every kind of disease, cast out every kind of demon, forgive every kind of sin, yet they chose to charge Him with deceit and demonism. Theirs was willful unbelief. In the face of the undeniable evidence of Jesus' deity and messiahship, they rejected Him. They did not reject the Spirit's work in Jesus' life and ministry for lack of evidence, but rather for lack of humility. The Pharisees were also guilty of an ongoing pattern of sin, and not merely a spur-of-the-moment reaction. This was persistent rebellion that proudly refused to submit, regardless of what Jesus said or did.

In the end, the Pharisees' willful unbelief and persistent rebellion led to final denial. Theirs was a permanent refutation of the work of the Spirit in the Son of Man, and permanent refutation leads to permanent condemnation. Of such sin, Jesus says, "it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the one to come" (Mt. 12:32)

So this unforgiveable sin is not a single act but a settled attitude. This sin is not committed by accident, by saying something foolish, or by having doubts. It is a persistent posture of rejection - a final, conscious refusal to acknowledge Jesus as Lord despite the Spirit’s clear witness.

3. The Urgentness of the Third Opinion

A. The Opinion that He was Divine

The opinion that he was demented or demonized must give way by the miracle working power of the Holy Spirit, to the saving opinion that Jesus was who he claimed to be – Divine - the Perfect God-man.

1. The Condition of all Men by Nature – 3:27 - All mankind since Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden of Eden, are the “goods” in the Strong man’s house! Satan would not permit a weaker one to defeat him. Since Satan is helpless to prevent his binding and his house being plundered of its goods, it proves that Jesus is from God and infinitely stronger than he is.

2. The Conquest of Jesus – Mt. 12:28 -29, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.”

3. The Confidence of Forgiveness - Mark 3:28,“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter…”

Jesus made it clear that God would forgive all sin and all blasphemy, including blasphemy against the very Son of God Himself! (Matt. 12:32) Does this mean that God the Son is less important than the Holy Spirit? Why would a sin against God the Son be forgivable and yet a sin against the Holy Spirit be unforgivable?

The answer lies in the nature of God and in His patient dealings with the nation of Israel. God the Father sent John the Baptist to prepare the nation for the coming of their Messiah. Many of the common people responded to John’s call and repented (Matt. 21:32), but the religious leaders permitted John to be arrested and eventually killed. God the Son came as promised and called the nation to trust Him, but those same religious leaders asked for Jesus to be killed. On the cross, our Lord prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and demonstrated God’s power in many convicting ways. How did those same religious leaders respond? By arresting the Apostles, ordering them to keep silent, and then killing Stephen themselves! Stephen told them what their sin was: “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost” (Acts 7:51). They had sinned against the Father and the Son, but had been graciously forgiven. When they sinned against the Holy Spirit, they had reached “the end of the line” and there could be no more forgiveness.

I don’t believe people today can commit the “unpardonable sin” in exactly the same way the Jewish religious leaders did when Jesus was ministering on earth. The only sin today that God cannot forgive is rejection of His Son (John 3:16-21, John 3:31). When the Spirit of God convicts the sinner and reveals the Savior, the sinner may resist the Spirit and reject the witness of the Word of God, but that does not mean he has forfeited all his opportunities to be saved. If he will repent and believe, God can still forgive him. Even if the sinner so hardens his heart that he seems to be insensitive to the pleadings of God, so long as there is life, there is hope. Only God knows if and when any “deadline” has been crossed. You and I must never despair of any sinner (1Tim. 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).

4. The Companionship of a New Family – Mark 3:31-35

Jesus inaugurates a new community centered on faith and obedience, not genealogy. He makes a decisive and comprehensive statement on true Christian discipleship. Such discipleship involves a spiritual relationship that transcends the physical family and is open to all who are empowered by the Spirit of God to come to Christ in repentance and faith and enabled to live a life of obedience to God's Word.

We Christians must always think of ourselves first as part of a new family, a new people, a new set of relationships that have come into being because of the good news about the kingdom of God. Jesus did not come to bring a kind of spirituality that was celebrated only on Sunday mornings inside the walls of a building where it could never affect anything else. Jesus brought something new into the world that transforms all of our relationships.

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes these penetrating words: “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 a 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 or 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.^”

The Trilemma - Lunatic, Liar, Lord.