About this sermon
Genesis 6 records the sons of God taking the daughters of men just before the flood, a time of heightened evil and demonic activity before judgment. The gospels likewise record an outburst of demonic activity when Christ comes, because the kingdom of God has arrived and Christ binds the strong man. When the scribes say Jesus casts out demons by Beelzebul and has an unclean spirit, he warns that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in the age to come. The church is called to persevere in faith.
Sermon transcript
If you would turn with me to the book of Mark, the book of Mark chapter 3. Mark chapter 3, verses 20 through 30. And if you keep your place there, if you would also turn with me to Genesis chapter 5, verse 28. Genesis chapter five, verse 28 through chapter six, verse eight. Hear the word of the Lord.
Lamech lived 182 years and became the father of a son. Now he called his name Noah saying, this one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed. Then Lamech lived 595 years after he became the father of Noah and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Lamech were 777 years and he died. Noah was 500 years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things, and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
And now Mark chapter three, verses 20 through 30. And he came home and the crowd gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. When his own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of him, for they were saying he has lost his senses. The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul, and he casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons. And he called them to himself and began speaking to them in parables.
How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished. But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.
Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin, because they were saying, he has an unclean spirit. The word of the Lord. At the end of God’s making all things of nothing, he saw everything that he had made and declared it to be very good.
But a question arises, from where then does evil come? Interestingly, when God speaks light into being, verse four of Genesis chapter one says that God saw that the light was good. God saw that the light was good. After this, he separates the light from the darkness. But God never declares the darkness good. And the text carefully ensures that the reader does not mistake this. But nevertheless, at the end, God does look at all that he has made and declares it to be very good. For this reason, many have said that God did not create the darkness, did not ordain evil, but that the darkness has forever been opposite to God. But the scriptures will not tolerate such a view. God will not tolerate such a view.
Isaiah chapter 45 verses five and seven say, I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides me, there is no God. I form a light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. God created the darkness as well as the light. He is sovereign over all things. He is Lord over all, over the darkness and the light, and he is working all things according to the purpose of his will. The creation account presents us with a mystery. A very good creation in which darkness dwells.
But perhaps we can understand better God’s declaration of all things very good if we recognize that what follows this declaration is God’s entering into His rest. His resting on the seventh day. His resting on the Sabbath day. The New Testament will insist that our entering into God’s rest is our entering into the age to come, and that that rest is characterized by a triumph, by the triumph of the kingdom of God over evil, a kingdom in which righteousness alone dwells.
God’s declaration at the end of his creative activity and his subsequent entering into his rest is the promise that the darkness and evil which exist in the world will at its end be overcome. This is exactly what John’s vision of the new heaven and new earth describes to us in Revelation chapter 21 verse 25. There will be no night there. There will be no night there. And verse 26, nothing unclean will ever enter it.
And this vision was the hope of Adam in the garden. It was the hope of Adam in the garden prior to the fall Darkness was in the world. Prior to the fall, Satan was at work. And as you very well know, part of Adam’s obedience to God was for him to cast out of God’s sanctuary the serpent, whatever was unclean. Adam’s mission then, to bring mankind into a higher state of blessedness, into God’s eternal rest, included the triumph of the kingdom of God over the kingdom of Satan.
The one represented by Adam, the son of God, the other by the serpent. History is about the question. History is about the question, who will rule the world? From the beginning of creation, this has been the question. of the scriptures give clear testimony to its answer, as evident in God’s pronouncement upon entering his rest. All very good, as evident in John’s vision when we shall also enter his rest.
But Adam failed his mission, failed his purpose, and plunged mankind into an estate of sin and misery. not into an estate of glory. Subjected the creation to the rule of sin, to the rule of Satan and the kingdom of darkness. How then does the kingdom of God triumph over the kingdom of Satan? You know this very well also, God’s promise after the fall, I will put enmity between you, the serpent and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. The one to come will not fail as Adam failed.
And what God, Adam’s purpose was in the garden, what Adam’s purpose was in the garden is made explicit in the description of his offspring’s purpose, to overcome the serpent and his offspring, to destroy the kingdom of Satan, to bring the creation to its proper goal. All very good. This is the broadest biblical context for understanding the coming of Christ, to deliver the people of God from the kingdom of Satan. And so it is the context for our passage in Mark this morning.
But more must be said. for the battle between these two kingdoms of God and of Satan run throughout the scriptures. It is at work in Israel’s exodus out of Egypt, out of the kingdom of Pharaoh. It is at work in Israel’s conquest of the land of Canaan. It is at work in the conflict between David and Saul over the throne.
There is not one point in redemptive history There is not one point in redemptive history where this conflict is not waging in the background. Though for most of redemptive history, it is implicit, not explicit. For most of redemptive history, it is veiled to be understood, though not seen, which is what makes Mark unique.
For the kingdom of Satan becomes very visible and the activity recognized as demonic. The kingdom of Satan becomes very visible and the activity recognized as demonic. And it really is not until the Gospels that this activity is so explicitly manifested. And we must ask why?
Why is it that demonic activity is so explicitly revealed in the Gospels and nowhere else? Most in our day would attribute the supernatural activity in the Gospels to the unscientific, misguided worldview of its authors, attributing to demons what we know as diagnosable physical and mental disease. but it is they who are misguided. Read your Old Testament. Demonic possession appears very rarely throughout its pages, just as miracles appear very rarely in the Old Testament outside of the ministries of Moses and Elijah and Elisha. And the gospel writers self-consciously distinguish between physical and mental disease and explicit spiritual oppression.
Why then does what is implicit throughout the Old Testament, why does it become explicit at the beginning of the New? It would be helpful here to recognize those places in the Old Testament that are explicit. Those places in which demonic activity is explicit.
The first is as we have already seen in the garden after creation. Satan manifests himself as the serpent and enters into direct conflict with God’s son, Adam. He does not manifest himself this way again until his confrontation with Jesus, the Son of God, the second Adam in the wilderness. Moving on in Genesis, we come to a second place of heightened demonic activity.
The very enigmatic opening verses of chapter six, which we have read. This passage is rather difficult and is subject to various interpretations concerning the identity of the sons of God. And I know you are probably familiar with them, but I will briefly mention them to you. The two most popular identifications are either one, fallen angels, or two, the offspring of the woman, the descendants of Seth. a third more recent interpretation as that the sons of God are tyrannical kings of the earth who abuse their divine given status.
Thus, verse two, they seized as their wives any that they chose. Throughout the scripture, this is a signature of the kings of this earth, a king like the nations. We see this at work later in Genesis, when two different pagan kings seize the wife of Abraham for their harem. And furthermore, none of the angels, godly or demonic, marry as Jesus affirms in Mark chapter 12, verse 25.
The sons of God here in Genesis then, are clearly human. But the title, Sons of God, elsewhere in Scripture clearly refers to heavenly beings, as in the opening of Job, when the sons of God presented themselves before the Lord, and Satan was among them. And in the New Testament, both Jude and 2 Peter affirm the involvement of the angels in this episode in Genesis 6. The difficulty in identifying demonic involvement in Genesis chapter six is that the issue is the increasing corruption of man. So that you say that the sons of God were angels is to interrupt, is to interrupt the downward spiral of man into sin through supernatural involvement. But consider, Consider first that such supernatural involvement, as we have already said, is presupposed behind every event in redemptive history, as the kingdoms of God and Satan wage war. Furthermore, we are not saying here that the sons of God in Genesis chapter six are fallen angels, but are tyrant kings who have usurped their heavenly function for corruption. They are so enslaved to sin and to the powers of darkness that they are called by that name. So that we may join the first and third views and say that they are men who are possessed.
And this does not lessen their guilt any more than Satan’s entering into Judas and Luke chapter 22 lessens Judas’ guilt, but confirms it, confirms his desire to betray the Son of God, to hand him over. Satan did not possess him against his will, but in agreement with his will, just as the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was in perfect agreement with Pharaoh’s desire. Judas’ possession is the open manifestation of his identifying himself with the seed of the serpent. So also in Genesis chapter six, the tyrant kings possessed by the sons of God is the confirmation of their identity with the seed of Satan.
We saw this at the beginning of chapter three in Mark. Those who fall down before Jesus, confessing him as the Son of God, are called demons, because it is the demons who are at work through them. So also the tyrant kings are called sons of God, because of the wicked angelic beings who are at work through them. Now I do not say this as though it is the only valid interpretation of these very difficult verses. But I find this interpretation to satisfy all of the evidence.
And it also helps us to answer why there is an outburst of demonic possession and activity at the moment of Jesus’ arrival in history. Consider again what immediately precedes Genesis chapter six, the birth of Noah. and the hope that this seed of the woman would bring rest to the people of God. Noah is born at the end of the world that then was. Through him, God brings into being a new creation. What follows is exactly what we might expect, an increased manifestation of the kingdom of Satan against the purpose of God. A manifestation which ends in judgment for the world, the offspring of the serpent, and salvation for God’s people, the offspring of the woman.
And this is why the common interpretation of the sons of God as the offspring of the woman, co-mingling with the offspring of the serpent, is the least satisfactory of the views, since it is Noah as the offspring of the woman who is saved, who finds favor in the eyes of the Lord, and whom God delights. The line between the two kingdoms is not blurred, but differentiated, distinguished. What is Genesis 6 telling us? What is Genesis chapter 6 telling us?
It is at the end of creation, at the end of history, that the kingdom of Satan openly manifests itself against the Lord and against His anointed, against the offspring of the woman. against the one in whom God is pleased. You have the coming of the one who will give his people rest together with heightened demonic activity in the world followed by divine judgment and the end of that world and the beginning of another. This is exactly what we see. and Jesus’ ministry on earth. The coming of the favored one, together with heightened demonic activity and the announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand. The age to come is at hand. Genesis 6 then is a picture not only of the final judgment, not only of the final judgment, but also of the coming servant of the Lord in whom God is well pleased.
And the powers that oppose him, against whom he must battle, not against the powers of flesh and blood as Ephesians says, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And we see this again in the Old Testament, in King Saul, who opposes David, a man after God’s own heart. in whom God delights, Saul opposes the rightful son of God’s ascent to the throne to rule over the people of God. 1 Samuel 16, verse 14 tells us, the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him. The kingdom of darkness is at work in Saul. And as we are on the verge of the enthronement and exaltation of the son of God as king, the powers of darkness are made more openly manifest as Satan in Saul rages against the Lord and against his anointed, strives to overthrow his purpose to give his son an eternal throne. What is said of David’s son Solomon in first Kings chapter five, but that he had rest on every side with neither adversary nor misfortune.
The kingdom of darkness at work to prevent God’s people from entering into his rest. The revelation of demonic activity is a sign that the end is near, a sign of the drawing near of the age to come. And this is why in the ministry of Jesus on earth, there is a revelation of demonic activity as never before in the history of the world.
For God has come in Christ to crush the head of the serpent under his foot. To put an end to the kingdom of Satan. And Mark has made perfectly clear that this is Jesus’ identity. Has made perfectly clear that this is Jesus’ purpose and function. anointed with the Spirit at his baptism, tempted by Satan in the wilderness, confessed by demons to be the Son of God, there is no question that in Jesus, the fullness of time has come. That in Jesus, the fullness of God’s salvation has come.
In Jesus, the servant of the Lord has come to bind the strong man, and to plunder his house.” Jesus has come to bind the strong man and to plunder his house. Our passage in Mark is alluding here to Isaiah chapter 49 verses 24 through 26. Isaiah chapter 49, verses 24 through 26.
Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? For thus says the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued. For I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord, your savior and your redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob.
God’s restoration of Israel. His bringing them out of captivity in a new exodus is described in Isaiah chapter 49 as the Lord contending against and plundering his people’s enemies that all flesh might know and acknowledge that the Lord is their Savior and Redeemer. Jesus’ ministry in Mark begins this way. announcing the rule of God and casting out demons.
What is he doing but conquering the true enemy of Israel, not the kingdom of Rome, but the kingdom of darkness. Jesus binds the strong man and plunders his house, thereby revealing himself to be the Lord come in the flesh, the savior and redeemer of Jacob. But what do the sons of Jacob say of him? What do the sons of Jacob say of him? He is possessed by Satan, and by the ruler of demons, he casts out demons. They attribute to the clearly manifested work of God, the work of Satan.
At this point, Jesus begins to speak to them how? He begins to speak to them in parables, verse 23. This is the first mention of parables in Mark, and they play an extremely important function. Jesus’ response to the scribes’ unbelief is to begin to speak to them in parables, which is a judgment upon them, as Mark will later explain in chapter four, that seeing they may not perceive, and hearing they may not understand, lest they repent and be forgiven.
Jesus speaks in parables as a judgment upon the scribe’s refusal to acknowledge the fullness of God in Christ. As a judgment upon their accusation against the spirit of God in Christ to be the spirit of Satan. But as Jesus makes clear, Satan’s kingdom cannot be divided against itself. and the binding of Satan’s power can only be explained as the fulfillment of God’s purpose in history, to crush the serpent under his offspring’s feet.
Jesus says next in verse 28, truly, which is a translation of the word Amen. We say Amen in testimony of our trust and the promises of God and what he has spoken. But Jesus never uses Amen to confirm something spoken, but to introduce what he will speak. His word is It’s authority. And with authority, Jesus makes known that all will be forgiven, the sons of men, their sins and blasphemies.
But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit does not have forgiveness into eternity, but is guilty of an eternal sin. This sin is identified in verse 30 as the scribe’s saying, he has an unclean spirit. The word for eternity here is the same word for age. Eternity in the New Testament is one and the same with the age to come. The sin that will not be forgiven in eternity is the sin that will not be forgiven in the age to come. It is the sin of that age.
In Christ, the age to come has arrived. In Christ, the fullness of redemption has come. To reject the work of God in Christ, to blaspheme his spirit as the spirit of Satan, is to reject the age to come. It is to blaspheme Christ, the life-giving spirit. That is what Paul calls him in 1 Corinthians 15. By his resurrection from the dead and entrance into the age to come, the second Adam is a life-giving spirit. To call the Spirit of God in Christ, to call the Spirit of God given by Christ, to call this a work of Satan is to reject the Lord of the age to come.
For this, for this, there will be no forgiveness. I do not mistake this to mean that anyone who has ever rejected the gospel has thereby committed the sin that cannot be forgiven. For the scribes here in Mark have hardened their hearts against Jesus to the point of calling the Spirit of God clearly set before them, the Spirit of Satan. Before you in this passage is a visible manifestation of those who have hardened themselves beyond the point of repentance, who have rejected the revelation of God in Christ, after whom there is no other, no other name among men by which we might be saved.
By blaspheming the Holy Spirit, the scribes unite themselves with the kingdom of darkness and will ultimately achieve their purpose to destroy the Christ when they crucify the Lord of glory. but it is through the cross. It is through the cross that Jesus binds the strong man. It is through the cross that he plunders the strong man’s house when he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in it. the binding of the strong man, the plundering of Satan, the crushing of his head, was through the death and resurrection of God’s Son, through which you have been set free. Even as Noah had to pass through the waters of judgment even as Noah had to pass through the waters of judgment, so also the Christ had to pass through the final judgment to enter the age to come, to enter God’s rest, to prepare for us the way.
He came at the end of time. He came at the end of time, marked by the greatest visible manifestation of Satan’s kingdom. But through the suffering of God’s wrath, he won the victory by resurrection from the dead. Through the bruising of his heel, he crushed the serpent’s head.
And as you follow him along this way, as you follow him along this way, bruised and afflicted, you too have the assurance that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, will soon bring you into his rest, in which no darkness dwells, which is all very good.
But woe to that one. Woe to that one. who has tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come and says of it, it is the power of Satan, it is deception, it is falsehood. If you reject this word, If you reject Christ, the life-giving Spirit, you reject His Holy Spirit that accompanies this Word, the Spirit of the age to come. The Spirit of the age to come, and in that age, there will be for you no forgiveness to all eternity.
Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, We do ask that you would be pleased to work in our hearts effectually to our salvation by your spirit with this word read and preached. We do pray, Heavenly Father, that you would be pleased to build us up, to strengthen us, to preserve us until that day. We do pray, Heavenly Father, that those who have rejected your son, have rejected the spirit that is in him, would not forever reject him, but would turn to him in repentance and faith. We do pray all these things in the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
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