And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.
The verse belongs to the narrative found in Matthew 12:22-50 and Mark 3:20-35, which includes the accusation that demons are cast out by demonic power and closes with the question of who are Christ's true brethren. The accusation came when Jesus was spending whole nights in prayer and was crowded all day by large multitudes so that He did not even take time to eat. This led His friends to feel He was exhausting Himself by unceasing labor, and some to fear His mind was becoming unbalanced. His brothers heard of His life and labors and of the accusation, felt the reproach brought on them by relationship to Him, and recognized the uproar His words and works caused. They were alarmed by His bold statements and angered by His denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, and persuaded Mary to join them in trying to get Him to stop that kind of labor.
The verse is part of Jesus' reply to the Pharisees after He healed a demon-possessed man who was blind and unable to speak. They claimed He expelled demons by the ruler of demons, thereby attributing God's power and the work of the Holy Spirit in His healings to the devil in opposition to the evidence before them. The verse presents Satan's kingdom as opposed to God's kingdom and teaches that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. So if Satan rose up against himself and were divided, he could not continue and his power would come to an end.
Speaking against Jesus Himself without discerning His divine character can be forgiven, because through the Holy Spirit the person can be led to see the error and repent. Every sin that is repented of and believed is washed away in Christ's blood. Deliberately rejecting the Spirit and declaring His work to be from Satan cuts off the fountain of blessing and the channel by which God acts on the heart and communicates with the soul, leaving the person where repentance and faith cannot come. This is the sin against the Holy Spirit identified as the unpardonable sin. When the Spirit is finally rejected there is nothing more God can do for the soul.
The verse belongs to the narrative found in Matthew 12:22-50 and Mark 3:20-35, which includes the accusation that demons are cast out by demonic power and closes with the question of who are Christ's true brethren. The accusation came when Jesus was spending whole nights in prayer and was crowded all day by large multitudes so that He did not even take time to eat. This led His friends to feel He was exhausting Himself by unceasing labor, and some to fear His mind was becoming unbalanced. His brothers heard of His life and labors and of the accusation, felt the reproach brought on them by relationship to Him, and recognized the uproar His words and works caused. They were alarmed by His bold statements and angered by His denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, and persuaded Mary to join them in trying to get Him to stop that kind of labor.
The verse is part of Jesus' reply to the Pharisees after He healed a demon-possessed man who was blind and unable to speak. They claimed He expelled demons by the ruler of demons, thereby attributing God's power and the work of the Holy Spirit in His healings to the devil in opposition to the evidence before them. The verse presents Satan's kingdom as opposed to God's kingdom and teaches that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. So if Satan rose up against himself and were divided, he could not continue and his power would come to an end.
Speaking against Jesus Himself without discerning His divine character can be forgiven, because through the Holy Spirit the person can be led to see the error and repent. Every sin that is repented of and believed is washed away in Christ's blood. Deliberately rejecting the Spirit and declaring His work to be from Satan cuts off the fountain of blessing and the channel by which God acts on the heart and communicates with the soul, leaving the person where repentance and faith cannot come. This is the sin against the Holy Spirit identified as the unpardonable sin. When the Spirit is finally rejected there is nothing more God can do for the soul.