Who are His Brethren?

Who are His Brethren?

"There came then His brethren and His mother, and, standing without, sent unto Him, calling Him. . ." (Mark 3:31).

"Who is My mother?"  It is as though He said: "Forget these earthly relationships.  In the moment of My death I will commit you to the care of John, that your old age may know no want, but now there are spiritual lessons to be taught."  We must not forget that the only time in the Bible that Mary ever asked anything of the Lord Jesus she was met with a rebuke.  Now, for the great spiritual purposes involved in the change of dispensations, the Lord disowned the human relationship.  "And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples and said, Behold My mother and My brethren!"

Earthly ties had been close in that Nazareth home.  We have every right to believe that the Lord Jesus was a good son and a kind older brother to the family that came to Mary and Joseph, but when His ministry began He was misunderstood.  We read the great prophetic passage where the Messiah speaks, "I am become a stranger unto My brethren, and an alien unto My mother’s children. For the zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up" (Psalm 69:8-9).  John tells us that His brethren did not believe in Him at a certain moment of His ministry (John 7:5).  Later on they did believe, the book of the Acts tells us this fact.  The brothers later believed in Him as their Savior.

There is a great lesson here: the Pharisees committed an unpardonable sin in thinking that He was possessed of a demon.  But these loved ones, who considered Him insane, are all to be found numbered among the sinners saved by grace in the midst of the early Church.  Truly, the grace of God is great.

Dr. Barnhouse urges us to let zeal for the house of the Lord consume us more than all other human relationships.

Further Reading: Mark 3:31-35