Wil, I consider the resurrection to be crucial to the Christ's divinity, but I echo your sentiment about the virgin birth.
I think you both miss the point. The Virgin Birth is crucial to our humanity, not to His divinity.
If Jesus' mother Mary, and his brother James too, knew he was the Son of God — because of how he was conceived and the divine messages from the angel — and he is on God's mission, how do we make out Mark 3:21?
I have always wondered why, if Joseph went to Bethlehem to be registered in his home city, he never stayed with his family?
Of course it's pure speculation, but my own view is that the scandal of his wife's pregnancy meant that his family said, 'you're a fool, she's leading you by the nose, and I'll not have her under my roof'. But that's me ...
Anyway ...
There is a progression in the text. Up to this point, Our Lord is preaching in the temple, performing miracles, and making a reputation. He's seen as so dangerous the Pharisees are talking to the Herodians about how they might bring Him down. Meanwhile He's attracting followers from the city and the country, and from far and wide.
So far, so good, neither His friends nor His family seem to have a problem with that. But then He calls the twelve apart from the rest (3:14) and when His friends and family hear of
that, that's when FOMO kicks in (3:21), and He's accused of madness, and worse ...
But wait a moment ... this is just not pettiness.
There's is a common and popular misconception today that Jesus never proclaimed His divinity. I argue one can only make that claim if one ignores how His words and deeds would be perceived by His audience.
Our Lord called the twelve, "And he gave them power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils" (v15), now here's a telling point. In the history of the Jews, there have been occasions of miracles and wonders worked by the servants of God, but they've never, I believe, been known to confer that 'power', which is in this context is a divine power, on others. The wonder workers of the Hebrew Scriptures never claim their power as their own, nor were they perceived as such, the Hebrew prophet is akin to the Hellenic oracle in that regard, both are instruments, they are not authorities in their own right.
But here we have Jesus conferring a divine authority, on others, to preach and work miracles
in His name. The implication is blatant.
And His Jewish audience saw it, without any shadow of a doubt, as a direct claim to Divinity. And they responded accordingly: His friends thought He had gone mad, His family wanted to take Him into their care.
It is quite likely that His mother and His family, those who followed Him, assumed Him to be a prophet. But this was something utterly different, and went way beyond prophecy. Good grief, He's instituting a priesthood, plain as day!
His friends, His family, His mother? Our Lord dealt with them with calm and reason (v33-35) nothing untoward there. Nothing to get steamed up about, it's quite a sensible answer really.
But let's backtrack:
"Amen I say to you, that all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and the blasphemies wherewith they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, shall never have forgiveness, but shall be guilty of an everlasting sin. Because they said: He hath an unclean spirit" (v28-29).
This is some serious condemnation. This is someone, who's mission is to heal, declaring there are certain sins that are 'beyond redemption'! Why? Because He's angry. Why? Because His enemies are saying He performs His miracles not by the will (power) of God, by the power of the devil. That the words that trip so movingly off His tongue are the words of the Father of Lies ... He is seething... they are denying the Love of God, for that what the Holy Ghost is, the
hagios pneuma, the 'spirit' which rises from the 'soul' of God Himself, and because God is perfect, then the Divine
pneuma is God, and yet the Holy Ghost is
never spoken of, by Him, in an impersonal sense.
In some mysterious way, there is Father, there is Son and there is Holy Ghost, and each is entirely His own Person, His own distinct being, has His own distinct Act, and yet all are one. All are God.
This is a clear teaching of His own divinity, and of the Trinity.
He need not have done this. He disposes of their argument with simple logic: 'How can Satan cast out Satan?' (v23). No need to bring God into it. But He then goes on to excoriate them for their malevolent sophistry, because it's evident that they would broadcast
any lie, concoct
any story, rather than confront the evidence of their own ears and eyes ... and this is why they are damned, because they simply refuse to let the light into their souls, and moreover are busy seeking to extinguish that light in the souls of others, by undermining their faith with lies.
'Gentle Jesus, meek and mild'? Here is someone else altogether.
