The context is even more specific than Paidion mentioned, because both in GosMatt and GosMark what the Pharisees are calling demonic power is the salvation of a sinner from demonic power!
What Jesus calls them down on is the hypocrisy of a self-contradicting double-standard: when their own disciples exorcise demons, this is proof the disciples are sent from God (because Satan wouldn’t undermine his own efforts – unlike these Pharisees who don’t even have the common sense of Satan!) And apparently the Pharisees still counted it as working with God even if their disciples have to exorcise a man twice (as GosMatt indicates happened here); the problem is with the man, not with the Pharisees as devout agents of God (which is basically what Jesus also says at the end of the scene in GosMatt: it isn’t His fault if He heals a guy and the guy doesn’t invite God to live in his heart so demons come back and infest him again.)
But when Jesus heals a man from demons, even if He has to do it twice, the Pharisees are willing to contradict their own principles, and common sense (which Jesus sarcastically lampoons), and say that it’s the work of the devil.
That isn’t just being mistakenly wrong about what’s happening; that’s intentionally cheating in abuse of the truth in order to hate without a cause (as Jesus describes His Pharisee opponents in GosJohn).
And it isn’t even “only” intentionally cheating in abuse of the truth in order to hate without a cause; it’s doing so in opposition to God’s salvation of sinners from sin. Basically the Pharisees were saying that at some point the demonized man had passed the point of no return and was sinning an unforgivable sin, so Jesus saving the man from sin after all couldn’t be from God.
That sets up an ironic context to test Jesus’ hearers (and readers) on what He’s saying: the only unforgivable sin is to insist that there is a sin that really will not be forgiven by God – or rather, to do so in a cheating way that self-contradicts what the denier would otherwise insist is true when it looks like it’s in his favor. But that means setting one’s heart against respect for the truth, and obviously so long as a person insists on doing that he cannot truly repent of his own sins, so God cannot complete forgiveness with him and must punish him.
But then again, for hearers or readers to insist this means the Pharisees had sinned a sin that God never would forgive, puts them in danger of the same sin that the Pharisees themselves were sinning! Sure, the Pharisees weren’t merely wrong, but were false teachers of the worst kind (in intentional and hateful opposition to the salvation of sinners from sin), so their last state (as Peter puts it later in an epistle) will be worse than their first. But that’s exactly (with exactly the same words in Greek) how Jesus describes the man he has saved whose example set off this incident!
So the Pharisees (and people like them) are putting themselves in the place of the man they’re condemning Jesus for saving; but Jesus saved that man anyway. Consequently He has just as much intention and capability of saving them, too.
Which may be why Mark, although he doesn’t report much of the background context involving the man who was healed of demon possession (a situation which Matthew reports Jesus describing as being the fault of the man), does put Jesus’ declaration even more strongly than Matthew does in Greek, that all sins whatever shall be forgiven men.
It is of course necessary to interpret Mark 3:29 by verse 28, or vice versa; but to interpret 28 by 29 is to claim (in effect) that where grace exceed,s sin super-exceeds, for not as the grace is the sin. Which is exactly opposite what St. Paul taught as the good news.
(Luke’s report of the scene at GosLuke 11 includes Jesus’ explanation about the man being at fault, not Jesus, for having to be exorcised twice, but saves his report of a mention of the sin that shall not be pardoned in a different situation later in Jesus’ ministry, early in the next chapter, with no mention of it being a sin into the eon or an eonian sin–but with reference to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.)
The whole context of the incident, harmonized across all three accounts, consequently weighs against treating “eonian sin” as meaning a never-ending sin that God has no intention and/or ultimate capability to forgive. Apparently it means “eonian” like the “times of the eonian secret” at the end of Paul’s epistle to the Romans, not like “the eonian God” in that same verse from Romans. As Paidion says, once someone puts themselves in that situation it can take a long time for God to lead them out of it, because of the situation, but it isn’t hopeless – no moreso than it was hopeless for the guy who not only had to be exorcised from the previous demon but seven more demons even worse than the first one!
To this George MacDonald’s observation about the topic is also pertinent: EVERY sin, being a rebellion against God, is a sin against the Holy Spirit, which is why in any case there has to be some further explanation of what that means; so by the same token, any sin, no matter how small, that a person flat refuses to come out of, must stay unforgiven so long as the person refuses to repent and do better. Moreover, by the same token, God does not condemn anyone for the sins they have done – the scriptures say He passes by thousands and even tens of thousands of sins – but only condemns a person for whatever sins or sin they insist on continuing to do.
That condemnation doesn’t mean God stops trying to lead the person out of that sin, much less that God never intended to do so in the first place, much less that God is ultimately incompetent at saving the person from that sin.
), with ages and ages of ages to follow after that, then the lack of forgiveness for the next age by itself, though serious and not to be trifled, was hardly a reason to deny that such people would ever be forgiven.
--but I always appreciate the meaning once I discern it.
That Psalm doesn’t indicate God won’t be content with deceiving obedience from His enemies, but other scriptures indicate He won’t put up with that but will insist on loyal praise and obedience – which He will eventually get.