distinction, as the
worshipers of Jehovah, and to be wholly recreant and reprobate.
Convicted on such a charge those sign-seeking Pharisees and scribes
understood that Jesus classed them as worse than the idolatrous heathen.
The words "adultery" and "idolatry" are of related origin, each
connoting the act of unfaithfulness and the turning away after false
objects of affection or worship.

13. The Mother and the Brethren of Jesus.--The attempt of Mary and some
members of her family to speak with Jesus on the occasion referred to in
the text has been construed by many writers to mean that the mother and
sons had come to protest against the energy and zeal with which Jesus
was pursuing His work. Some indeed have gone so far as to say that the
visiting members of the family had come to put Him under restraint, and
to stem, if they could, the tide of popular interest, criticism, and
offense, which surged about Him. The scriptural record furnishes no
foundation for even a tentative conception of the kind. The purpose of
the desired visit is not intimated. It is a fact as will be shown in
pages to follow, that some members of Mary's household had failed to
understand the great import of the work in which Jesus was so
assiduously engaged; and we are told that some of His friends (marginal
rendering, "kinsmen,") on one occasion set out with the purpose of
laying hold on Him and stopping His public activities by physical force,
for they said "He is beside himself." (Mark 3:21); furthermore we learn
that His brethren did not believe on Him (John 7:5). These facts,
however, scarcely warrant the assumption that the desire of Mary and her
sons to speak with Him on the occasion referred to was other than
peaceful. And to assume that Mary, His mother, had so far forgotten the
wondrous scenes of the angelic annunciation, the miraculous conception,
the heavenly accompaniments of the birth, the more than human wisdom and
power exhibited in youth and manhood, as to believe her divine Son an
unbalanced enthusiast, whom she ought to restrain, is to assume
responsibility for injustice to the character of one whom the angel
Gabriel declared was blessed among women, and highly favored of the
Lord.

The statement that the brethren of Jesus did not believe on Him at the
time referred to by the recorder (John 7:5) is no proof that some or
even all of those same brethren did not later believe on their divine
Brother. Immediately after the Lord's