Mark 3:21

His friends] From Mark 3:31 they appear to have been His mother and brethren. 'There is both a logical and chronological relation between this attitude of our Lord's family and this new phase of the opposition of the scribes. The logical relation is found in the language of the two. His family said “He is beside Himself” the scribes said, “He is possessed by the devil himself.” It is not, however, implied at all that His family was in sympathy with the scribes, their apprehension being simply that His mind was unsettled, and that He needed to be put under restraint. This lack of human sympathy with Him led Jesus to point out the higher reality of spiritual relationship and association' (Gould). The Fourth Gospel agrees with the synoptists in representing the 'brethren' as unbelievers and altogether unsympathetic (John 7:5). Only their anxiety, not their unbelief, is to be attributed to the Virgin mother: see John 2:3.