In this next section in the Gospel of Matthew we see the Pharisees rebuked and Jesus mentioning what is known as “the unpardonable sin.” This is a particularly troubling passage for some Christians. That Jesus would call a sin unpardonable, or unforgivable. What is that? Have I committed it? Have I gone beyond God’s redemption? For those who are particularly plagued by guilt this can really interrupt their relationship with God and cause them a great deal of doubt and worry. It is such an important topic that I want to spend an entire sermon on chapter 12 verses 31-32 and “the unpardonable sin,” and for that you will have to wait an extra week as my family and I are going to be out of town next Lord’s day.
This morning we are going to be looking at verses 22-30 which is the context, the lead up into the unpardonable sin. It is a context that we must fully understand because it has so much to do with verses 31-32. Taking those two verses on their own and trying to explain them will inevitably lead to the false fears that have arisen because of the misunderstandings of this passage.
But we see in verses 22-32 is the culmination, the peak of rejection of Jesus that has been building over the last couple of chapters. Since chapter 8 we have been seeing a growing reaction against Jesus and his miracles. As the ministry and evidence of Jesus as the Messiah has grown, as the proclamation began to escalate as Jesus began multiplying himself through his apostles, we see a corresponding growth in the efforts against him. In chapter 11 we saw Jesus confront the doubt, then the indifference, and finally the full rejection he faced by the Jews and especially the Pharisees and religious leaders at the beginning of chapter 12. It is a rejection that has been present from the beginning of His ministry that grew with intensity over time.
The accusation that we see in verse 24 of our passage for this morning, that Jesus casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons, started all the way back in 9:34. At that point, Jesus did not address this comment. We cannot know for sure but I would speculate Jesus left the Pharisees to spread this lie, he let them become committed to it, let them become confident in it and even known for it for a while. He may have done this so that when He finally did confront them, as we will see in our passage today, there whole hand of cards would be laid bare in front of the people to deal. They would not be able to back down gently or playoff the comment as an offhanded remark, they had been saying the same thing for weeks or months trying to turn the people against Jesus and destroy his credibility.
What we will see this week and next in the ministry of Jesus is the point where it becomes clear the leadership of Israel will not accept Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah. Jesus has been presenting himself as the king, calling for the people to accept his kingdom throughout the first 10 chapters, only to be ignored or rejected in chapters 11 and 12. This will become fully evident through the end of chapter 12 and there is a marked shift in the way he interacts with the crowds starting in chapter 13 as he begins speaking in parables to confuse and unknowingly those who are only there to see the show and not committed to him as their Messiah and master.
I think we can see our passage for this morning as something of a breaking point in the relationship between Jesus and the nation of Israel. And it is important to recognize that as part of the context for the unpardonable sin and that we will look at in verses 31 and 32. But with that mentality, with that context laid out before us, let us read our passage for this morning and begin our look at this important section of Scripture. Matthew 12:22-30.
“Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, ‘This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?’ but when the Pharisees heard this, they said, ‘This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.’
And knowing their thoughts Jesus, said to them, ‘Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; then will his kingdom stand? If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he firsts bind the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.”
As has been mentioned in the past, Matthew does not keep to a strict timeline but rather has ordered these accounts according to the point that he has been trying to make, presenting Jesus as the Messiah, the chosen servant of God. Last week we saw his quote from Isaiah 42 directly linking Jesus with the messianic prophecies. This account that begins in verse 22 may have happened immediately subsequent or sometime after the confrontation on the Sabbath. What is certain is Matthew makes a clear connection between those events and this one. The Pharisees are still sour over the events in verses 1-14 in which Jesus laid bare their hypocrisy.
What stands out at the beginning of this account is not necessarily the miracle of Jesus but at the response of the amazed crowds who witnessed this event. The man who was brought to Jesus is described as being demon possessed, blind and mute. It is likely that he was also suffering deafness which was often associated with the inability to speak. At this point in the Gospel accounts and in the ministry of Jesus, it is not really surprising that Jesus healed him. We have seen several accounts of Jesus healing and exercising demons, he had healed hundreds, probably thousands of people who were suffering from all kinds of issues.
This particular situation may have been somewhat different in that the man is suffering from both physical debilitation’s and spiritual oppression. What we see in this one miracle is the consummate expression of Christ’s healing power and authority over the supernatural realm. It is sort of an all-in-one healing miracle. This man who was would have been known in the community for his situation as someone who was blind and mute in an instant has the ability to see and to speak. They healing was immediate and it was complete, as if nothing had ever been wrong. In seeing this it was impossible for the people witnessing the event to deny the power of Jesus. They do not even try. They are dumbfounded by his power. There is no attempt to call out his abilities as fake, there was no way this was some sort of psychosomatic response. This is in no way the kind of things you might see at a modern day healing Crusade. This healing is undeniable and there is no way to describe it aside from seeing the supernatural power involved.
But their response gets to the heart of the confusion and rejection aimed at Jesus by many in the Jewish culture, especially by the Pharisees. “All the crowds were amazed, and saying, ‘This man cannot be the Son of David, can He?” We start with just the first three words their “all the crowds.” Jesus’ miracles continued to draw in the people. Even though he was in open conflict with their religious leaders, even though he had just had a very public confrontation with them about their Sabbath traditions, crowds of people continued to follow Jesus around. And everybody was amazed, totally astounded. The word that is used there has the idea of being outside of your own mind with astonishment. This is not the pleasant confusion seeing someone do a sleight-of-hand trick, this is utter bewilderment. To have your mind blown. To be blown away.
And even though all of the crowds, all of the people coming from the surrounding area were in this constant state of being blown out of their minds by the miracles of Jesus; though they had no way to explain the supernatural power, they were hesitant to accept him as their Messiah. They just could not take that next step because he did not fit the model, he was not doing what they expected the prophesied Messiah to do.
They were expecting fanfare and trumpeters. They were expecting parting of oceans, lightning from heaven, heathen armies being wiped out before the warriors of Israel in conquest over the world. The Messiah was supposed to be the “Son of David,” the great King who led Israel into battle conquering their pagan enemies. Where is the fire and fury, where is the crown and the throne. Jesus was meek, humble, gentle, compassionate. He was not a great warrior, he was a carpenter. He was not standing at the head of armies, he was sitting and talking with the poor and the hurting. He was not mixing with the heads of society and state, he was not even fitting in with the religious leaders, he ate with tax collectors and sinners. His miracles warrant grand cosmic events, he was simply healing people and casting out demons.
They could not deny his power, hundreds, thousands of miracles like the Messiah was supposed to do, just not what they were expecting. “This man cannot be the Son of David, can He?” “Is this really the guy we have been waiting for all these years? I mean, I am seeing what he is doing, but maybe there is some other explanation.” You see, they missed the passages like Isaiah 42 that said the chosen servant would not argue or quarrel or cry out in the streets. They missed the bit about him being concerned about the broken and bruised in the world. He would not trample over people, but be gentle and compassionate. He was meek, and they just could not handle it.
But at the same time, they did not know what to think and so the accusing voices of the Pharisees chimed in to give them the answers they were confused about. We saw just back in verse 14 that the Pharisees were conspiring to destroy Jesus. They did not have the authority to kill him for blasphemy. The Romans were content to let the leaders of conquered societies control their own populations with their own rules, but they always reserved the death penalty for themselves. That is why the Jewish religious leaders had to go to Pilate in order to get Jesus crucified and he had not done anything to break Roman law. So, since they could not kill him, they started by trying to discredit him.
Notice also here that the Pharisees did not take these accusations to Jesus himself. Whenever they came up against him, as we saw in the beginning of chapter 12, they lost badly and publicly. They could not stand up to him on their own, they could not even stand up to him as a group. One thing we never see is a Pharisee coming to accuse Jesus on his own, there always in a pack like a bunch of bullies that have no bravery on their own. But even in this, they were too afraid to accuse Jesus openly. They could not stand up to his knowledge and wisdom concerning the Old Testament law. They had tried to accuse him of befriending tax collectors and sinners, they had tried to condemn him for breaking the Sabbath traditions and in each case his simple responses exposed their own hypocrisy. They could not stand up to his simple logical questions that showed they had no legs to stand on and that their traditions fell apart when exposed to the clear light of Scripture.So instead of confronting Jesus directly, they went to undermine him in the eyes of the people who could clearly see his miraculous power.
“But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, ‘This man casts out demons only by Beelzebub the ruler of demons.” All the crowds were amazed, their minds blown by the supernatural power of Jesus and even Pharisees recognized that they could not explain away the results of the healing ministry of Jesus. If they could have found a way to expose or even imply that Jesus was just making this stuff up, using plants in the crowd or healing “fake” or “invisible” problems they would have gone that route. They cannot deny the effect of Jesus his power and so the only thing left to them in order to undermine Jesus is to attribute his authority and healing power to Satan.
I have mentioned in the past the origin of the term “Beelzebub.” The word “Baals” (or Bales) mentioned so often in the Old Testament were the gods of the pagans in areas surrounding Israel. The word “Baal” simply means Lord or master; and “Zebub” could be one of a couple of different meanings. This was the god of the city of Ekron, and if you are in Sunday school last week that was the pagan God to whom Ahaziah sent messengers that were intercepted by Elijah that we talked about. The name may have been “Lord of the hosts/spirits” or more likely “Lord of the flies.” In either case, by the time of Jesus it had been turned into a term of derision, “the Lord of the dung heap,” and was used to describe “the adversary,” Satan, the devil, in Jewish terminology.
All of that to say, the Pharisees were trying to poison the minds of the people. They could not explain away the truth of his miracles, the only thing they could do to undermine him was attempt to redirect the focus of the people by claiming his power came from Satan. And so the people found themselves in a conundrum. Either Jesus is “the Son of David” the Messiah that they had long been awaiting or he was, as the Pharisees were trying to make him out to be, an agent of the Satan. He is either of God or of the devil.
Now again, they had accused him of this in the past. They had been spreading this line for a while and at this point they were stuck with it. And so Jesus takes the opportunity to confront this question in front of all of the crowds who were pondering the source of his power. On the one hand, here is this guy who is performing miracles in a way that is obviously supernatural and leads us to believe he is the promised Messiah, on the other hand, our religious leaders are telling us he is from Satan, so which is it? And Jesus takes this opportunity to call out the Pharisees and force the decision in the minds of all those who are watching. And so he gives an undeniable answer to this accusation.
“And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them.” When you start out with a statement like that, you know the other guys are in trouble. Jesus supernaturally knows the thoughts of the Pharisees. They would not come to him with this accusation, but in his omniscience, he knew what was going on and so it in all of his perfect knowledge and wisdom he lays out there accusation before the people picking apart as illogical, blind and prejudiced, with only one rational conclusion as the result.
“And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, ‘Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?” Jesus begins by pointing out that their accusation is illogical, unreasonable. He states a truism that anyone could understand. A house divided against itself is going to fall. A nation that is at war with itself can never survive an outside threat. You cannot have a civil war and survive onslaught from the outside at the same time. You cannot have chaos in a house, chaos in a city or in a nation without having the whole thing begin to fall apart.
We are watching that happen to our own country today. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard political commentators mention “the culture war.” Two very different ideologies battling it out across our country; in the news outlets, online through social media, and even on the streets. It is not something that started recently but we have seen it explode in many different ways over the last couple of months. Could you imagine our country having to face a threat like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union with the current division ripping our country apart?
A house divided against itself cannot stand. If Satan is casting out Satan then he is divided against himself, how is his kingdom going to survive. In other words, do you think Satan is stupid enough that he is going to destroy his own kingdom: that he is going to have or allow the demons under his control to run around cast each other out and interrupting each other’s work? It does not make sense. I am sure there is some level of petty squabbling. But Satan is a fallen angel, the implications from the Old Testament indicate that he was one of if not the greatest angels created by God. Outside of the Trinity he is the most intelligent being in existence. So why would he go around messing up his own plans, allowing infighting in his own kingdom?
Some people have speculated that Satan could have performed miracles that could be made to mimic those of God in order to trick the faithful Jews. This goes into the question of whether or not Satan perform miracles The short answer to that in my opinion is “no.” Nowhere in Scripture do we see Satan or any demonic forces performing miracles or actions outside of the natural order of the world. Only God has the power to manipulate his creation in that way. Now I do believe that, being extremely intelligent, Satan can easily trick people into thinking he or his agents have performed miraculous things. But there is no way that he could have fooled people with tricks at the same extent that Jesus preformed true miracles.
Whether you believe Satan can or not, what should have been obvious to the crowds and the Pharisees was that this was not some simple false flag event by Satan to trick the people into following one of his agents. Jesus had been assaulting the kingdom of Satan through preaching and performing miracles of healing and exercising demons to an astonishing level. This was not an isolated incident but one of thousands in which Jesus had all but banished disease and suffering from the area of Galilee, and to say that Satan was doing this to himself was asinine. To say that Satan, who is utterly evil, completely and totally given to sin would allow so much good to be done is just ridiculous. But the Pharisees had been claiming that for some time; that Jesus was an agent of Satan merely doing his bidding while at the same time bring so much physical and spiritual healing to the Jewish people.
So Jesus makes it clear to the Pharisees and all those who are listening to this confrontation that the accusation of the Pharisees was illogical. The next thing he points to is how blind or prejudiced the same accusations were. “If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges.” The “sons of the Pharisees” were their disciples, their followers in the legalistic system of tradition. Calling a person’s disciples “sons” was a common thing in the time of Jesus. “Like father like son,” not physically or in characteristics but in ideology. At this time there were groups of Pharisees that were involved in exorcisms. The Jewish historian Josephus describes how they would use strange incantations and various relics to cast out demons. In the book of Acts, in chapter 19 there was a group of them who were trying to use the name of Jesus in part of their spell, only to be called out by the demon for having no authority before he uses the demon possessed man to beat them up and send them home naked and utterly ashamed.
The point being, that Jesus is pointing out the prejudices of the Pharisees. “You have got your own exorcists running around casting out demons. I am doing the same thing (though I guess with far more success), why do you say that I do it by Satan?” Then He says “for this reason they will be your judges.” Jesus is saying to the Pharisees “get your disciples in here who do all this exorcisms stuff and see what they say?” They had been around these demon possessed people, they knew what Jesus was doing, they knew that he was actually having success, immediate and complete success every single time where they could never guarantee anything. They had to recognize Jesus had authority over the demons and ways they did not and that kind of authority can only be attributed to God.
You see it just does not matter how perfect the evidence is. People do not reject Jesus as the Messiah because there is a lack of evidence that he is God. They reject him because it is a matter of the heart. They reject him because they are biased, prejudiced; because their heart is in utter darkness and is a stone. To accept Jesus as the Messiah would be to accept that their system was wrong, that their religious traditions were wrong and that they were no better than the worst of sinners and that they had been lording their self-righteousness over for centuries. It is an issue of pride. Pride blinds in astonishing ways.
In verse 28 Jesus then lays out the simple binary choice and then reaffirms it in verse 30. “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Jesus has made it clear there is only two choices. He is either of God or of the devil. It is either one or the other, but really there is only one clear choice. He has refuted the accusation that he casts out demons by the power of Satan. It is ridiculous. Jesus has been plundering the kingdom of Satan through his preaching and his miracles. People are being delivered left and right from physical oppression, from demonic oppression, and are coming to God in repentance. That is what Jesus was getting at in verse 29. He is the one who entered the strong man’s house, Satan’s kingdom he overpowered him, bound him back in chapter 4 in his temptation, and now he is plundering his kingdom of the lost and broken souls in order to bring them into Christ’s glorious kingdom.
“If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” What I am doing cannot be attributed to Satan, which means there is only one choice left, that the kingdom of God is here, and I am the king.” There is no other alternative, the evidence is clear, the evidence is amazing and unavoidable, mind blowing. The miracles of Jesus are inexplicable unless they are done by the Spirit of God.
And then in verse 30 he gives them this ultimatum “he who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” He has been offering them salvation, “come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” The perfect Sabbath rest, the eternal rest promised by God, rest from self-righteousness, rest from guilt. And there is no neutral ground you were either going to submit to Jesus as Lord or you are going to continue in your rejection of him. There is no neutral ground, you either see him as King, submit to his authority and his yoke which he has promised is light, or you are going to be open rebellion against him.
That is where we all stand even now. CS Lewis’s famous proposition was that Jesus is either a liar, lunatic, or Lord. He was either consciously a trickster, insane, or God. Jesus just gives you the two options, and there is no middle ground, there is no calling him a good teacher, a moral guru. He is either of Satan or of God. And you have a choice, to stand with the Pharisees in rejection of him or accept him as God. And if he is God then there is only one course of action that you can take, a life of faith in him as Lord and Savior, a life defined by repentance, by humility, hungering and thirsting after his righteousness.