Matthew Chapter 12
Opens with "At that time..." I've noticed that a lot of gospel chapters begin this way. Looking back to 11 though, it is hard to grab the continuity. Perhaps the continuity ties to John 5 from yesterday, in the Chronological Bible, when Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Matthew 12 is about picking corn and eating it on the Sabbath, and again the Pharisees accuse Jesus about it. (Harmony has this same story from Matt 12 in Mark 2, which I read two days ago, and in Luke 6, which I read later today. I have been trying to keep the Harmony open as a reference as I read the gospels so that I won't get lost.) Jesus reminds them that David and his men ate the Bread of Presence, which was not lawful for them to eat, only priests could eat it. Then Jesus says that in the present time, the priests eat in the temple on the Sabbath, but they are not condemned. They also have to light fires, perform the daily sacrifices, and so on. MSB says the point was that some things in the law are precepts, not absolutes, and as such, have exceptions. Matthew adds this OT reference that Mark did not...remember that we believe Matthew was writing primarily to the Jews, who would have wanted scriptural verification of things Jesus was saying. Here is the verse:
7 And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. [Mat 12:7 ESV]. This could refer to at least two verses I can think of, and frankly, I think this thought is contained in many OT verses. Another variation is that obedience is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams (I Sam 15:22). MSB connects this to Hosea 6:6: 6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. [Hos 6:6 ESV]. MSB refers us back to his note at Matt 9:13. Jesus also quotes Hos 6:6 there, and the note adds 1 Sam 15:22 and Mic 6:6-8 to it. 6 "With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? [Mic 6:6-8 ESV] This is a longer quote, and doesn't say specifically what the others do, but this passage also makes it clear that it is the heartfelt worship of His people that God requires, NOT the sacrifices. The Sacrificial Law was to separate Israel from the surrounding nations, and their adherence to that law was a show of reverence and fear of God, NOT a way to heaven, NOT an end in itself. This theme runs from Adam, through Noah to Abraham. God required only fear and reverence from them for salvation. The Sinai covenant, when it came, was about something else. It was a training tool for a people who for 400 years had been worshiping Egyptian gods. At least most of them had. And remember, when they came out of Egypt, they had NO scriptures, because Moses hadn't written them yet!
2026 - I asked Gemini to search for a specific OT verse that grants priests permission to do work on the Sabbath. Gemini says there isn't one. The statement is based on the fact that the OT priests were commanded, in the law, to do sacrifices on the Sabbath that required preliminary work - killing, skinning, and so on - that would otherwise have been prohibited. The point then is that the work that was commanded was a "superior" law to that which prohibited work on the Sabbath. The superior law was ceremonial, the prohibition was for everyone else. Jesus is saying here that it does not apply exclusively to priests - it is not just about ceremonial, it is also ok to violate the general law for highly practical reasons. They were not starving, they were just hungry, and Jesus says this was allowed.
2022 - "7 And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless." [Mat 12:7 ESV]
In the Mt 12 reading, Micah and Habakkuk are also quoted in this way. You have to understand what is absolute and what is precept. That's an MSB idea. I am not sure anything is absolute other than love the Lord thy God and thy neighbor as thyself. Could it be that Jesus gave us room to do what is "right" even when it is an exception to what is written? The Pharisees were so focused on what was written that they were abusing widows, disrespecting parents, and ultimately murdering the innocent. Jesus is saying that kind of absoluteness is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that sometimes, we have to bend the rules.
Boy. That sure will need some work, because I have it written as a Get out of Jail Free card, and it is most certainly not that!
The theme continues in vs. 9, which opens with "He went on from there...". The theme is that Jesus is an exceptional man, that He is in fact the prophesied Son of Man, and beyond that, He is God. But these things Jesus is doing - healing the man lame for 38 years, eating corn harvested on the Sabbath, and now this story - are not Jesus saying He is beyond the law, but Jesus is trying to teach them that they have turned the law into a taskmaster instead of a teacher. They have made the jots and tittles the end of the law, when in fact it was about fulfilling the heartfelt desire to worship God acceptably. Jesus is "correcting" this massive misconception about the law that the Pharisees have built and that they use to make themselves better than every day worshipers.
In the temple, the Pharisees have prepared a trap. They have brought one who has a need, they point the man out to Jesus, and they ask if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath. They are not asking for instruction. They already "know" the answer. Jesus' answer makes them hypocrites. They will pull an ox out of a ditch on a Sunday (an exception they've put in there themselves), but it is not ok to "do good" to a man on the Sabbath. Jesus argument - his response - to their question is here:
12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." [Mat 12:12 ESV] The MSB note says there is no law in the Mosaic about it being unlawful to heal on the Sabbath - or to give medicine, or to do acts of mercy. There simply was no such prohibition, other than the man-made one. He says that at the time this event occurred, the Pharisees had made practicing medicine illegal on the Sabbath - EXCEPT in life-threatening situations. Jesus points out the ridiculous contradiction in values that their man-made laws have introduced. Then, Jesus heals the man's withered hand right in front of them. They see a miracle, and their reaction is not worship of this man obviously from God but formation of a conspiracy to destroy Jesus.
2024 - It is always right to do the right thing even if it breaks God's Law? That can't be right. It is OK to do anything not specifically prohibited by the Law? No, that's not it either. On the Sabbath, rest from work...but deal with unusual circumstances if it is the right thing to do. The higher thing to do. We are talking both the Law and the Ten here. But I can't think where any of the others would ever be OK to break. To do what is right is always OK. Perhaps that is the rule. And the sheep in the ditch and the value comparison was to show them they were already practicing this... where it suited them. Not that helping a sheep is bad, but that helping a man is better.
2025 - Why has this confused me? Jesus answers the question in so many words: 12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." [Mat 12:12 ESV]. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. That's the criteria. Same on any other day, same with any apparent breaking of the rules. Is it right to help an animal in distress or better to let it die? Is it better to hide two spies from Israel on your roof, or to turn them over to the king? So it was right for Hagar to break the civil law because aiding the spies was the right thing. So the rule is simple. Always and every time, do what is right.
Jesus knows their plot, and withdraws from there. Many follow as he leaves, and he heals all of them. It says "all". And he tells them to keep it quiet - though he had just healed in the temple. Then Matthew quotes an OT scripture that Jesus is fulfilling: Isaiah 42:1-4. These show Jesus not as a conquering king but as suffering servant. Matthew is telling his audience that despite what the Pharisees and rabbis had led them to expect, in fact it was Jesus who was fulfilling prophecy about the Messiah. Again, as Jesus was overturning the misapplication of the law, Matthew is pointing out that these same teachers also misapplied the prophecies about the Messiah. They were just wrong. They had to go. And Jesus was about to send them.
Jesus casts a demon out of a man. The demon was making the man blind and mute. (Well...it doesn't really say that. It says specifically that the man was demon-possessed, AND he was blind and mute. Jesus cures the blindness and the muteness. It is self-evident that the demon is evicted. But I don't think it is certain that the demon was causing these other problems. Even so, I may just be stubborn, because we have seen in other places that demons can cause physical problems. Not all physical problems - the withered hand we just read about for instance - are caused by demons, but SOME are. Like the woman stooped over double for all those years. So it seems obvious here...but isn't necessarily. How would a demon be able to make someone blind and lame? That's physical manipulation. If they could do it then, they can do it now...) This was something demons did then. We should assume that demons can, even if they choose otherwise, do so even in our day. Jesus heals him, and the people begin to recognize/suspect/realize that this is the "Son of David", that is, the Messiah. This is both a man and God. The Pharisees cannot have this. They can't allow anyone to exceed their authority, because their way of life depends on maintaining the status quo. Little is said about how Jesus actually deals with the demon. That is not the point of the story. The point is what the Pharisees say about it, how they try to explain it away. This story is to show how far from God's truth the religious leaders of the time have strayed. So they say Jesus is not doing God's work, but Satan's, as a way to deny that Jesus is from God. Jesus answers this charge directly.
He gives two irrefutable arguments to prove what is doing has nothing to do with Satan. First, Jesus says no kingdom divided against itself can stand. Therefore, Beelzebul would not be against himself. And then Jesus asks them who's name their own sons use to cast out demons? Where do their own sons get their authority to cast out demons? Then the conclusion: If it is by God's authority that Jesus is casting them out - which it obviously is - then the Kingdom of Heaven is there, Messiah is there, Jesus is the Messiah. It is right there, and they won't accept it. The second argument is that you can't oppose a strong man and take his stuff unless you first neutralize the strong man. The strong man here would be Satan. And if Jesus has cast out Satan - as his first argument shows - then Jesus is able to bind Satan. Who can do this? What man ever did this? None. Jesus is proving before their eyes that he is the Son of God. And still they won't believe.
Then the section on blasphemy against the Spirit being unforgivable. Say what you want about Jesus, but not about the Spirit. Never have understood this. I think MacArthur has a sermon on it. His note in MSB says that the difference is that if we are not firsthand witnesses, we might not believe the miracles are real, out of ignorance. But these Pharisees had seen the miracle, they knew from their study and tradition that this could only be done by God's authority through the Spirit, and yet as knowing eyewitnesses and in order to protect their status and their order, they knowingly deny that this is God's work. I see the difference...but we have not really established that it is the Spirit doing the work, and not Jesus. The Spirit and not God. There must be some doctrinal statement somewhere that says this is how it works. Further, being forgiven for not believing what you have not seen is only possible if you later repent and believe - as Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul disbelieved out of ignorance - he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. But when confronted, he believed what he saw.
2025 - Possible FB post:
In Matthew 12 Jesus heals a man with a withered hand, and right after that he heals a demon possessed man who was blind and lame. The Pharisees who see all this recognize that healing withered hands is something only God's power can do. Then they turn right around and credit Beelzebul with the healing of a man blind and lame because of a demon. Jesus says it cannot be that way, in this verse: 33 "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. [Mat 12:33 ESV]. Jesus point is that what a person does is either good, and right, and in the service of God, or else that person is a deceiver, a charlatan, and an enemy of God in the service of Satan. This is binary. There is no middle ground here. Why is that important? Because we must realize that it is not ok to see people's actions as "sometimes good and sometimes bad". No one is going to heal the sick blind and lame on the one hand through the power of God and turn right around and cast out demons by the power of Satan. A man has only one master! If he did the first by God's power, the second was also by God's power. And if the demons were cast out by Satan's power, then so was the healing by Satan's power. But Satan does NOT do good. Benny Hinn comes to mind. His healing is just deception. By who's power does he deceive? So it is not ok to say "Well, he does some good so we ought not speak out against him." But this is making the bad tree yield good fruit. This is not ok. Jesus commands that we not do this. And it is not a suggestion, the word "make" is in the imperative.
And then Jesus drives home real point so that the crowd has no doubt about which is which! 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. [Mat 12:34 ESV]. By condemning the God-ordained miracles that Jesus is doing, the Pharisees have made the kind of fruit they bear plain for all to see.
Another test. Don't know if that preacher is good or bad? What does he say about preachers you are already sure about? He will not praise the good if he is bad.
And another...right after this Jesus says we will be judged for every careless word. He means carelessness of the kind that blurts out credit to Satan for God's own work because we want to resist the reality right in front of us. Can't see God in the good things that happen? Open your eyes!
Jesus talks then about good fruit coming from good trees. It does not happen otherwise. And it is our words that determine what is in our hearts. We will be judged by our words. Our slips of the tongue, our thoughtless speech. Because in these moments, what comes out reveals what we really are. For these words we will be judged. 2020-A test perhaps, something to pay very close attention to. We need to listen to ourselves, first. What little slips of my tongue ought to give me clues about what my heart really holds. Is there some proof of salvation here so that we may know the Spirit is in us? What if a person says there is no God? Certainly if a person says that he could be judged by those words - and the judgement would be fair if that is coming from the heart. What if someone denies the virgin birth? Those words are certainly useful as evidence. What comes out of the mouth, what fruit we bear, is not the basis of our salvation, but the evidence of our faith. God is not blind. A good FB post using these verses:
36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." [Mat 12:36-37 ESV] It does not say we will be justified by the number of demons we've cast out or the number of good deeds we've done. The evidence is not the "count", but the words behind it that prove what is in the heart. The heart is what is judged, words are the evidence, works are the evidence.
2022 - What judgment is this about? The Pharisees are long dead, yet unjudged. As I read the judgments, it is only at the GWT that the dead will be judged. Therefore, that is what Jesus must be referencing. The way this is worded, it does not say that both saved and lost will be judged by their words. It says "people will give account", and based on their motivations, on what was in their hearts when they spoke, they will be either justified or condemned. We could read this as some going one way and some the other. Does it mean that, or does it mean that at this judgment - the GWT - those who are lost will give an account, and it will be obvious what was in their hearts - even though sometimes they did get one right. Look back at 34..."How can you speak good, when you are evil?" At the judgment, even the good will not count for the lost - as we know from Ezekiel 18. That's it! The idea here is that since these lost reject God, no otherwise good thing that they do or say will be credited to them. The Pharisees would be familiar with Eze 18, and understand that he was saying they are evil through and through, and their little "token" goodness will not accrue to their credit.
2023 - If the men of Nineveh, who repented, are to rise up with Jesus generation and accuse them, that cannot mean the rapture, because only saved will be raptured. So we must conclude that OT saints are not resurrected until the GWT, when the lost of Jesus generation are raised. Only the church will be raptured. Really need to work on this in depth. What does this passage really say about the judgment. It is important, because Jesus is telling them what will happen at the judgment. This IS the right context to look for deeper meaning.
The plotting Pharisees ask for a sign - knowing they have just seen one and disbelieved it. Jesus tells them about the sign of Jonah, and that like Jonah was in the fish, Jesus will be in the earth. He is foretelling his own death and resurrection, and he knows that they aren't going to believe that either. Since the people of Nineveh - heathens, pagans, Gentiles - believed the sign of Jonah, and Jesus will present a far greater sign that the Pharisees will still not believe, these elite (elitist) religious leaders will be judged by Gentiles. A very direct and demeaning prophecy about them. 2020-Oh my...I wonder how many people "saw" Jonah spit up by the whale? I bet there were witnesses, and that "miracle" of walking out of the fishes mouth up onto the beach and starting to preach would have carried enough weight to convert even Nineveh. They saw Jonah come "back from the dead", and even though they were Gentiles, they repented in sackcloth and ashes! Jesus is saying that these Pharisees will see an actual resurrection and still not believe. This is the sense in which Jesus will present a great sign. Another Gentile, the Queen of Sheba, was able to ascertain that Solomon's wisdom was from God, not from man - that he was unique and that his God was worthy of her worship. But these learned Pharisees cannot see that the man before them is wiser even than Solomon. I never saw this deeply into these verses before. What a FB post this is!!!!
vss 43-45 are about the unclean spirit that goes off wandering and finds nothing good. So it goes back home, and finds a clean house, all in order. So the unclean spirit moves back in, with seven other spirits even worse than it is. So this last state is worse than the first. The MSB note doesn't help. I have notes in my old NKJV about this being conviction, grace offered, and grace refused - the last state of knowing refusal of the offer of grace - being worse than not having been offered grace to start with. I have a hard time seeing that in these verses.
2025 - I wonder though...Jesus displaced Satan as ruler of the spiritual world on earth. I wonder if what this is really saying is that with Jesus came the power for men to evict evil spirits, to resist them. And yet, if one evicts them, and leaves the house empty, then more and stronger ones come back and re-occupy the house. Does this mean that spiritual emptiness in man will never stay empty, but will ultimately occupied either by the Spirit of God or by demons. This goes right along with the good tree good fruit statement above. It's binary. You cannot be empty.
Perhaps we should focus on the man, and not the unclean spirit. The unclean spirit is a real demon, in search of a place to rest. It finds none. So it goes back. Jesus threw the demon out of the man in vs 22. But it never says that man believed....no, that's going to go nowhere.
Maybe it is about the Pharisees. They have seen the truth. The demons that have blinded them, corrupted the Mosaic Law, turned it into an oppressor, have been revealed to them by Jesus. The dirty house has been cleaned up. Yet they don't lock the doors. They don't accept the one who has made this plain to them. They don't "move Jesus in" to the house. They cling to the old way, to the taskmaster, to the life they are used to. And having managed to get the house cleaned once, but reverted to their old comfortable ways, it will be far harder for them to clean that house out again and let Jesus in.
This kind of makes sense. The unclean spirit referred to is not a singular demon that has to be expelled, but is in fact the normal state of a man, lost in sin, unable to "clean house". So the "change" is not a demon cast out so much as a clarity about the real way of things. The state of that dirty house is suddenly obvious. But if we don't have help keeping it clean....or if our housecleaning resolve weakens, then we may never try to clean up again.
Hmm...thought I was onto it, now not so sure anymore. They were comfy living in their dirty houses, but Jesus showed them the broom, and showed them what a clean house looked like. But they didn't hire him to keep it clean, and in the end, having rejected the house cleaner, they live in more filth than before. I still don't think I have the real meaning here, but it's as close as I can get for now. Moving on.
2020-I think I'm all around it. Lost people are the house where the unclean spirit dwells. This is original sin, polluting all men. We are the devils house from the time we are born. When we hear the gospel, when we are convicted, and we are almost persuaded, and we struggle for days or months or years with believing, with generating enough faith to be saved, with ridding ourselves of reservations about believing, and in the end are not persuaded...then Satan - and worse - resumes his hold on us, and as hard as it was to clean the house out the first time, it becomes oh so much more nearly impossible now. Jesus is telling them this is their best chance, by far, to clean their houses. This comes right on the heels of the Jonah/Queen of Sheba stories. They have seen what was far more than enough for Gentile cities and Southern Queens, they better decide now, because the persuasion, the proof, the naked truth will never again be presented with the power it has when Jesus himself stands right in your presence. THIS is what this means!!!! Don't know how I'd ever get this into a FB post. But it sure might go on the website as a standalone!
AGAIN in 2020 - See the MSB note on a similar incident in Luke 11. It all becomes clear there. The short version is that the "fake" exorcists of the time, authorized by the Pharisees (their sons), were powerful enough to sometimes force a demon out (because to make a strong man leave his house you have to be stronger than him), but they were not strong enough to lock the door behind him. So after some time, the demon comes back, with friends, and is worse off than before for the fake exorcism. You cannot get all this from the reading. This has to come from extra-biblical sources. MSB is the source I used, but he got it from someplace else I am sure. This though, is how all these things tie together and make sense. The lesson is that you cannot pick out one little section and stop. You have to READ IT ALL!!!
2024 - Jonah went and preached, and Nineveh changed, because they recognized the truth. They cleaned house. But it did not last, as per Nahum. Their last state was more corrupt than at first. So also the generation of Jesus' time. They kill the messenger, and then turn completely away. Ultimately they lose their Temple AND their country. I believe they are still paying for that. Their last state is worse than their first! This is what Jesus meant. NOT about a person, about a nation! This is how demons behaved up to that time because the sons had no real power over them. As demons do, so did Nineveh, and so does Israel! Oh my!!!!