A sign that God and His kingdom are arriving: What sort of sign were they seeking? The mute speaking is a sign from heaven. While others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven. If Jesus drives out 'a demon' you may legitimately question his motive, but if his work is characterised by driving out demons at every opportunity, this is compelling evidence that he is from God and assaulting the kingdom of satan. Notice in the text that the discussion is about driving out 'demons', not driving out 'a demon'. Jesus response should be seen in the context not just of this exorcism, but the continuous witness of his deeds. Therefore the disguise, as in 2 Corinthians 11, will eventually be found out. In the same way, satan may intend for a demon to be cast out, to help him deceive and ultimately afflict, but it would be no advantage to him to continually bring harm upon his own house. To use a chess analogy, though a queen sacrifice may win you the game, continually throwing away your pieces will not. Their end will correspond to their deeds. 15So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Similarly, Paul speaks of satan appearing 'good' in order to further his evil intent:ġ4And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. As you point out that reading would put Jesus at odds with himself in Matthew 7 where he speaks of the 'appearance' of good deeds without the true fulfilling of the law that comes from being known by Jesus. I think you are mistaking Jesus' reasoning. In the former, I gather from his line of reasoning that demons cannot be cast out by Satan in the latter, it seems as though casting out demons by Satan must be a possibility. So, how does one reconcile these two passages? So then, I would think that they must not be casting out demons by the Lord, and their power to cast out must come from Satan instead.Īnd yet, this conclusion is precisely what Jesus's argument seemed to short-circuit. Here, there are those who, evidently, cast out demons, and yet never knew Jesus. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:22-23, ESV) (Matthew 12:18, ESV)īut then there's the Sermon on the Mount: (Luke 11:20, ESV)Īnd the parallel account in Matthew 12 identifies the Holy Spirit as the source of Jesus' power:īut if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. The argument is a reductio ad absurdum: it would simply not make sense to cast out demons by Beelzebul, therefore Jesus must be casting out demons by the Lord, a conclusion that Jesus explicitly supports in verse 20:īut if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Jesus's point seems pretty clearly to be that he casts out demons not by Beelzebul-whom demons presumably come from-but by the Lord. Will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by And if Satan also is divided against himself, how “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided In particular I'm thinking of the pericope in which Jesus is accused of casting out demons by Beelzebul, and the one where Jesus indicates that not everyone who casts out demons will be saved. Really what I'm getting at is two lines of reasoning I see in gospel accounts that seem to contradict one another.
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