Jesus And The Forbidding Pharisees – Part 5
Matthew 12:22-45
Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign
Matthew 12:38-45
As we draw near the end of our study in Matthew 12, I thought it might be a good time for an overview. When we move into Matthew 13, the entire timber of Jesus’ teaching changes as He begins teaching in parables and focusing on what the kingdom of heaven is and what it looks like.
Even though He will have face-to-face confrontations with the Pharisees from time to time after this, where we are now is a critical juncture in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, especially as it pertains to His relationship with the spiritual leaders and teachers of His people.
When we first came into Matthew 12, the previous chapter had ended with Jesus’ most welcoming and tender invitation of all: "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Right after this, in the opening to this chapter, we see Jesus and His disciples walking through a grainfield on the Sabbath and the disciples rubbing the heads of grain between their palms because they were hungry.
The Pharisees had a meltdown, accusing the disciples of Jesus of breaking the Sabbath laws and in no uncertain terms, accusing Jesus of allowing it. Jesus set them straight about the Sabbath.
He first had reminded these learned men about what the Scriptures taught about the Law in general by recalling for them the story of David and his companions eating the consecrated bread from the temple because they were starving.
David was not condemned for that because, as Jesus reminded them; preserving life was of more importance to God than the observance of ritual. It was a matter of the heart, the inner motivations. God’s Law was made for the preservation and protectionof man, not the destruction of man.
Jesus then went into the synagogue and sprang the trap they had set for Him on them when He healed the man with the withered hand and again reminded them that the heart of God was focused on compassion, not sacrifice. He even challenged them to decide which was appropriate, doing good or doing evil on the Sabbath. They hadn’t answered Him because they were so focused on their ritual observations that they had completely lost sight of the people God loved and had no vision for the heart of the Law.
Then Jesus even went so far as to perform the miracle of delivering and healing a man who was so possessed by a demon that he was blind and dumb. This miracle, combined with the miracle in the synagogue and His forceful use of the Scriptures, served to make it obvious to all who were present that Jesus had power and authority from heaven and that they were in the presence of One who was “greater than the temple” and the very “Lord of the Sabbath”.
The Pharisees just didn’t get it – they were so foolish as to try to credit Satan, the prince of demons, and not the Holy Spirit as being the One who was empowering Jesus to drive out demons and perform the miracles He performed.
Here is where they had finally crossed the line – the renowned “unforgivable sin.” You can say what you like about Jesus, but when you start intentionally crediting to Satan that which is of the Holy Spirit and crediting to the Holy Spirit that which is of Satan, you have gone too far. Your rejection of the work and word of the Holy Spirit separates you so far from the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ that there is no return.
Jesus goes on, as we saw last time, to make it very clear that we are accountable for every word that we speak and that our words in this life will be used as evidence either for us or against us on that day when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
That brings us to today’s lesson, which begins in Matthew 12:38.
Let’s move the camera in for some close-ups.
Pharisees: "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You."
Jesus turns from the Pharisees and speaks to the assembled crowd: "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;
“For just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
"The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
"The Queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.”
Jesus turns back to the Pharisees, and looks them each in the eyes as He speaks, still loud enough for everyone to hear:
"Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it.
"Then it says, ’I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order.
"Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation."
WOW!
Then, to top it off, someone tries to distract Him by telling Him, "Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You."
Jesus, unswayed by the plea for observing filial courtesy, uses the intended distraction to further make His point:
And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother."
So, what we have here is a different group of Pharisees challenging Jesus than the one earlier in the chapter (see Luke 11:16). This group, like their fellows, are demanding some obvious, visible, irrefutable proof from heaven that Jesus really has been sent by God and that He has the right to be doing and saying what He has been doing and saying.
Jesus turns on them, still with love, but with a sternness and a seriousness that cannot be mistaken or misinterpreted, and gives them a warning that should have chilled their bones.
It doesn’t. Not until the day of Pentecost will they really get it, after Peter reminds them of just what it is they’ve done, Whom it is they have tortured and killed. Little do they know now that the sign Jesus tells them they are going to get is going to be the result of their own evil deeds.
So, what is it they are demanding? They are demanding “a sign”; a miracle. What is a miracle, anyway?
There are many definitions. Here are some definitions that don’t really fit, but that are most commonly given:
One definition of miracles is "a direct intervention of God in the world.” But this definition assumes a deistic view of God’s relationship to the world, in which the world continues on its own and God only intervenes in it occasionally.
This is certainly not the biblical view, according to which God makes the rain to fall (Matthew 5:45), causes the grass to grow (Psalm 104:14), and continually carries along all things by his word and power (Hebrews 1:3).
Another definition of miracles is "a more direct activity of God in the world.” But to talk about a "more direct” working of God suggests that His ordinary providential activity is somehow not “direct”, and again hints at a sort of deistic removal of God from the world.
Another definition is "God working in the world without using means to bring about the results he wishes.” Ye,t to speak of God working "without means”, leaves us with very few if any miracles in the Bible, for it is hard to think of a miracle that came about with no means at all.
In the healing of people, for example, some of the physical properties of the sick person’s body were doubtless involved as part of the healing. When Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes, He at least used the original five loaves and two fishes that were there. When He changed water to wine, He used water and made it become wine. This definition seems to be grossly inadequate.
Yet another definition of miracle is "an exception to a natural law”, or "God acting contrary to the laws of nature.” But the phrase “laws of nature” in popular understanding implies that there are certain qualities inherent in the things that "exist, “laws of nature” which operate independently of God, and that God must intervene or "break” these laws in order for a miracle to occur. Once again, this definition does not adequately account for the biblical teaching on providence.
Another definition of miracle is, "an event impossible to explain by natural causes.” This definition is inadequate because:
(1) It does not include God as the One who brings about the miracle;
(2) It assumes that God does not use some natural causes when He works in an unusual or amazing way, and thus it assumes again that God only occasionally intervenes in the world; and
(3) It will result in a significant minimizing of actual miracles, and an increase in skepticism, since many times when God works in answer to prayer the result is amazing to those who prayed but it is not absolutely impossible to explain by natural causes, especially for a skeptic who simply refuses to see God’s hand at work.
The best definition I know of is this:
"A miracle is a less common kind of God’s activity in which He arouses people’s awe and wonder and bears witness to Himself (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, chapter 52).”
This definition does not say that a miracle is a different kind of working by God, but only that it is a less common way of God’s working, and that it is done so as to arouse people’s wonder and amazement.
The two principal things that are authenticated by miracles in the New Testament are the Lord Jesus and the message about the Lord Jesus. This would apply in today’s world, also.
Now, depending on which method of listing one uses and what one wants to include, there are between thirty-one and forty-two miracles of Jesus recoded in the New Testament. Some lists include His Ascension, which is recorded in Acts 1.
It is silly, really, the limitations that we put on God sometimes. Like these Pharisees, we won’t accept what has already been revealed. We tend to want some special sign, some special message just for us so that we can “know” that God is real, or that He is really involved in what we’re doing, or that we are “on the right track.”
From Jesus’ response, we can see that He has revealed enough, that there have been enough signs, that there is enough evidence, and that it is high time we put our faith and trust in Him and His Word and get on with it.
Jesus says, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign.” What does He mean, “evil and adulterous”?
Very interesting this comment, for Jesus not only speaks very clearly, revealing the truth about the disposition of their hearts, He also employs a reference to their own rabbinical writings that spoke of the times when the Messiah would come.
In the Mishnah, it is written "that just when the Messiah comes,” and “in the age the son of David comes”, "impudence shall be increased, corn and wine shall be dear, the government shall be heretics, and the synagogue shall become a brothel house.’’
Their teaching was that the chief judges would be Sadducees, and those that pretended religion and holiness would be adulterers, which was the case now. Their writings frequently speak of the increase and thriving of adulteries during the time of the second temple, which would be about this time.
The word used here for “adulterous” is also a reference back to the many occasions when God rightly accused the Children of Israel in the writings of the prophets of adultery, referring to their pursuing false religions instead of faithfully following the true religion that was faith in God and obedience to His Laws.
They had gotten to the point where they faithfully obeyed the regulations they had added to the Law of God, but completely overlooked and ignored the Law of God itself, as well as heart of the Law. This is where Jesus, time and time again, butted heads with the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Jesus goes on to make a prophetic statement referring to His death, burial and resurrection being the only sign that they would receive. Not that He would perform no more miracles, but that the sign they were looking for that He was the One Promised, the Anointed One of God, the One who would bring in the kingdom of God, the only sign they would receive from heaven was one that would condemn them for their unbelief.
Jesus uses two cases involving despised Gentiles who came to faith in God by what they witnessed to further demonstrate the depth of their stiff-necked depravity.
The first if the Ninevites, the people who lived in the capitol city of ancient Assyria, a nation that had been responsible for much evil against the Jews in their history. Jonah’s three days and nights in the belly of the sea monster, a situation which should have been his end, represented the time Jesus would spend in the belly of the earth.
Just as Jonah miraculously recovered from his death experience, so would Jesus; only Jonah had never died – his had been a “near-death” experience. Jesus’ death would be very real and quite obvious, and His resurrection would be all the more miraculous and spectacular.
Jesus goes on to say that, on Judgment Day, the people of Nineveh and the woman known as the Queen of the South (or, the Queen of Sheba), will be standing there along with them and that, when the evidence is examined, the repenting Ninevites and the Queen of Sheba will be accepted by God while the Scribes and Pharisees will be rejected.
The preaching and teaching of Jesus was fuller, richer and more revealing than the simple “turn-or-burn” message of Jonah. Jesus’ teaching and His miracles revealed the heart and nature of God; the love He had for mankind, the reason He gave the Laws He did, and the benefits in this life and the next for loving Him and obeying Him.
The Scribes and Pharisees ruled by fear and intimidation. They ruled over the people with an oppressive vehemence about the observance of their traditions and rituals that had nothing to do with the purpose and plan of God and His Law.
The real purpose of the law of God, as Paul makes clear in several of His writings, was to show us that we need a Savior (example, Romans 7:7: What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET").
Jesus has given a clearer and greater message than the prophet Jonah they revered so much, and He has demonstrated wisdom that far exceeded the wisdom of Solomon. Yet, they would not believe. That really is the key to all of this – they had all the evidence they needed; they were simply unwilling to believe.
If they were to believe, it would unseat them from their positions of power and prestige. It would make it obvious that they had been wrong about just about everything all along – even though Jesus made that clear enough every time He had contact with them.
If they were not to believe, it meant that God had given them that which they and others had long searched for, yet they were too proud and too blind to see it. Their condemnation would be complete – having received the greater miracles, the greater ministry and the greater wisdom, they had rejected it for their places of perceived power.
This is what Jesus means when He says, "Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ’I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation."
What Jesus means here is that infidelity and wickedness, like an evil spirit in a possessed man, were appropriately at “home” in them. Even if driven out, they would find no other place so comfortable and undisturbed as their own hearts. They would be just like an evil spirit exorcised from a man, going out and wandering aimlessly for a while through deserts and lonely places, yet finding no place of rest.
For a brief, lucid moment, there would be relief; even a glimmer of hope. But, the truth about them would become obvious. Their evil would not be absent or hidden for long. Just like the wandering demon, they would come back and be even more vehement, more demanding, more violent and more difficult than ever before.
In his commentary on this section of Matthew 12, Albert Barnes put it this way:
And this was literally accomplished. After all the instructions and miracles of the Saviour and his apostles; after all that had been done for them by holy people and prophets, and by the judgments and mercies of God; and after all their external temporary reformations - like the temporary departure of an evil spirit from a man possessed - yet such was their love of wickedness that the nation became worse and worse. They increased in crime, like the seven-fold misery and wretchedness of the man into whose bosom the seven additional evil spirits came. They rejected God’s messengers, abused his mercies, crucified his Son, and God gave their temple, and capital, and nation into the hands of the Romans, and thousands of the people to destruction.
Jesus’ warning couldn’t be stronger, especially in light of the warnings we have already studied. But, before we get too excited about jumping on the bandwagon and turn our noses up at them for their hard heads and even harder hearts, we need to look at the last part of this section where Jesus’ family arrives and wants to speak with Him and apply all of this to ourselves.
At first glance, it seems that Jesus is “dissing” His family. That really is not the case. Instead, He is using the situation at hand to reinforce what He has been saying all along – obedience to His Father in Heaven, primarily by believing in Him, is what qualifies us as His family.
We really are no different than those people were. If we discover the truth about our choices, if we know that what we have chosen is wrong in God’s eyes and choose to disobey, we no longer demonstrate ourselves to be His, to be a part of the family of God.
On the contrary, we end up showing ourselves to be outside the family of God. If we continue on in that vein, if we continue living in disobedience, then we, like the Pharisees and the one who has had the demon cast out but not replaced by the Holy Spirit, end up in a condition worse off than before we knew the truth.
Paul reinforces this in Galatians 6:7-8, when he says: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
We want to make excuses and say, “Well, God will forgive me.” Will He? Don’t you make a mockery of grace when you make that kind of presumptuous statement?
We need to take a look at Romans 6 here. We must not abuse the boundless grace of God by continuing in sin, under the heinous persuasion that the more we sin the more the grace of God will abound (6:1). For, having been baptized into Christ, we have made a proclamation that we are dead to sin (6:2-4) and have be brought to life with Him in His resurrection (6:5). We profess to be crucified with Him, to die and rise again from the dead (6:6-11), so we absolutely should not let sin hold sway in our bodies. Instead, we should live every aspect of our lives to the glory of God 6:12-14.
The Gospel makes no provision for living in sin, any more than the Law did, and those who repeatedly commit sin are the slaves of sin (6:15-19). The degrading and afflictive service to sin and its wages of eternal death; or, the blessed effects of the grace of God in the heart, of which eternal life is the fruit (6:20-23).
So, then, what is our application to be? Simply put: we are to be doers and not just hearers of the Word (Romans 2:13; James 1:22). We are not to follow the evil desires of our heart and then justify it by saying, “Oh, well, God will forgive me.” We begin to tread down that road where we make a lie of what the Holy Spirit is saying in our hearts when we begin to even think about that sin and God’s attitude about it.
If we do not turn from habitual sin, our hearts become hard and we cannot hear the voice of God, calling us back to a whole and healthy relationship with Him. Even if we get temporary control of our behavior, if we do not do so in loving response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit but instead do it just to make it appear that we are His, then we become like the one who has had the demon cast out but not replaced – the evil we will pursue will put us in worse shape than before.
God will not tolerate phonies – only those who are genuinely seeking to live in loving obedience really are His. Willful disobedience – habitual, repeated, unrepented of disobedience – belies any claimed fellowship with God. Instead, this is what proves that we really are not His after all – we are like those Paul warns Timothy about, “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power (2 Timothy 3:5).
The best news in all of this is that Jesus waits patiently and lovingly for us to get honest about where our hearts are and where our lives are. Much of what we see of Jesus after His ascension is that He is seated at the right hand of God, waiting for the moment when He will return to act as Judge over all mankind and all of creation.
There is a picture of Jesus in Acts 7, that is quite encouraging here. When Stephen is being stoned to death for His faithful testimony about the life, the love and the grace of Jesus Christ and that those he was witnessing to had been the betrayers and murderers of the Righteous One of God, his enemies cannot stand it.
Incensed with the truth, they take Stephen out and begin to stone him to death. Acts 7:55-56 says this: “But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."
Did you catch that? Jesus is standing at the right hand of God. He has risen from His seat and is reaching out; watching, waiting, encouraging Stephen to remain faithful – his reward is only a moment away.
We each need to look at our life and ask Him, “Lord, what is it that I need to be faithful with? What is it I need to walk away from, to push out of my life and protect my heart from becoming hard over? Where has my heart already become hard? Where am I being stubborn? Where am I putting myself in danger?”
We need to allow the Holy Spirit to dig deep into our hearts and our minds and drive the evil out, replacing it with the life and the will of Jesus Christ. We need to surrender once again to the will and the Word of Jesus Christ, allowing Him to lift our burden and replace it with the load that is not too heavy and no real burden at all – a life of loving obedience to Him.
Let’s pray.
