Ep. 67: Beelzebul

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MATTHEW 12:22-45, LUKE 11:14-36

Jesus then travelled to Perea, where he mostly remained until a week before his last Passover in Jerusalem, apart from a short trip to Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication (Chanukah). This is a quiet period. It consists almost exclusively of teachings and parables, with a few narrative portions interspersed. And this is not only because the season of the year must have made travel difficult but chiefly from the character of his ministry in Perea, which was, substantially, a resumption of his early Galilean Ministry, only modified and influenced by the much fuller knowledge of the people concerning Jesus and the greatly developed hatred from their leaders.

This accounts for the recurrence of many things recorded in the earlier part of this history. Thus, to begin with, we can understand how he would, at this initial stage of his Perean Ministry, repeat, when asked for instruction concerning prayer, those sacred words ever since known as the Lord’s Prayer.

In Luke, the prayer is for the forgiveness of ‘sins,’ while Matthew uses the Hebraic term ‘debts’, which has passed even into the Jewish Liturgy, denoting our guilt as indebtedness. Again, the ‘day by day’ of Luke, which further explains the petition for ‘daily bread’ common both to Matthew and Luke, may be illustrated by the beautiful Rabbinic teaching, that the manna fell only for each day, so that thought of their daily dependence might call forth constant faith in our ‘Father who is in heaven’.

The first event in this period was when Jesus cast out a demon and restored speech to the demonised. This is one of the cases in which it is difficult to determine whether narratives in different Gospels, with slightly varying details, represent different events or only differing modes of narration. This same event would have taken place on more than one occasion and that, when it occurred, would result in the same charge against Jesus of turning to the ‘dark’ side.

The leading feature of his reply to the Pharisees is that their crediting Satanic activity to what Jesus did was only prompted by hostility to his Person. This mode of turning the argument against the arguer was peculiarly Hebraic and he asked them whether their own disciples cast out demons and, if so, by whom are they doing it?

But secondly. He teaches against the flimsy, superstitious and unspiritual views entertained by the religious leaders, concerning both the Kingdom of evil and that of God. Can Satan not cast out Satan, how else could his kingdom stand? Then also is the casting out of Satan only by ‘God’s Spirit’ and this is the Kingdom of God. By their own admission, the casting out of Satan was part of the work of Messiah. Then had the Kingdom of God come to them, for in this was the Kingdom of God and he was the God-sent Messiah, come not for the glory of Israel, nor for anything outward or intellectual, but to engage in mortal conflict with moral evil and with Satan as its representative.

In that contest, Jesus binds the strong one. It follows that his work is a moral contest waged through the Spirit of God, where all must take a part. But they went further, by representing Jesus’ coming as Satanic! Such perversion of all that is highest and holiest, such opposition to the Holy Spirit as if he were the manifestation of Satan, represents sin in its absolute completeness and for which there can be no pardon, with no possibility of repentance. The unforgivable sin!

The Pharisees fell back on the old device of asking him for some visible sign. It was an attempt to shift the argument from the moral to the physical. It was the moral that was at fault and no amount of physical evidence or demonstration could have supplied that. He would offer them only one sign, that of Jonah the prophet. He pointed to the allegorical history of Jonah. As he appeared in Nineveh. He was himself ‘a sign to the Ninevites’, the fact that he had been three days and nights in the whale’s belly and that he had been brought back to preach in Nineveh, was evidence to them that he had been sent of God. And so would it be again.

Then Jesus returned to his former teaching concerning the Kingdom of Satan and the power of evil. Now he applied it not to the individual, but, to the Jewish community as a whole. As compared with the other nations of the world, Israel was like a house from which the demon of idolatry had gone out with all his attendants, really the ‘Beel-Zibbul’ whom they dreaded. And then the house had been swept of all the foulness and uncleanness of idolatry and garnished with all manner of Pharisaic adornments. Yet all this while the house was left really empty, God was not there and so the demon returned to it again, to find that house swept and garnished indeed, but also empty and defenceless!

Coming to the end of his teaching, Jesus spoke of light and lamps. What was the object of lighting a lamp? Surely, that it may give light. But if so, no one would put it into a vault, nor under the bushel, but on the stand. Should we then expect that God would light the spiritual lamp if it be put in a dark vault? It was a blessed lesson with which to close his teaching and one full of light, if only they had not put it into the vault of their darkened hearts. Yet soon would it shine forth again and give light to those whose eyes were opened to receive it.

This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)