Jesus knew the answer to that question perfectly well; he knew that, as we have seen, unless there was actual danger to life, healing was forbidden, because it was regarded as an act of work. So thirty-nine basic actions were laid down, which were forbidden on the Sabbath, and amongst them were reaping, winnowing and threshing, and preparing a meal. (128) We do not maintain, that those persons are said to pour contempt on the Spirit of God, who oppose his grace and power by hardened malice; and farther we maintain, that this kind of sacrilege is committed only when we knowingly endeavor to extinguish the Spirit who dwells in us. But the single eye of Jesus at once detects the snare of Satan into which natural thought led, or at least exposed, Peter to fall. That is to say, worship offered to God took precedence of an the Sabbath rules and regulations. It is evident that the bodily presence of the Messiah is the very essence of the former scene, as it ought to be in dealing with the leper, who is a kind of type of what Israel should have been in seeking cleansing at His hands. Matthew has already said that Jesus is the touchstone of all truth ( Matthew 10:32-33); and it is difficult to see what the difference between the two sins is. The Greeks defined justice as giving to God and to men that which is their due. It was on one of these strips between the cornfields that the disciples and Jesus were walking when this incident happened. Then comes the boast of Peter, though for others as well as himself. There is nothing so revealing as words. 30 to our ver. In Matthew 12:1-50 we read the history of a series of crucial events in the life of Jesus. So thoroughly is it in view of Israel that our Lord does not say one word here about the Church, or the intervening condition of Christendom. And when Eleazar would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he set a little way off a cup or basin full of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man; and when this was done, the skill and wisdom of Solomon was shown very manifestly." When they walked down the streets they held their robes tightly against them, because they didn't want their robe accidentally to swish out and brush against you, lest they be defiled with your filth. dia touto) indicates this relationship. Jesus knew their thoughts. The rigorous Jewish observance of the Sabbath seemed to other nations nothing short of insanity, since it could lead to such amazing national defeats and disasters. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation ( Matthew 12:43-45 ). It was necessary to complete the picture. Jesus reversed the argument. The Pharisees moved beyond debate to personal abuse and character assassination in this pericope. It certainly makes this passage easier to understand, if we regard the difference between the two sins as a sin against God's human messenger, which is serious, but not unforgivable, and a sin against God's divine messenger, which is completely wilful, and which, as we shall see, can end by becoming unforgivable. But, if you had known the meaning of the saying, 'It is mercy that I wish, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned those who are blameless. Some think that Christ here refers to that of Eliphaz (Job 15:6), Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I; or, rather, to that of Solomon (Proverbs 18:21), Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Jesus may well be rebuking the Scribes and Pharisees for enslaving themselves and their fellow-men with a host of tyrannical regulations; and he may well be here laying down the great principle of Christian freedom, which applies to the Sabbath as it does to all other things in life. Yet most people today have never heard of John Gill. That such may occur even while physical life is extended appears certain from all of the references noted above. Let them read their error in One who was evidently superior to the condition and the ruin of man in Israel. Our aim is not the mere negative absence of evil action; it is the positive presence of work for Christ. There is a story of a country man who was in the office of a city friend, with the roar of the traffic coming through the windows. For all these reasons true kinship is not always a matter of a flesh and blood relationship. ." And so they were told to just keep themselves from idols and things strange, and if you do this you do well. The key to it is this, that Matthew was led by the Holy Ghost to keep in view adequate testimony to the Jewish people; it was the tender goodness of God that would meet them in a manner that was suitable under the law. Years of resistance to God had made them what they were. Jesus couldn't be satisfied, just observing human plight, but He would have, and they knew, that He would have this desire to help this man. Do men proceed to such a pitch of madness as not to hesitate, knowingly and willfully, to rush against God? Christian service is not the service of any liturgy or ritual; it is the service of human need. Mary being a virgin when the Holy Spirit came upon her and she conceived and bore Jesus Christ. To him who compares this with Luke 6:1-49, there need not remain a question as to the identity of the scene. They were a generation of vipers; John Baptist had called them so (Matthew 3:7; Matthew 3:7), and they were still the same; for can the Ethiopian change his skin? To eat with unwashed hands defileth not a man. ( Matthew 12:11 ). And God says, "to obey is better then to sacrifice". It has often been the case that, when a man embarked on the way of Jesus Christ, his nearest and dearest could not understand him, and were even hostile to him. Thus is the breach widened between Christ and Satan, to show that there was no such compact between them as the Pharisees whispered. Others think that suicide is the unforgivable sin. His love for humanity far surpassed his respect for ritual Law. Inattention to this has perplexed many. Now this is the second time Jesus has quoted this scripture. God finally said, look I am sick of your sacrifices; I don't want to smell them anymore. (ii) There is the sheer cowardice of human nature. For the tree is known by its fruits.". The most precious thing about Jesus is the fact that he is not the great discourager, but the great encourager. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. When a person under such a delusion was confronted with an exorcist in whom he had confidence, often the delusion was dispelled and a cure resulted. 1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. He is standing there before them talking. So Jesus is talking about the casting forth of evil spirits. And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? Jerusalem's proud, traditional hypocrisy is exposed, and grace fully blesses the tried Gentile. Because how are you gonna explain the fact that this demon-possessed man is now talking, he is now seeing; whereas before he was dumb and he was blind? Mark 3:19-30; Luke 11:14-26). On the one hand there are the Scribes and the Pharisees, the representatives of orthodox religion. I do not pretend to say this was the only purpose served; far be it from me to think of restraining the Spirit of God within the narrow bounds of our vision. There will be that general resurrection from the dead that Daniel tells us about in the twelfth chapter of the book of Daniel, where he there declares, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake. Matthew 11. It is when two people have together passed through some great experience and when they can together look back on it, that real friendship begins. He did not come to treat the weak with contempt, but with understanding; he did not come to extinguish the weak flame, but to nurse it back to a clearer and a stronger light. There is in man a Spirit-given faculty which enables him to recognize goodness and truth when he sees them. It's a tremendous blessing that a man becomes like his God, if his God is true. "Sickness and healing," said Dr. Pouyanne, "are acts of grace." Some person says, well, I've never seen God. If there be a privilege more manifest than another which has dawned on us, it is what we have found by and in Jesus, that now we can say nothing is too great for us, nothing too little for God. It is not a thing that can be settled by a mere assertion. Or they sometimes will mold, using gold or other metals, and they make their little god. Thus, the fourth chapter of Mark coincides, marked with such data as can leave no doubt. If we refuse, we drift farther away from God; if we accept, we enter into the very family and heart of God. We will not understand the attitude of the orthodox unless we understand the amazing seriousness with which they took the Sabbath Law. For it is from the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every men according to their works" ( Revelation 20:11-13 ). He is greater than Solomon, and Solomon was the very acme of wisdom ( Matthew 12:42). The voice of his neighbours is louder in his ears than the voice of God. On this occasion, in their hunger, David and his young men took and ate those sacred loaves, and no blame attached to them. So for you to reject God's provision for your sins through the death of His Son, leaves God no alternative. On the other side of the picture, behold the Lord leading on a soul to draw on divine grace in the most glorious manner. It is enough to meet a difficulty which many feel by the simple plea that the reason assigned is in my judgment a valid explanation, and in itself a sufficient solution of the apparent discrepancy. (iv) In him the Gentiles will hope. It is a bad thing to speak of good men with disdain because they are poor. If those who trusted in themselves that they were wise and righteous would not have Him, He would call even a publican on the spot to be among the most honoured of His followers, and would not disdain to be their joy when they desired His honour in the exercise of His grace. Had Peter confessed who the Son of man really is? Disease must obey Him, as the soldier or the servant obeyed the centurion, their superior. And so with the other conversation: "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father;" it was after the glory of Christ had been witnessed on the holy mount, when man's selfishness of heart showed itself in contrast to the grace of God. Would any man make of the Messiah a mere man and a mere subject of the law given by Moses? The demon returns to the person and finds its old "house," the formerly possessed person, cleaned up and orderly. 34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? Note, Bad things may be expected from bad people, as said the proverb of the ancients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked,1 Samuel 24:13. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. He will not strive, nor will he cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. We can see five ways in which he met this growing opposition. This is another thing that has been the target of the higher critics of the Bible, the denial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But Jesus isn't just a servant. Therefore, in Matthew 12:8, it may well be that son of man should be written without capital letters, and that the phrase does not refer to Jesus but simply to man. Shall any unbeliever curse God? What does Matthew 12:31 mean? | BibleRef.com Is it not most sweet to see, that He who proves His divine glory at once associates us with Himself? And let him remember that God does not judge him by the words he speaks with care and deliberation, but by the words he speaks when the conventional restraints are gone and the real feelings of his heart come bubbling to the surface. So, then, it is permitted to do a good thing on the Sabbath day." They would be like a person who benefits temporarily by being cleansed of demons, but because he does nothing positive to fill his life with better things, he becomes possessed by even worse demons. He would be destroying himself. Why is this an unpardonable sin? In other words, it is certain that in the gospel of Luke, in whose preface we have expressly the words "set in order," the Holy Ghost does in no way tie Himself to what, after all, is the most elementary form of arrangement; for it needs little observation to see, that the simple sequence of facts as they occurred is that which demands a faithful enumeration, and nothing more. First, the Holy Spirit brought God's truth to men; second, the Holy Spirit enabled men to recognize and to understand that truth when they saw it. Thus the old link with the flesh, with Israel, is now disowned; and the new relationships of faith, founded on doing the will of His Father (it is not a question of the law in any sort), are alone acknowledged. (ii) He quoted the Sabbath work of the Temple. They had so long been blind and deaf to the guidance of God's hand and the promptings of God's Spirit, they had insisted on their own way so long, that they had come to a stage when they could not recognize God's truth and goodness when they saw them. Little faith leaves us as fearful for ourselves as dim witnesses of His glory whom the most unruly elements obey. See Matthew 9:3. "When travelling in harvest time," Thomson writes, "my muleteers have very often prepared parched corn in the evenings after the tent has been pitched. Father Potter held the highest possible ideas of worship; and yet when he is explaining the work of the Brotherhood he writes of anyone who wishes to enter into its triple vow of poverty, chastity and obedience: "He mustn't sulk if he cannot get to Vespers on the Feast of St. Thermogene. Matthew 12 - Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary - StudyLight.org The occasion of this section was manifestly the same with that of the preceding. Being thus forced to grant the premises, they had no other way to avoid the conclusion, that this is the Son of David, than by suggesting that Christ cast out devils by Beelzebub; that there was a compact between Christ and the devil; pursuant to that, the devil was not cast out, but did voluntarily retire, and give back by consent and with design: or as if, by an agreement with the ruling devil, he had power to cast out the inferior devils. Taken out of context, it's understandable that this verse has caused many people to worry. When He reaches the house, minstrels were there, and people, making a noise: the expression, if of woe, certainly of impotent despair. (iii) In Matthew 12:22-32, the story of how the orthodox leaders charged Jesus with healing by the power of the devil, and of how he spoke to them of the sin which has no forgiveness, we see the story of deliberate and prejudiced blindness. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Matthew 9:3).
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matthew 12:31 explained