Return of the Unclean Spirit (Matthew 12:43-45)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for downloading the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta. This is the podcast where we explain not only what scripture means, but how we figure it out. Today we're gonna study Matthew 12, verses 43 through 45, which is the Return of the Unclean Spirit. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast, or you can find them at wednesdayintheword.com slash unclean spirit. Thanks so much for listening. Today we're gonna wade into the deep end and tackle a teaching of Jesus from Matthew twelve. This passage is sometimes called the return of the unclean spirit. It is a particularly difficult passage. Let me read the verses I want to concentrate on just in case you're not familiar with them. Jesus is speaking, and this is Matthew twelve verses forty three through forty five. Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man and 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 and 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. I have studied Matthew twelve off and on for many years, and I have never before felt confident in an interpretation of this passage. At one point I had two competing interpretations, both of which had merits, but both of which had problems. Neither one of them could explain everything in the passage. And I couldn't decide between them as neither of them solved all the issues in the passage. In the end, I found this third interpretation which I'm going to offer today. And I will admit right up front, this is a really difficult passage, and I could be wrong. I very well could still be wrong on my understanding of this passage. And I am reserving the right to change my mind as I study more. I hold these conclusions very loosely, but I do find them persuasive right now. Now you may be wondering why in the world do I want to teach this passage at all given that I've just told you I'm not entirely confident in my understanding. Well the answer to that is I want to teach this passage because it brings up so many issues in how to study the Bible. You simply cannot solve this passage without applying good Bible study methodology, and it is that methodology that led me to this solution. So as I try to teach this passage, I want to teach it with an understanding or an eye to the methodology because what I want you to learn as much as, well, here's a possible understanding of the passage is here's the way you get there. These are the are the procedures, the tips, the clues, the way you use the context to get you to that point. So as I said, the goal is to understand Matthew twelve verses forty-three through forty-five, the ones I just read. But to get there, we're gonna have to look at Matthew twelve, verses twenty-two through fifty, to get the context. So let me read the section again that we're gonna concentrate on, and then we'll tackle the passage. So this is Matthew twelve, forty three through forty-five. 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. So the first question we have to ask is should we take this passage literally or not? Taking it literally is probably the gut reaction most people have. You come to this passage and it is truly foreign and strange sounding and you don't know what to do with it, so the straightforward thing to do is to try to take it literally. And we do have other passages that refer to unclean spirits as a literal reality. So taking this passage literally is not out of the question. For example, later in Matthew, this is Matthew 10 one, Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. So here we have Matthew recording that Jesus sent out the twelve apostles, and he gave them authority to cast out unclean spirits and to heal sickness. And in that passage it seems fairly obvious that we are to take the unclean spirits literally. Matthew tells us that Jesus gave the twelve the authority to cast out these spirits, and he juxtaposes that action or he pairs that action with healing every kind of disease and sickness. So everything in that little passage suggests that it's meant to be taken literally. In Mark we find this story from early in Jesus' ministry. This is Mark chapter one, verses twenty one through twenty eight. They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and began to teach. They were amazed at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority and not as the scribes, speaking about Jesus. Just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the holy one of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be quiet and come out of him. Throwing him into convulsions the unclean spirit cried out with a loud voice and came out of him. They were all amazed so that they debated among themselves, What is this? A new teaching with authority? He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. Immediately the news about him spread everywhere and all the surrounding district of Galilee. Now notice this passage also has a lot to do with authority. Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit, and the story suggests we are to take that literally. This is a real physical entity. Jesus even has a conversation with the spirit, and there are other examples in Mark and Luke of Jesus healing people with unclean spirits. So it is possible to take the unclean spirits literally in Matthew twelve. However, I'm going to argue that we should take this passage metaphorically. So why would we want to do that? What makes me reject a literal interpretation? First, I do believe that Jesus did literally and physically heal people of unclean spirits, so I'm not denying that they exist. I think they do exist and in other places they are literal and Jesus did actually heal people of them. But the conclusion in Matthew 12 45 is the tip off to me that something else is going on. Jesus concludes, so also it will be with this evil generation. And that kind of language, that so also it will be, is the hallmark of a metaphor. Anytime you see language like so it will be or just as so is the kingdom of God or X is like Y, that suggests a comparison or an analogy of some sort, and we are not to take it literally. When Jesus says something that includes just as X, so why after a story, I think that's a hallmark that He is making a comparison and He is telling us something that is not meant to be taken as literal fact. It's some kind of parable, allegory, fable, metaphor, simile, and we are meant to see it as a story. The so also it will be suggests that there is something metaphorical going on, and that is a shorthand way of saying just as X in the story, so it will also be in this reality, and that is the language we find in parables and in allegories. My second reason for not taking this literally is this passage has the earmarks of a passage that is not meant to be taken literally. The story does not match any reality we have experience with. The unclean spirits leave a man, but they don't return to a person, they return to a house. Then it finds more unclean spirits, and in verse 45 we switch back to a person, and he says the last state of that person is worse than the first. So this switching between house and person also suggests that this is not meant to be taken literally. We also have a spiritual being passing through waterless places seeking rest. Well, what reality is that? What does a waterless place have to do with rest? Can unclean spirits, and I assume they are the same kind of creatures as demons, can they even be at rest? Whatever they are, they are not like us. They don't appear to have the same physical needs, and water seems to be irrelevant to their existence, but that's just a guess. Basically, this passage doesn't make any sense if we try to take it literally. So if it's not literal, then what is it? And the first thing we want to consider is is it a parable or is it an allegory? Parables and allegories are not the same literary device. They are very different. I have a talk on my website about how to understand parables that explains in more detail the difference between the two, and I will link to that in the lecture notes. I'm only going to give a brief description of the two here. If you'd like to delve into that question further, I invite you to listen to my other talk. So is this a parable? Parables are simple analogies between normal everyday life and some other reality. Parables make sense as stories, and that's key. They reflect reality in a way that is real and coherent. In fact, the parable counts on you understanding the story to make sense of the comparison. Usually the comparison is something like the kingdom of God is like whatever in this story, or your heavenly father is like that, but much more so. Or if even you, being evil creatures, can do X, then think about your Heavenly Father. You have this eternal abiding truth that is analogous to the story, and it counts on that story being a reality that you know and are familiar with. You're probably familiar with the parable of the sower and the seed, one of Jesus' more well-known parables. And again, I have a talk on my website on how to understand that parable, and I will link to that in the lecture notes. But notice in that story of the parable of the sower of the seed, there is nothing unusual about the story. The sower does what every sower does. It is a normal description about ordinary agriculture of the day. The sower goes out into his field to sow seed into the ground, the seed falls on different kinds of soils, and the different soils produce a different kind of growth. And Jesus is making a comparison or an analogy between the growth of the seed in the different soil types and the way different people respond to the gospel. So how people respond to the gospel is like the seed's response to the different soils. But the story makes sense as a story, in contrast to what we have here, where in Matthew 12 the story does not make sense as a story. This switching between a person and a house and back again does not make sense. It doesn't describe any reality we're familiar with, and therefore I would say it is not a parable. So what else could it be? Well, it could be a fable. And the fables you're probably most familiar with are Aesop's fables. Fables have fantastical elements in them, and they use those fantastical elements to make a point. So you see talking animals, animals acting like people, and so forth. Fables by design do not describe ordinary reality. They exaggerate a reality that couldn't possibly be true to make a point. So take the fox and the sour grapes. I don't know if foxes even eat grapes, but they certainly don't talk about it. Or you have turtles and bunnies running a road race. That's not something that happens in ordinary life. They are fabulous. They're fables. They exaggerate a reality that doesn't exist to make a point. And while we certainly have fantastical elements in our story, fables also tend to make sense as stories, even if the reality they describe doesn't exist. So again, since we don't have a story that makes sense as a story, I would say this is not a fable. So if it's not a parable and it's not a fable, what does that leave us with? Allegory. And I would argue this is an allegory, and that this story has the marks of an allegory. The hallmark of an allegory is that the story itself makes no sense. The elements in the allegory are chosen for their symbolic value and not their value in the story. Like we have this switch between a person and a house and back again, that's the kind of switch we would expect in an allegory because there's some symbolism of the house that the author wants to include in the story. And it doesn't make sense as a story, but he needs that symbolism. In allegories, the story doesn't necessarily make sense because in an allegory the elements are picked for their symbolic value, not for their literal value. In an allegory, we don't care if a rocking chair sprouts wings and flies away because that's not the point. The point is the value, the symbolism the rocking chair has. So we might pick an elephant and a donkey to represent political parties, or we might pick an eagle to represent America, because those are symbols we count on our audience knowing, and they don't have to make sense in the story. So if we're going to understand this as an allegory, then we have to find a way to understand the symbolic value of the elements, and we have to understand it in its context. So what I want to do now is go back and examine the context and then try to figure out what the symbolism means. So I want to back up to Matthew 12 22. And as we go through this, notice how crucial it is to understand the context. If we just take those verses in isolation, we are not going to figure this out. The context is absolutely crucial to understanding what's going on. So Matthew 12 22, then a demon possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and he healed him so that the mute man spoke and saw. We have a man who's blind and mute because he's oppressed by a demon, he's brought to Jesus, Jesus heals him, and the people are amazed. And I would argue that we are to understand Matthew literally here. He is telling us that this actual physical, literal man had an actual physical, literal ailment caused by demon possession, and that Jesus cured him of that problem. Now we might not be able to tell the difference today, but Matthew and all the gospel writers seem to know the difference. Especially in his gospel, Luke is very careful to distinguish between illness caused by demon possession and regular physical sickness. He was a physician and he didn't seem at all confused about which kind of sickness was which. Now some scholars dismiss the gospel writers as being so primitive that they can't tell the difference between sickness and demon possession, but I don't think that fits the evidence we have, especially with Luke, but with all the New Testament writers, they claim to know the difference and they tell us which is which. They tell us this is a blindness caused by demons, this is a man who is blind from birth, and so forth. Now that seems strange and mysterious to us because today most of us have no idea how they would even know what the difference is. But the reason it's mysterious to us, I suspect, is that the vast majority of us have never met someone who is demon possessed, but the gospel writers had it as part of their regular experience. Now I don't want to get sidetracked into the issue of demon possession, but I have raised the question, well, why is it no longer part of our experience? Well here's my answer, and it's just my opinion. It's good for nothing, take it as it is. I think demonic activity was severely limited at Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit. When God poured out his spirit at Pentecost, I think that was a watershed kind of change. But we've never lived on the other side of Pentecost. We don't know what it was like before God poured out his spirit, and I think his spirit being so much more prevalent and present in the world has limited the activity of demons. So we don't understand what it must have been like before that event and before the coming of the Holy Spirit. So that's just my good for nothing speculation is that before the coming of the spirit, demonic activity was much more commonplace, and people dealt with it, and so they knew the difference. And after the coming of the spirit, God limited that kind of activity, and we don't see it to the same degree because the Spirit of God limits demonic activity. I think if we lived in Matthew's time and place, it would not be so mysterious to us, and we might be able to know how they told the difference. Alright, so back to Matthew twelve. This is verses twenty-two through twenty four. Then a demon possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and he healed him so that the mute man spoke and saw. All the crowds were amazed and were saying, This man cannot be the son of David, can he? But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, This man cast out demons only by Beazelbub, the ruler of the demons. After Jesus heals this man, the crowds ask if he is the son of David. Now the son of David is a title for his Messiahship. Through the Old Testament prophets, God promised that he would send someone from the line of David to inherit David's throne and rule over God's people forever, and that person is the Messiah. The Messiah would vanquish God's enemies and establish peace and justice and righteousness on earth. Since the Messiah would be a son of David or someone from David's line, that title, son of David, became a synonym for the Messiah. And the crowds are asking, Well, look at what he just did. He just healed a man of demon possession. Maybe he's the Christ. Maybe he's the Messiah, the son of David we've been waiting for. The crowds are amazed and they are asking, Is Jesus the long-awaited Messiah? Because look at the authority he has. He's not the Messiah, he's working with the devil. So let's make sure we know what's going on here. The crowds and everyone present have visible, tangible, empirical evidence that Jesus just did something truly miraculous. He cast out a demon and healed a man. And the question on the table is what divine power gives him the authority to do that? The most logical and obvious answer is God gave him the power to do that. He is the Messiah, and God is demonstrating for all to see that Jesus is the Messiah by granting him the authority to cast out demons. Well the Pharisees don't want to reach that conclusion, and they don't want the crowds to reach that conclusion either. So they are casting about for some other explanation. They don't want to conclude Jesus is the Messiah, but they can't deny that this miraculous healing took place right before their eyes. They can't deny he has the power and the authority to heal because everyone just saw it. So they're trying to come up with some other explanation. So instead they seek to find an explanation for the healing that allows them to avoid the conclusion that this man is the son of David, the Messiah. And their suggestion is that Jesus cast out demons by Beazelbub, the ruler of the demons, not by the power of God. All right, let's pick up then in verse twenty five. And knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? If I by Baselbub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. So Jesus answers them. He knows what they're doing, he knows what they're trying to do, they're trying to deny the obvious conclusion. Conclusion that he is the Messiah, and his answer is basically your explanation does not stand up to the evidence. So he starts by saying in twelve, twenty-five through twenty-six that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. And his argument is pretty simple. If you were the ruler of the demons, would you go around defeating and undermining the activity of your minions? How would that help you? You would be defeating yourself. So of course you wouldn't. Of course you wouldn't go out undermining the people who are working on your side. That's silly. Since that would be completely counterproductive, it's not a likely explanation. It makes much more sense that the enemy of the demons is the one defeating his minions. I don't cast out by Baselbub, I cast out by the authority of God, the enemy of the demons. His second point is in 1227, by whom do your sons cast them out? And I think he's speaking ironically here. Some people have said, well, the Pharisees were also casting out demons, and he's saying, Well, are you casting out demons by Baselbub as well? And that is a possible interpretation, but that doesn't seem to have much force behind it. I think it makes much more sense to see him speaking ironically. And I suspect the Pharisees didn't cast demons out of anybody. To be a son of means to be a member of, so when he says, By whom do your sons cast them out, he's meaning by whom do you Pharisees, who you members of the Pharisees cast them out. And I think he's saying something like, So by whose authority do you cast out demons? Oh wait, you can't. You don't have the power or the authority to do that. And that kind of argument makes more sense to me, because if lots of people could cast out demons, then why are the crowds so amazed? The crowds are clearly astounded that Jesus just did that and they've reached the conclusion that he's the Messiah, and if that was a commonplace activity or something lots of people could do, they wouldn't be amazed by it. But their amazed reaction in 1223 suggests that this kind of activity did not take place every day, so it makes more sense to me that Jesus is pointing out to them, you don't have this authority. Ironically, he is reminding them how unique it is that he, Jesus, has the power to do this. In twenty seven, if I by Beazalbub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out, for this reason they will be your judges. That they will be your judges, I think, refers to the fact that the Pharisees lack the power to heal and to cast out demons, and that that is another kind of testimony that Jesus is the Messiah because he does have that power. So his ability to heal testifies to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, and the Pharisees' lack of ability to cast out demons also testifies to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah because he is doing something no one else can do. He is uniquely gifted. And I think what he's saying is your lack of ability to do this is going to judge you in the end because you're denying what is right before your eyes. The fact that I can heal a man of demon possession and you can't ought to speak volumes to you, but you're choosing to close your eyes, and in the end that's going to judge you. Then his third point is in verse twenty eight, and I think there he's saying, Let me suggest a better explanation. Your what you concluded does not fit the evidence. You can't cast out demons, and that ought to tell you something about my authority, and here let me give you a better explanation of what you just saw. I can cast out demons by the Spirit of God. Doesn't that seem like the obvious and most rational logical conclusion? And if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. You are face to face with the Messiah who is sent to establish the kingdom of God and is here to proclaim to you that you need to repent and believe. That's the most obvious and best conclusion to reach from what you've just witnessed. Then Jesus tells a brief parable. This is Matthew twelve, twenty nine. Or how can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry off his property unless he first binds the strongman and then he will plunder his house? Jesus says, Look, if you were a burglar, how would you proceed? The strong man is at home and you want to steal his stuff. Well what do you need to do? First you have to take care of the bodyguard, the strong man. You have to get him out of the way, and then you can plunder his house. Okay, that being the case, doesn't it seem likely and plausible that when God sends his Messiah, the future King of Kings and Lord of Lords into the world to rob the devil of his dominion, wouldn't you expect him to cast out a few demons to accomplish that purpose? Wouldn't you expect the Messiah to come into the world and cast out demons just like you expect the thief to take care of the bodyguard? Of course you would. That is exactly the kind of activity we would expect from the Messiah, just like it's we expect a burglar to bind the homeowner. Three different ways then Jesus has said to the Pharisees, your conclusion is weak. The conclusion you want to come to that I am not the Messiah denies the obvious, and it does not hold up to the evidence. The conclusion you should reach from what you have just witnessed is that I am acting by the power and the authority of God, and therefore I am the Messiah. Going on then in verse thirty, this is thirty through thirty two. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. So first Jesus makes the point look, no one can sit on the fence. You're either with me or you're against me. There's no neutral ground. At some point you have to decide whether you or not you believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And either you believe he is who he said he is, and you come to him as Lord of Lords and King of Kings and your Savior, or you don't. There's no moral high ground in withholding your judgment and saying, I'm not going to take a side. That is taking aside. Not deciding he is who he says he is is a decision. You either follow him or you don't. There's no sitting on the fence. I think that's his point by he who is not with me is against me. Then he makes this point about blasphemy against the spirit. And son of man is Jesus' most favorite term for himself. It comes from the book of Daniel, and again, I think is a term that he is the Messiah. And he says, speaking against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit is not forgivable. And at first that seems contradictory to what he just said earlier about you're either for or against him. But what helps make sense of this is realizing that one of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to teach us the truth. In fact, the Holy Spirit is sometimes called the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit is the one who enlightens us, who gives us the eyes to see and the ears to hear, and the ability to know and understand and recognize the truth. So the Spirit dispels our ignorance and teaches us who God is and what he requires. Rejecting the truth is the problem. In my ignorance and foolishness I might speak against Jesus because I don't understand and I don't get it. But once the truth has been revealed to me, I dare not reject it or ignore it. If the Spirit of the truth seeks to reveal to us that Jesus is the Messiah and that we desperately need him to be our Savior and we reject it, that's the blasphemy that's unforgivable. This is the kind of blasphemy that comes not out of ignorance, but out of rejection. I think the situation he's describing is people who have been presented with the truth of the gospel, they have accurately heard the truth about who Jesus is and what he came to do, and they deliberately willfully turn away and reject it. That's the kind of sin that is not going to be forgiven. The refusal to bow to the truth, that willful, hard hearted rejection of the truth is, I think, what he means by blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. It's the rejection of the truth the Spirit is seeking to teach you. And then he goes on to explain why, picking up in twelve thirty three, 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. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good, and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak they shall give an accounting for in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. So his answer is basically what you do and what you say reveals what you truly believe and who you are. I think that's his point with this story of a tree is known by its fruit. If you want to know what kind of tree it is, what do you do? You go examine the fruit and you say, Oh look, that's got lemons on it, it must be a lemon tree. That's got oranges on it, it must be an orange tree. If you want to know if the tree is healthy, you examine its fruit. If the fruit is diseased and rotted, then I know I'm not dealing with a healthy tree. Conversely, if the fruit is healthy and whole, then you know the tree is healthy and whole. So you know a tree by its fruit. Then he makes his point explicit and he says, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. What he's saying is what you say is like the fruit of a tree. You might be able to put on pretty words and a mask of hypocrisy for a little while, but eventually you're going to slip up and reveal who you really are on the inside by what you say and what you do. Whatever kind of person you are inside will eventually be revealed in your actions and especially your words. I think that word careless in twelve thirty six has more the force of worthless or unproductive. It's more than simple thoughtlessness. It's a destructive kind of force. It doesn't produce anything worthwhile and rather it destroys. So when he says by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned, why is he saying that? Well, I don't think he's saying that for the words themselves necessarily, but because of what the words reveal about who you are on the inside. It's not that a thoughtless word does me in, it's the fact that I am a selfish, sinful person who says thoughtless and selfish things. That is the problem. That inward reality of being a slave to sin is revealed by what I say. My words reflect the condition of my heart, and ultimately that's what we're judged for. Then Matthew twelve thirty eight. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. I would argue that this verse is key to understanding our allegory of the unclean spirits. This verse gives us the immediate context. This is the request that Jesus responds to with the allegory. So the allegory is the answer to this request. So we have to understand what these people are asking. Now remember the context. How did this whole conversation get started? Jesus just healed a man of demon possession. The man was blind and mute, and now he can see and talk because Jesus cast a demon out of him, or an unclean spirit out of him. Now, it is true that Matthew does not say that all these events happened on the same day, and it could be that this healing was minutes before the conversation, or it could be that it was days before the conversation. The Gospels don't always tell us when they're skipping time periods. So we don't know the exact timing. But we do know that Matthew juxtaposed these events on purpose. And I am making the assumption that these verses describe one event and that all this conversation and this healing all took place together. If I'm wrong there, we gotta go back to the drawing board. But at least we know Matthew put them together for a reason, even if they were not immediately chronologically next to each other. I think we're meant to read this verse about the scribes and the Pharisees as asking for a sign and think to ourselves, wait, didn't they just get one? This man was just healed. He was a man who was blind and mute because he had an unclean spirit, and Jesus just healed him, and they're trying to rationalize that away and find some reason to avoid reaching the conclusion that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of David. Jesus just pointed out the flaws in their alternative explanation, and now they say, okay, well, give us a sign. And I think essentially they're saying, okay, you got us. Our explanation doesn't hold water, and maybe we judged you too quickly, so I'll tell you what, give us a sign. We'll believe you if you just give us a sign. Instead of reconsidering the evidence that they already have in front of them, the Pharisees are asking for more. They're asking as if the problem is, well, we really just don't have enough evidence. But they already have enough evidence to believe. But they're saying our lack of belief is justified because we just don't have the right evidence. Our lack of belief is justified because we need another sign. Jesus, just give us a sign, we need more evidence. And that's what Jesus is responding to. Look at twelve thirty nine. But he answered and said to them, 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. Now I don't think that Jesus is saying that it is evil in and of itself to want evidence. He spent much of his earthly ministry giving evidence about his identity. I think the miracles and the healings were intended to be signs that he is the Messiah. They were intended to be physical, tangible evidence that he is the Messiah. It's not wrong to want evidence. What is wrong is to demand evidence when you already have enough. What's wrong is to say, I refuse to believe the evidence I have, I refuse to believe the evidence that's staring me in the face. The problem is you need to give me more evidence. So I think that's what's going on here. He just healed a man of demon possession. He gave them enough evidence, and they're saying, no, no, that's not enough. We want more. And I think twelve thirty nine refers to the generation standing in front of him. This is an evil and adulterous generation that keeps demanding evidence when the Christ, the Messiah, is right there teaching, preaching, and healing. And he says, No further sign will be given but the sign of Jonah the prophet. I think there he's referring to his resurrection from the dead. That's the only sign left that I'm going to give you. Like Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, Jesus will be in the grave three days, and then God will resurrect him. Now the people of Nineveh, as bad as they were, repented when they heard Jonah. The queen of the south traveled great distances to hear Solomon, and he's saying, These people will judge you because they responded to the evidence they had. They didn't get to see the Messiah in the flesh. They didn't get to witness his miracles or go touch the man's withered hand that is now whole or go speak with the man who used to be mute but can now speak or go talk to him because now he can hear. They didn't get to see any of that, and they aren't going to get to see his resurrection. But they repented. They repented with far less evidence than you had. They listened and repented based on what they heard and saw, and you have way more than they have because you have the Messiah in your midst. He's going to be crucified before your eyes and then resurrected. And they're going to condemn you scribes and Pharisees because you have something greater. You were standing talking to the Messiah, and yet you are still rejecting him. So I, Jesus, am standing here telling you the kingdom of God is at hand, and your response is I don't think so. So that's the context for our allegory. And notice this allegory concludes, so it will be with this evil generation. So we need to remember why is this generation evil and adulterous? They're rejecting the evidence of the Messiah and they're demanding more. They have the greatest sign we're going to be given, standing in front of them and they're asking for more. They will see the empty tomb and they're going to reject it. And that's the context into which he speaks this allegory. So let's read it again forty three through forty five. 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 the man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation. Okay, we've got the context, and I've argued that this is an allegory, and in an allegory the elements of the story are picked for their symbolic value. And we have to use our knowledge of the context and the culture of the day to figure out the symbolism. Well, here's my best guess, and again, I reserve the right to change my mind as I learn more, but I think this is a pretty good shot at understanding this passage. Remember, the context is about not believing the evidence right before your eyes. And I think then the unclean spirit is that spirit of unbelief. The unclean spirit is symbolic of the hard heart that refuses to believe the truth that's right before its eyes. It's the unclean spirit that refuses to acknowledge the truth. That's been the issue under discussion in the context, and it makes sense to me that it would be the main point of the allegory. The passing through waterless places seeking rest, water is often a symbol of judgment, and it's seeking rest, so I think it's seeking to avoid the judgment it's experienced. It is looking for a place where it will not be judged. And again, I'm getting this mostly from the context. We have these scribes and Pharisees who are trying to avoid the most obvious conclusion they can reach from the miracle they have just witnessed. These scribes have just seen Jesus heal a man of an unclean spirit, and they're going crazy trying to find a way to figure out how we can explain this without concluding Jesus is the Messiah. So they are trying to excuse or deny the truth right in front of them. And I think that's what he's symbolizing by their passing through these waterless places seeking rest. They're trying to find a way to deny the truth of what they just saw. Jesus just gave them physical, tangible, visible evidence that he was the Messiah. The scribes don't want to acknowledge that he's the Messiah. They're seeking an alternative explanation, and that is symbolized by this spirit, this unclean spirit going out of a man seeking rest in a place where there is no water, a place where they won't be judged. But they don't find it. Jesus challenged their explanation and revealed its flaws, and they didn't find rest in their excuses and their rationalization. So far so good, then we get this part about the house forty four and forty five. 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 the man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation. So in the story the unclean spirit panics when he finds his empty house put in order. He can't have that, so he goes and he gets seven other spirits to fortify him and help him cope. He has to have reinforcements because his house is swept empty and ordered. Okay, what does that mean? That has always been the most perplexing part of this allegory because nothing in the context gives us a clue what it means. But we do have a clue from the Old Testament, and remember Jesus is talking to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were experts in Old Testament law. They made it their business to know every detail of the law and to apply it meticulously. Jesus could reasonably expect the Pharisees to be familiar with the laws in Leviticus, and Leviticus 14 gives us laws for cleansing a house. There is a passage in Leviticus that spells out the rules given to the priest of Israel for how to cleanse a house that was infected with leprosy. And at this point, my best guess is that this is the symbolism for the what's going on here, that Jesus' symbolism is an allusion to this section of Leviticus. Now you say houses don't get leprosy. That's true, but my understanding is that what the Bible called leprosy was actually a broad category of diseases that included modern leprosy, but also included many other infectious diseases. So these rules would apply to houses that had mold or fungus or germs of some kind, any house that was unclean. So this is Leviticus chapter fourteen. I'm going to read you verses thirty three through thirty eight. Then the Lord further spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, When you enter the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a mark of leprosy on a house in the land of your possession, then the one who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, Something like a mark of leprosy has become visible to me in the house. The priest shall then command that they empty the house before the priest goes in to look at the mark, so that everything in the house need not become unclean, and afterward the priest shall go in and look at the house. So he shall look at the mark, and if the mark on the walls of the house has greenish or reddish depressions and appears deeper than the surface, then the priest shall come out of the house to the doorway and quarantine the house for seven days. Okay, so what's going on here? Someone takes up possession of a house, they think it's got, let's say, mold or fungus or some disease, they go and tell the priest, they empty everything out of the house, and the priest goes in and says, Yep, it's sick, he declares it unclean, and they quarantine it for seven days. And then the passage goes on to detail the next steps. But notice the first thing they have to do is empty the house. The first step is to take everything out of it, then the priest inspects it, they wait seven days to see if it spreads. If after seven days the spots have not spread, then the house is clean and they can move back in. But if the spots have spread, then they are to go in and scrape all the walls clean and sweep everything out and clean all the contamination of the house. They put the house in order. So they might remove problem stones and replace them with clean stones, or they might remove thatch from the roof and replace it with clean thatch or whatever. Then they wait, the priest checks again, and if the mold or the disease has come back, the house is declared unclean and they dismantle it and no one can live there because it's unclean. But if the disease has not come back, then the priest offers the sacrifice, the house is declared clean, and they can live it in again. Well, that gives us a picture of what a house that is empty and swept and put in order is. This is a house that has been declared clean. So this is a house waiting for the priest to offer sacrifice and declare it clean. It is on the verge of being cleansed by a priest. And I think that's a symbolic way that Jesus is depicting a person who is on the verge of being cleansed, a person on the verge of belief. The house being cleaned and swept and put in order is symbolic of they've got evidence right in front of their eyes, they're right on the verge of believing it. They come back, they see my alternative explanations are weak and they don't hold water. What must I do? But I can't believe. So the evidence is right before them. They have no reason to reject the truth, their excuses have all been knocked down, and all that is left to say is, Yes, Lord, I believe, and they will be cleansed and forgiven. I think that's the situation in Matthew twelve. The Messiah is standing before the scribes and the Pharisees. He just miraculously healed a man of demon possession. They have physical, tangible, visible evidence that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, is the Messiah. Will they believe? No. They're going crazy trying to find some other explanation. And that is the same kind of activity we see in the story. The spirit of unbelief can't stand the truth. It can't find rest. Unbelief won't bow to the truth. So it calls for reinforcements. This evil and adulterous generation says, Give me another sign. That one wasn't good enough. Or to use the biblical language, they harden their hearts. They become much more stubborn in rejecting the truth than they were before, and they refuse much more vehemently. And then the punchline, the last state of that person is worse than the first. Why? Because his heart is now harder than it was before. He can no longer claim ignorance because he has been told. He can no longer claim foolishness because wisdom has been offered to him. He can no longer claim he didn't have any evidence because he rejected the evidence he was given. To reject the truth is worse than never having had a chance to learn it. I think that explains why Jesus was sparing in his activities. I mean why didn't he perform miracles every single day of his public ministry? Why didn't he heal everyone? Why didn't he always speak plainly and openly instead of speaking in parables and stories? And why at certain times did he ask people, don't tell anyone who I am? I think he was being merciful. He was withholding the truth from those who would reject it so that they wouldn't further harden their hearts. And in effect he's giving them more time to respond. Miracles don't help people with a hard heart. He concludes that's the way it will be with this generation. The only sign left for this generation is the resurrection. Because if Jesus was to extend his earthly ministries to say ten more years, it would only harden their hearts further and make it worse for them. So to wrap this up, I want to explore two Bible study implications and then two general applications. First, from a Bible study perspective, notice how crucially important it is to understand the context. To understand this allegory or this passage, we have to understand the topic under discussion. It is important to know that Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, the people who were experts in the law. It's important to know that the issue of who Jesus is and where he gets his authority is the topic under discussion. And it's important to know that the Pharisees are ignoring the physical, visible, tangible evidence right before their eyes, and are trying to reach any other conclusion but the obvious conclusion, which is Jesus is the Messiah. If we just isolate that story and try to figure it out without the context, we're going to be lost. A lot of my understanding, a lot of my conclusions about the symbolic value come from the context itself and then also from Leviticus. Second, from a Bible study perspective, it's important to know what kind of literature we're dealing with. We have to read carefully and figure out that we are not to take this passage literally, and then we have to figure out what kind of metaphorical language we're dealing with, that this is an allegory, and we need to know how allegories work. Once we know we're dealing with an allegory, then we have to search for the meaning of the symbols, and hopefully that's what we found from Leviticus. For more practical application, notice how this passage underscores the centrality of Christ. So the first point to realize is what Jesus said: if you're not for me, you're against me. There is no neutrality when it comes to Jesus. Each one of us has to decide what to do with this person, Jesus. The stumbling block in our path is not lack of evidence. The stumbling block is the stubbornness of our own hearts. In the end, we don't believe because we don't want to believe. Faith is a gift. The fact that you and I believe is a miraculous act of the Holy Spirit to give us faith, to remove that stubborn heart so that we can bow to the truth that God put before us. And second, I think this implies that we need to learn when to speak the truth and when to be quiet. Sometimes we're only pushing people farther away and further hardening them. And then we have to wait for a time when God has been working in their lives so that they are more open to the truth. The temptation, I think, is always to keep talking and talking and talking, especially if it's family members who are lost or people you love. You just want to keep pushing at them. But sometimes persistence is not doing them any favors. Sometimes our job is to sit back and wait for the Spirit of God to make them more receptive. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also teaches you how to figure it out. I don't accept any advertising on my website, nor do I ask for donations, but it does encourage me to hear what you've learned. Please email me or contact me. I'd love to hear your reactions. If you've been blessed by this podcast, also please do me a favor and take two minutes and leave a rating or review on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform. The reviews really do help people find the podcast. And please share this podcast with a friend.org. Thank you so much for listening today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I hope you'll join me next week for Wednesday in the Word.