Post by M.R. Hagerty on Aug 21, 2023 22:54:22 GMT -7
Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-30, Matt 12:33-37, Mark 3:21, Matthew 12:38-42
“Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 "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 (Matthew 12:31-32) . . because they were saying, "He has an unclean spirit." (Mark 3:28-30)
33 "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. 34 "You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. 35 "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. 36 "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. 37 "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matt 12:33-37)
21 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses." (Mark 3:21)
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." 39 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; 40 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. 41 "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. 42 "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. (Matthew 12:38-42)
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Commentary
Matthew 12:31-32
31 ". . any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. . . 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man . . . whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him
The subject has been commitment or rejection regarding Jesus – “He who is not with Me is against Me” and it has also been about the illogic that His works are those of Satan. This gives Jesus cause to introduce a very important related subject that carries an awful indictment. It is extremely important that people realize what trite dismissals of His doctrine can mean to their eternal destiny, especially rationalizations of a certain type.
Jesus now discusses the concept of blasphemy against the Spirit.
Normally, we think of blasphemy as taking the Lord’s name in vane – to reference it or use it irreverently as to drag it into unholy situations. But there is a meaning that also entails resistance so grievous that one attributes the works of God to the devil. The state of mind that would do this is so deceived, so deviant from real truth as to permanently grieve God.
The Holy Spirit in His work among all believers is to bear witness in the human heart as to the things of God. He is there to convince in the inner soul. Miracles, the teaching of the Word, the recognition of its truth as real, not imaginary or mere opinions, is a work God fully intended to accompany what the atheist or the agnostic accounts as mere claims. The believer has the advantage that the ”Spirit has born witness with their spirit, that these are the things of God.”
People will resist this witness – we all did to a certain extent as unbelievers. But eventually we could not resist the overwhelming witness and confirmation His Spirit brought to such things.
So the person who is so entrenched in their own estimation of truth, who perpetually resists the witness of the Holy Spirit, can serve to grieve Him to the place where there is no forgiveness remaining for Him.
This is an unpopular teaching because we don’t like to entertain the idea that God’s patience can run out. But the characteristic of this resistance is that one has actually twisted reality so thoroughly as to call the wonder of God’s work the doings of the devil. Such misapprehension, such defective comprehension as that, is said here to be beyond forgiveness.
Though a fictional story, in the film The Robe (Twentieth-Century Fox, 1954), the character of Peter performs a healing while excluding a pagan doctor from observing. When the doctor enters and sees the patient restored and well, his first response is “sorcery.”
Nothing is said here about the believer needing to be the policeman of this condition. It is very possible to discern that someone has reached such a point, but about final judgments we are warned to not act as final judge. The facts may be clear before us and we may be expected to use caution in getting ensnared with such people, but the assessment that they are in that class is reserved for God alone.
The reason is in the words, “or in the age to come.” We simply do not have a purview into that age to know every case so as to know who will be there and who will not, who will receive forgiveness at God’s hand in that time and place and who will not.
But the verse must have some meaning for the listener, since it does no practical good to instruct about something which only God can discern.
It is simply to be aware of where God’s energy is to be best spent in us, and to watch for the limits of what we are to do. At some point in some people’s lives, we must give them over to God as judge and turn our attention to those who have been prepared and are “ripe for the harvest.”
Matthew 12:33-35
33 "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.”
In the form of an imperative, this sounds like something man is said to have done or now does - ”make a tree”. But this is merely a hypothetical about created things for various purposes. In truth, bad trees are so because of the Fall. God did not create them to be bad. So it is more to highlight that there are circumstances that account for why good trees are good and bad trees are bad yet these may not be known. So the key for the observer is in the resulting fruit. In agriculture we never really know the difference until the fruit is seen.
This is tagged on to the discussion about the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit because their condition will be evident in what they produce. In this case, the fruit is their open declaration of demonic sources with respect to divine works.
4 "You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.
A brood conveys the process of rearing and nurturing to the preparation of their work. They are not isolated persons but a company of similar minds that feed and reinforce one another. One has the picture of a hundred meetings were Christ’s teaching and work was discussed and the ways to discount it or undo it.
The analogy of the tree is applied in the incredulity of how good could come from hearts of evil similarly to how good fruit could come from a tree prepared to produce bad. Jesus elsewhere says that it is not what goes in that defiles a man but what comes out (Matt 15:11.) What comes out is “produced” by the heart, so the heart must have been already stained and tinctured with evil before such words came forth.
This is complete with respect to the Jewish authorities, but it can also be partial in us, His servants. We can let a part of our hearts be stained and polluted by evil and we find then to our surprise that we can speak rather evil things despite being His child. It is because our hearts can be compartmentalized and we can from time to time not be wholly committed in heart and mind.
35 "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.
We must allow that this is not always a case of “through and through” in believers. Believers are to some extent a mixture of both as they travel the path of sanctification. But the teaching is nevertheless true. The treasures within us produce according to their nature.
But the thrust of Jesus words are to characterize the general proneness of men in terms of good and evil. There are men who are prone to good from the heart and those who are opposite, and these are seen as treasures out of which men draw the contents.
Matthew 12:36-37
36 “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. 37 "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."
This haunts believers and unbelievers alike – that all we say, even the flighty careless things we didn’t mean are going to come back to haunt us as we stand before God. Some proceed to dismiss this eventuality by dismissing God, or at least His judgment.
Of course this is hard to do considering the person of Jesus, since His authority to say what’s what in that Day is vindicated in His Resurrection.
Does this have application to the Christian? Are we to be brought forward to give an account of our words, having been saved and beyond the judgment of God.?
This also sounds a great deal like works if by our words we are to be justified or condemned.
But that is really the key to understanding the application and the audience. The words that will affect condemnation or justification to the greatest extent are those spoken in accepting Him as Lord or rejecting Him. And if we have words on file that recount our acceptance, we are justified.
So is there yet a fear of every idle word being accounted for? If the context is right as in the above, every idle word is to let the audience know that in the case of unbelief, every idle word will count, but in the case of belief, every idle word has been forgiven.
Christians often have the fear that all their secret sins and the “words” associated with them will be laid bear and recited in one great public accounting in which all our loved ones and friends will see at last who we really were. The Lord’s compassion comforts us that this will be private.We must also remember that the most important words are those that said, “I’m a sinner and I accept your sacrifice as payment for my sins and I wish to serve you all the days of my life.” Those are the words Jesus will recite for the believer, followed by” “Enter into My Heaven rest, thou good and faithful servant.”
Mark 3:21
21 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses."
“His own people” means certain of those from His home town of Nazareth, or it may mean certain of His relatives. The words most likely to have caused this reaction would have been, “ Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man it shall not be forgiven him.”
Without faith, words like this from someone you have known on a socially intimate basis is rather intolerable. Notice that they are not willing to go so far as to label Him a deceiver, but that He has lost his senses –a sort of backhanded kindness that He was not responsible for this teaching.
Matthew 12:38
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You."
The Pharisees did not have a ready excuse of intimate knowledge from living in His village. They must resort to trickery and subterfuge that may eventually expose Him to the people for what they suspect Him to be. Ordinarily, this would seem to be just the thing that would turn skeptics into men of faith. We are somewhat programmed to think this way. Even fantasy films convey the idea that boys with special powers prove themselves to the dropped jaws of all their jeering friends by performing some stupefying feat at which all prior doubters back away in utter awe.
But we must not be fooled that the request of the Pharisees is for an honest test that will release for them the faith to accept Him as genuine. His claims are far too radical and deleterious to their system for that to be even possible. The request for a sign is to provide a means for attributing sorcery, or worse; and to then fully discount Him in the eyes of the people over whom they would be seen as protectors.
This of course Jesus perceives.
Matthew 12:39-40
39 . . "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah . . . 40 three days and 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.
We are prone to take some exception with Jesus because we are people who value miracles and Jesus did say elsewhere that we are to believe the works that He does as evidence needed for faith. This is because we are drawing the conclusion that the corollary is also in play, “those who seek for a sign are an evil and adulterous generation.” Much depends on the beginning motive.
Those who seek a sign to vindicate belief over against doubt have a heart turned toward God. Those who seek a sign to discredit and spoof have the opposite. Jesus is saying that an indication that tells us we have before us an evil generation is the insistence on signs. He also calls them an adulterous generation, which seems strange because adultery is a specific sin and the Pharisees as a generation were not all guilty of cheating on their wives.
Of course, Jesus is here referring to the OT idea that unbelief was as adultery with God because it is never just unbelief, but putting something up instead of God, even if it be oneself - something on which we pour out affection and allegiance. For the Pharisees it was their place and system of leadership.
”no sign but that of the prophet Jonah”
What was Jonah’s sign? It would be the one given to Nineveh (we are helped by Jesus telling us this much in a moment.) A sign is an outward symbol or something seen externally as opposed to something perceived intellectually or by contemplation.
Consider the “appearance” of Jonah to the Ninevites. He had been vomited up on the shore having spent three days and nights in the corrosive environment of the creature’s stomach. Ordinarily, the vapors and chemicals would suffocate prey and begin the decomposition done by the stomach. But Jonah’s survival is a testament to God’s purpose – he was to be taken in but not be ultimately harmed.
Even so, it is reasonable that his clothes, hair and skin would have suffered from the effects of his peptic environment. He would have been deposited on the shore virtually bleached white from head to toe. It is also less likely that enough people would have been right there to have seen his arrival on shore which did not necessarily have to include the stereotypical representation of the beast coming up onto dry land so as to be seen.
So the sign would be less likely the facts of his experience and arrival, but instead his very bizarre appearance from its effects. And what was the sign purposed to do? To add an unforgettable visual aid to Jonah’s message which was “Repent.”
This was John’s very message to the Pharisees. “Do then the works befitting repentance.” The Pharisees asked for a sign and Jesus proclaims that the only meaningful sign apropos to their condition was that of Jonah to Nineveh.
This was, of course, a major slap in the face since the Ninevites were Gentiles and they repented, becoming then among the people of God – the ones with the message no longer the targets of the message.
But the reason for selecting Jonah is made clearer.
40 “. . so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
This is actually the real sign to be given them. The sign of Jonah is to say merely that the sign they will be given is like that of Jonah – a sign that is meant to move them to repent.
But in the fulfillment no such sign like that of Jonah is seen, at least as visibly shocking and full of impending doom as that of Jonah.
The sign is the Resurrection following what would be the very well known duration of time wherein He would have been considered “buried” in the tomb.
How is this a sign in the same class as Jonah’s experience and message? Jonah’s appearing to the Ninevites as he did was enough to cause them to repent, including their king.
The Resurrection and its report throughout all the region would be a sufficient event that would hold them all accountable to God for their belief or rejection. It would become the decision point that could not be avoided.
Where the analogy ends is that Nineveh repented. The leaders of Israel did not.
Matthew 12:41-42
41 "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.
Not to be taken as a commentary on the consciousness and activity of the dead, but rather an eastern mode of figurative speech that also personified things like the earth opening her mouth to receive the blood of righteous Abel or the bodies of sinners in judgment, or the rocks and hills giving voice.
It is to say that Nineveh at least repented at the message given and as such can be pictured as being called to testify about the hardened hearts of the Jews. This was again a considerable slap because it is a Gentile nation giving witness against the people of God.
The reason is clearly stated, ”something greater than Jonah is here.” Those to whom greater light has been given, greater accountability is assessed.
42 "The Queen of the South will rise up with this generation . . “
Another stinging rebuke from the Gentile world. She who was not of the house of God recognized the wisdom and blessing of God on His people, yet the very people of His choosing could now no longer recognize God’s wisdom speaking and working in their very midst.
Again, all the more condemnatory because ”something greater than Solomon is here.”