The people brought a man who was blind and mute, and this was caused by demon possession. Jesus healed him, and the man was completely recovered. Physical ailments can sometimes be linked to demon possession. Earlier Jesus had told John's disciples to tell John that the blind see, and the crowd here take this as evidence that Jesus might be the Messiah. Son of David was a term used for the Messiah, they expected one like David to come.
True to form, the Pharisees react in completely the wrong way and blame it all on the devil, claiming that Satan gave Jesus the power to drive out demons. Notice that they could not deny that Jesus had the power to drive out demons.
Jesus points out the contradiction in their argument. A divided kingdom is one that is bound to fall, and so if Satan is driving out his own demons, then his kingdom has truly had it. Then the religious leaders believed in exorcism themselves, so Jesus asks by what power they claimed to cast out demons? Either they had to admit they were very ineffective, or they too were using demonic power. Attacks from critically natured people will always be full of contradictions.
The truth is that it was by God's power that Jesus could drive out demons, and so the exorcisms were a demonstration that the kingdom of God was truly among them. A sign of the kingdom is that demonic power is shattered.
No comments:
Post a Comment