And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute; when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed. But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” Others, to test Him, were demanding of Him a sign from heaven. But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters. (11:14–23)

Most people today view truth not as black and white, but rather as consisting of thousands of shades of gray. The countless philosophies, theories, ideas, and religions in the world today are seen as competing with equal validity and none is absolute and exclusively true. The popular ultimate truth is that there is no absolute truth. What is true for one is not necessarily true for others. Tolerance and diversity dominate in a society where pride reigns supreme.

Nothing could be further from reality. In fact, the entire human race may be precisely divided into two absolute categories, which the Lord Jesus Christ enumerated in verse 23 when He declared, “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters” (cf. 9:50). There are only two groups of people: those who are with Christ and those who are against Him; those who are God’s, and those who are Satan’s; those who are in the kingdom of light, and those who are in the kingdom of darkness; those who are righteous and those who are unrighteous; the “saints” and the “ain’ts”. Everyone lives and dies in one of those two groups, which have distinct and opposite eternal consequences.

In the war between God and Satan, between heaven and hell, between good and evil, and between truth and error, no one is neutral. Those who do not believe in Jesus Christ, receive Him, follow Him with all their heart, and seek to advance His kingdom are as much in partnership with the devil as those who openly worship Satan. It is not necessary to overtly oppose Christ by attacking His deity, word, character, gospel, or church to be against Him; it is enough merely not to make a decision regarding Him. Ignoring Jesus, or espousing what C. S. Lewis described in his book Mere Christianity as “patronizing nonsense” about Him being merely a great moral teacher, but not God incarnate, is a decision against His person, work, word, and kingdom. There is no third option. Either Jesus was a blasphemer, or those who reject Him are.

In his narrative of Christ’s life and ministry, Luke has presented convincing, irrefutable evidence that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God, describing His power over the kingdom of darkness, disease, sin, and death, and recording His preaching of the kingdom of God. In the final months leading up to the cross, Jesus, the twelve, the seventy, and others of His faithful disciples, were proclaiming His kingdom throughout Judea. The Lord’s words in verse 23 mark a definitive moment in His Judean ministry. The facts about Him were clear; the evidence was in and called for a decision.

By this time, however, that decision had largely been made, and was for the leaders and the nation a decision to reject Jesus. As the opposition to Him intensified, Jesus became more confrontational, addressing strong words of judgment and warning to those who had rejected Him (e.g., 11:29, 42–52; 12:1, 13–15, 49, 58–59; 13:5–9, 15, 24–25, 34–35). The tragic reality was that many people had believed the leaders’ conclusion that Jesus was from hell, not heaven, and sent by Satan, not God. The incident reported in this passage was but one of many examples of that blasphemous lie gaining popularity. Luke records the crowd’s accusation, and the Lord’s response.

THE ACCUSATION

And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute; when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed. But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” Others, to test Him, were demanding of Him a sign from heaven. (11:14–16)

Though it might appear that this incident is the same one recorded in Matthew 12:22–30 and Mark 3:20–30, that one occurred in Galilee about a year earlier. It is better to view Luke’s account as an event that took place during the Lord’s Judean ministry (which Luke has beginning in 9:51). Further, Matthew notes that the demon-possessed man was also blind (12:22)—a detail that Luke the physician (Col. 4:14), with his attention to medical details, would not likely have omitted. The similarity in the two accounts reflects the widespread propagation of the Jewish leaders’ blasphemous claim that Jesus performed miracles by Satan’s power (cf. Matt. 12:24; Mark 3:22; John 7:20; 8:48; 10:20).

What triggered the confrontation between Jesus and His opponents in the crowd was His casting out a demon. This was a common occurrence during the Lord’s earthly ministry (cf. Luke 4:33–35, 41; 8:27–37; 9:37–42; 13:32), as well as the ministries of the twelve apostles (9:1) and the seventy evangelists (10:17). This particular demon had made its victim mute, and likely deaf as well (cf. Mark 9:25). After the demon had gone out at the Lord’s command, the mute man spoke; and the crowds, as was frequently the case (cf. Matt. 9:33; 12:22–23; Mark 1:27; 5:20), were amazed.

But some of them, propagandists spreading the lies of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, were quick to offer their slanderous, false explanation of the Lord’s miraculous power. They began muttering, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” The same lie that had been spread in Galilee was now heard in Judea as well. Since it was impossible even for His enemies to deny that Christ’s miracles occurred (cf. John 11:47), they sought instead to attack the source and assign them to demonic power. Not content merely to claim that Jesus received His power from an ordinary demon (cf. John 7:20; 8:48, 52; 10:20), they charged Him with being empowered by Beelzebul, a Jewish name for the ruler of the demons, Satan. That name, which means “lord of the flies,” is a disdainful corruption of Baal-Zebul (“prince Baal,” or “exalted lord”), the chief god of the Philistine city of Ekron (2 Kings 1:2–3, 6, 16). It was the worst name they could think of with which to associate Jesus.

Their use of that derogatory name couched their blasphemy in the vilest possible manner. They called the highest and most holy one the lowest and most evil; they called the one who was pure good pure evil; they called God the devil; perfect holiness wickedness; truth incarnate a liar, and branded the Son of God a servant of Satan. Their accusation was ridiculous, but it was also ominous, since in the earlier incident recorded by Matthew, Jesus solemnly warned that those who made it were guilty of blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:31–32). Because those who committed it rejected God’s full revelation about Jesus Christ, that sin was unpardonable and left them unredeemable (cf. Heb. 6:4–6).

Despite the heinousness of the sin involved, there is a sense of pathos in this scene. For centuries the Jewish people had waited eagerly for God’s covenant promise to be fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah. Jewish women hoped to be the mother of the Messiah; Jewish fathers longed for their children to experience Messiah’s kingdom. The Lord Jesus Christ had by this time given a full manifestation of Himself, leaving no room for doubt that He was Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. But after all the evidence was in, the people followed their leaders’ conclusion that Jesus was a false messiah from hell. Soon they would scream for His blood before a Roman governor in the ultimate manifestation of hatred and rejection (John 19:1–16).

Caught up in the mocking and disdain others, to test Him, were demanding of Him a sign from heaven. These were not honest truth seekers, gathering information by which to make a decision, but blaspheming rejecters. They taunted Jesus, derisively demanding that He falsify their absurd charge that He was in league with the devil by performing a spectacular miracle. Because the mighty works He had already done were conclusive proof that He was the Messiah and Son of God (John 10:25), Jesus refused their request. As He said to them in Luke 11:29, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.”

THE RESPONSE

But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters. (11:17–23)

The Lord graciously and calmly responded to His opponents’ attack on Him by pointing out that their conclusion lacked rationality, integrity, and spirituality.

BLASPHEMY AGAINST JESUS CHRIST LACKS RATIONALITY

But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. (11:17–18)

Their whisperings may have been hidden from the Lord’s ears, but not from His omniscience, since He knew their thoughts (cf. Luke 5:22; 6:8; 7:39–47; John 2:25). Their thought processes, purposes, and intents were transparent to Jesus, and He knew that those thoughts were sinful, blasphemous, and damning. He had every right at this point to abandon them to their unbelief and its inevitable eternal doom. Yet He reached out to them again in mercy, exposing the irrationality of their damning false conclusion.

The Lord’s point, which He made using two illustrations, was simple and obvious. It is an axiomatic truth that any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste. No one would dispute the reality that a kingdom engaged in a civil war would self-destruct. That a house divided against itself falls is equally indisputable. In light of those self-evident realities Christ’s question, If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? exposes the absurdity of their accusation.

Inconsistencies often appear in the strategies of the kingdom of darkness, since evil is inherently inconsistent, demons operate independently, and Satan is not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent. He may also allow his servants to pretend to cast out demons as part of their cover as angels of light (cf. 2 Cor. 11:14–15). But Satan’s goal is to destroy God’s kingdom, not his own, and his kingdom is unified in that evil intent. Therefore to argue that he would empower Jesus to cast out demons on an unprecedented scale and thereby destroy his own kingdom is ridiculous. Yet that is precisely what the Lord’s opponents were doing by claiming that He cast out demons by Beelzebul. Since that option is irrational and untenable, the only alternative is that Jesus cast out demons by God’s power.

BLASPHEMY AGAINST JESUS CHRIST LACKS INTEGRITY

And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. (11:19)

For the sake of argument, Jesus granted their point. Assuming that He was, as they claimed, using the power of Beelzebul (Satan) to cast out demons, the Lord then asked, By whom do your sons (i.e., rabbis, scribes, Pharisees, and their associates) cast them out? The Jews uncritically assumed that their useless exorcists were doing the work of God. Acts 19 records a typical failed attempt by some would-be Jewish exorcists to cast out a demon at Ephesus. Impressed by the miraculous power displayed by the apostle Paul (vv. 11–12), they decided to add the name of Jesus to their repertoire. But the consequences were disastrous:

The Lord’s question exposed their inconsistency, hypocrisy, and lack of integrity. If casting out demons proved someone was in league with Satan, then why were they not suspicious of their own exorcists? How could they not apply the same standards to their failures as they did to Jesus’ successes? By insisting that their own exorcists’ ineffective attempts to cast out demons were from God, while rejecting Jesus’ uniformly effective exorcisms as being from Satan, they were in effect making Satan more powerful than God.

BLASPHEMY AGAINST JESUS CHRIST LACKS SPIRITUALITY

But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters. (11:20–23)

Jesus’ opponents’ irrationality and lack of integrity invalidated their false conclusion regarding Him and showed that He cast out demons by the power of God, not Satan. The Lord then drew the inescapable conclusion from that reality. If I cast out demons by the finger of God, He declared, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. They were face-to-face with the kingdom of God because they were in the presence of the king. But instead of accepting and worshiping Jesus, they committed the severest form of blasphemy possible by calling Him an agent of Satan. By so doing, they revealed themselves to be spiritually dead. They considered themselves to be the enlightened religious elite. Yet they were so lost, sinful, self-righteous, and hard-hearted that they failed to discern that the kingdom of God had come upon them. In reality they, not Jesus, were agents of Satan (John 8:44; 2 Cor. 4:4).

Jesus’ use of the phrase finger of God to describe the divine power by which He cast out demons brought the whole drama into historical focus. In a dramatic scene leading up to Israel’s exodus from Egypt, God through Moses confronted Pharaoh’s false magicians. Using their trickery, they were able to replicate several of the miracles. But when Moses struck the dust with his staff and produced swarms of gnats, they were unable to duplicate it, and were forced to acknowledge, “This is the finger of God” (Ex. 8:19; cf. 31:18; Deut. 9:10; Dan. 5:5). But while those pagan magicians acknowledged God’s power when they saw it, the ultra-religious Jewish leaders rejected God’s power exhibited by the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing could more clearly demonstrate their condition of spiritual death.

The Lord then gave a simple analogy to reinforce the truth that He was empowered by God, not Satan. In this analogy Satan is pictured as a strong man who, fully armed, guards his own house and keeps his possessions (the souls in his kingdom) undisturbed. But Jesus is the one who is stronger than he and attacks him and overpowers him, takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied, and distributes his plunder. Satan and his demon hosts are powerless to keep the Lord Jesus Christ from rescuing souls from the kingdom of darkness. He had clearly demonstrated that power by healing the sickness and disease that resulted from Satan’s leading the human race into sin, conquering death, thereby rendering “powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14), casting out demons, and forgiving sin—something Satan has neither the power nor the inclination to do—thereby transferring lost sinners from Satan’s kingdom to God’s (Col. 1:13–14). No one but God could so thoroughly “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

Jesus then concluded with a powerful final appeal and warning: He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters. As noted earlier in this chapter, everyone falls into one of those two categories: they are either with Christ, or against Him. No one is neutral; no one is a disinterested bystander. In light of their irrationality and hypocrisy, Jesus challenged His opponents to rethink their conclusion regarding Him.

That same challenge faces every person. The complete record of the evidence in the inspired Gospels that Jesus is the Son of God and Messiah is more conclusive even than the experience of those who were there during Christ’s life. He is either God incarnate or the greatest blasphemer who ever lived. He either speaks for God or for Satan. To reject the irrefutable evidence concerning Him; to follow instead a satanic false teacher, guru, mystic, or false prophet, is to side with those who openly blaspheme Him, and be worthy of eternal damnation in hell.

But there is hope for those who are with Him and not against Him; who embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior. He offers salvation as a free gift to those who cultivate their hearts to receive it through a proper fear of judgment and hell, humility, brokenness and contrition, and repentance. To such people the Lord addresses the wonderful promise, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matt. 11:28–30).