Chapter 31 - Reformation Versus Relationship (12:43-50)

31 Reformation Versus Relationship (12:43-50)

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 that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.

While He was still speaking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. And someone said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.’ But He answered the one who was telling Him and said, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold, My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.’” (12:43-50)

In recent years there has been a great resurgence of interest in morality and ethics, of returning this nation to the religious and moral standards of its founding fathers. Many denominations, cults, and special interest groups have become highly visible and vocal in their national, and sometimes international, efforts to promote or oppose certain customs, laws, or practices—ranging from civil rights and capital punishment to abortion and divorce.

Some evangelicals have become active in preaching morality, patriotism, and loyalty to traditional American values. Much effort is spent trying to influence legislators and political leaders to assist in returning America to its former standards of more biblical behavior and integrity.

Christians cannot but be concerned about moral and ethical issues, because God’s Word is unequivocal and unmatched in its standards of righteous living, justice, and social responsibility. But Scripture also makes clear that morality by itself, without a right relationship to God, is in many ways more dangerous than immorality. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly emphasizes that mere outward righteousness is one of the greatest hindrances to the gospel.

The Pharisees were classic moralists. No other Jews, and certainly no Gentiles, were committed to such rigid standards of religion, morality, ethics, and daily living. They lived by a complex and demanding code, a system of laws that regulated virtually every aspect of life. But those man-made standards, purportedly based on God’s Word, had led them further and further from God. They were so self-sufficient and self-righteous that when God Himself came among them in human form they rejected, vilified, and finally crucified Him. They had so thoroughly convinced themselves of their righteousness that when the very Source of righteousness stood in their midst they accused Him of being in league with Satan. Under the illusion of their own goodness they became unreachable with the saving message of the gospel. When Jesus came preaching deliverance from sin, they were not interested, because they could not imagine such a message having relevance for them. And when Jesus declared that their self-righteousness was, in fact, the most insidious form of unrighteousness (Matt. 5:20), they were infuriated.

Jesus had little trouble reaching prostitutes, thieves, extortioners, murderers, and the outcasts of society. But He had an almost impossible time reaching religious and moral people who were under the delusion that outward propriety made them acceptable to God. Because they refused to recognize their sin, they recognized no need for a Savior. Their strict standards of morality gave an illusion of safety and prevented them from seeing that trust in themselves was their greatest spiritual danger and a massive barrier between them and God.

In His series of woes against the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, Jesus repeatedly called them hypocrites and charged them with possessing only spurious righteousness.

For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. . . . For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. . . . For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, “If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” Consequently you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell. (Matt. 23:25-32)

There has never been a group of men more committed to a demanding religious and moral code than the Pharisees and never a group of men so far from God.

By itself, morality leads to self-righteousness and is a damning thing. A person is better off being grossly immoral and recognizing his need than being highly moral and admitting no need. There is nothing God can do for the person who, like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, prays confidently, “God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get” (Luke 18:11-12). In his own eyes he is already right with God and needs nothing from God (cf. Matt. 19:20). But God can do a great deal for the person who, like the tax-gatherer in that same parable, cries out, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” He is the person who goes “down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted” (vv. 13b-14).

Matthew 12:43-50 presents another of Jesus’ many warnings to the people not to listen to or follow the example of their moralistic but ungodly religious leaders but to come to Him. Their need was not for the outer reformation offered by the scribes and Pharisees but the inner transformation that could be theirs only as they gained a right relationship to God the Father by trusting in His Son for salvation from sin.

THE DANGER OF REFORMATION

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. (12:43-45)

In this parable Jesus vividly and frighteningly pictures the consequence of religious and moral reformation apart from a right relationship to Him. Morality apart from the living Christ can never be more than a sham, and the more it is relied on the more dangerous it becomes.

The main character in this illustration is an unclean spirit, whose specific evil characteristics are not identified. He is a demon, a fallen angel and a member of Satan’s host of supernatural, evil coworkers. Unclean represents the wicked, vile nature of all demon spirits; but this particular spirit was not as evil as he could have been, because, as we learn later in the parable, he had demon friends who were worse than himself.

We are not told by what means this unclean spirit went out of a man. It may be that the man made a moral decision to forsake the sin in which this demon had entrapped him and that the demon no longer had control over the man. It may be that the man had been cleansed of the demon but, just as many people whom Jesus cleansed and healed, did not trust in Him for salvation. For whatever reason or by whatever means, the man was temporarily freed from the demon’s presence and influence.

After he left the man, this demon passed through waterless places, seeking rest, and [did] not find it. Being spirits, demons do not need food and water as human beings do, and therefore waterless places here figuratively represents desolation, barrenness, and extreme discomfort. In its own corrupt way the demon was seeking rest, some place of greater satisfaction. From this and many other passages in the New Testament, it seems evident that demons prefer to indwell bodily creatures, preferably human beings but secondarily even animals (see Matt. 8:31), rather than exist as unattached beings in Satan’s evil realm. Perhaps this particular demon was restless because it could not express its evil nature through inanimate, lifeless things. It was most at home in a human being, because it is through human beings that Satan and his demons can most successfully work their evil and oppose God.

When it could find no other satisfactory place to dwell, the demon decided to go back to its former residence: I will return to my house from which I came. Whether the spirit was simply being presumptuous or whether it had some continuing access to and control over the man’s life, its reference to my house indicates a strong sense of ownership and possessiveness. And the fact that it was able to regain entrance so easily proves the boast was not vain. When it returned and found its former house was unoccupied, swept, and put in order, the first spirit took along . . . seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they [went] in and [lived] there.

That the man’s house was unoccupied (that is, by another demon), swept, and put in order suggests that a genuine moral reformation had taken place. Whether by the power of his own will or by the cleansing of God, he was temporarily free of that sin and its related demon and from any other.

Through fear of imprisonment, disease, social stigma, financial ruin, and many other such motivations, a person can manage to rid himself of certain sinful habits. Sometimes the motive is more positive and the person determines to change because of love for wife, husband, or children. But such self-cleansing—no matter how thorough and extensive and no matter what the motivation—is never permanent. Even if the cleansing is by the Lord, it is not permanent if not accompanied by saving faith in Him. Surely many of the people whom Jesus cleansed of demons died and joined those demons in hell, because they did not also accept the Lord’s forgiveness and offer of salvation. The vast majority of those to whom Jesus ministered accepted only temporary healing from disease and temporary relief from demonic control. They surrendered the symptoms and consequences of sin to Him, but not sin itself. Of the ten lepers Jesus cleansed on one occasion, only one received the true wholeness of salvation (Luke 17:11-19).

When the basic sin nature is not dealt with through the miracle of repentance and trust in Christ, the removal of a particular sin or even a demon leaves a person’s spiritual house . . . unoccupied, swept, and put in order, but subject to reoccupation by seven other spirits more wicked than the first. And they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.

A religious, self-righteous, reformed person is subject to Satan in a way that a guilt-ridden immoral person is not, because his very morality blinds him to his basic sinful condition and need. He is perfectly satisfied with his empty house, thinking that freedom from outward manifestation of sin is freedom from its presence, power, and damnation.

Katoike (to live) carries the idea of dwelling and settling down. It is the same verb Paul used as he prayed for the Ephesians, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:17). Where Christ does not live, demons are free to live. Satan’s emissaries can go in and live in a reformed but Christless life in a settled and secure way, because in his religious delusion their host may be oblivious to their presence. The last state of that man becomes worse than the first, but he does not know it. He is like a leper who rubs off his fingers and toes because he feels no pain. In an infinitely more tragic way, self-righteousness desensitizes a person to sin to the point that he is not aware that his very soul is rotting away under demonic corruption.

One of the worst aspects of religious legalism is that it tends to get progressively more ungodly from generation to generation. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” Jesus said, “because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves” (Matt. 23:15). A person who is discipled into legalism often becomes more zealous and self-righteous than his teacher.

To preach morality, even according to biblical standards of behavior, but not salvation through Christ promotes a religion that drives men further from God than they were before they reformed. It is much easier to reach someone who is overwhelmed with a true sense of His sin than someone who is overwhelmed with a false sense of his righteousness. That is what Jesus meant when He said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:13). It was not the immoral and irreligious people of Israel who put Jesus to death but the religious leaders who prided themselves in their goodness. Christ could not reach them, because they thought they had no need of any spiritual help, least of all salvation from sin.

Peter says of such persons that “after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘A dog returns to its own vomit,’ and, ‘A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire’” (2 Pet. 2:20-22). The reformed but unconverted person will eventually revert to sinful ways for the same reason that the dog returns to its vomit and the washed sow returns to the mud wallow—because in each case the original nature has not been changed.

Jesus’ parable applied to Israel as a nation, to this evil generation, as well as to individual Jews. During the Babylonian Captivity the Jews forsook idolatry, and in the more than two thousand years since then they have never, as a people, fallen back into it. But by the time their Messiah came, they had become so satisfied with their reformation and with their religious ceremonies and moral traditions, that they saw no need for a Savior. Consequently, in the end times, that people will find themselves in league with the antichrist during the Great Tribulation.

Whether in the broad range of history or in an individual life, the same principle applies: outer reformation without inner transformation brings susceptibility to even worse evil than that from which one turned away.

THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIP

Reformation is not salvation, regeneration, or redemption. It may, in fact, work toward the very opposite by entrenching a person in self-satisfaction and blinding him to his need for God’s mercy. In order to have salvation there must be a new and right relationship to God, which comes only as a sinner humbly confesses and turns from his sin and receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The arrival of Jesus’ family gave Him the perfect opportunity to give a graphic illustration of the need for personal relationship to Him. While He was still speaking to the multitudes in a house (see 13:1), His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. When Jesus was informed of this, He answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?”

By this time Joseph had probably been dead for many years, and Jesus’ immediate family consisted of His mother, Mary, his half brothers (James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas), and His half sisters, who are not named (Matt. 13:55-56).

After the resurrection, Jesus’ brothers eventually came to believe in Him, His brother James becoming the head of the Jerusalem church (see Acts 15:13-22) and author of the epistle that bears his name. But during Jesus’ preaching and teaching ministry there is no clear evidence that any member of His family other than Mary fully understood who He really was or trusted in Him as Savior. We are told specifically that His brothers did not believe in Him (John 7:5), and it may be that even His mother—despite the revelations to her before and after Jesus’ birth and her magnificent confession at that time (see Luke 1:26-2:38)—did not yet personally trust in Jesus as her own Lord and Savior.

We are not told (cf. Mark 3:31-32; Luke 8:19-20) why Jesus’ mother and brothers were… seeking to speak to Him, but it seems reasonable to assume that they were greatly concerned about His welfare and perhaps even feared with some of His home town friends that He had “lost His senses” (Mark 3:21). His condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees continued to grow in intensity and seriousness, and those leaders, in turn, were accusing Him of doing His work by Satan’s power. Their plan to destroy Jesus (Matt. 12:14) was probably already rumored among the people. Jesus’ mother and brothers were therefore hoping to dissuade Him from continuing His work and perhaps hoped He would flee to a safe place until the religious leaders forgot about Him or lost interest. His family was on a rescue mission to save Him from imminent death.

For most men such an incident would have been embarrassing in the extreme, but Jesus was neither embarrassed nor resentful. He loved and cared for His family, and He understood their concern, misguided as it was. He did not, in fact, respond directly to the request of His family but rather used the occasion to teach an important truth: And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold, My mother and My brothers!”

Jesus was not renouncing His family. He loved them even more than they loved Him. His last request from the cross was for John to care for His mother (John 19:26-27), and through His gracious love His brothers eventually came to believe in Him as their Lord and Savior (Acts 1:14).

The Lord’s purpose in referring to His disciples as His mother and brothers was to teach that He invites the entire world into His intimate and divine family. Anyone can enter His spiritual family by trusting in Him, and the family of God is the only family that ultimately matters.

Even being a member of Jesus’ own earthly family did not merit salvation by virtue of that relationship. Jesus’ invitation therefore extended to His natural mother and half brothers, because they, too, needed to be saved from sin. Apart from personal faith, they were no more spiritually related to Him than any other human being. “All of those, and only those, who believe in Me are spiritually related to Me,” He was saying. For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.

The whoever indicates the universality of the invitation. No one who believes is excluded. And, on the other hand, no one who does not believe will be included. God’s first and most absolute desire and requirement for mankind is belief in His Son. “This is the work of God,” Jesus said, “that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:29). Until a person believes in Christ, God cannot give him any spiritual help, and that person cannot give God any spiritual service.

At Jesus’ baptism God declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Matt. 3:17), and at the transfiguration He spoke the same words to Peter, James, and John, adding, “Listen to Him” (17:5). God’s supreme will for mankind is for them to be well-pleased with the Son, just as He is—and to trust in Him, listen to Him, follow Him, and obey His Word.

After declaring, “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost” (Matt. 18:11), Jesus told a parable explaining the Father’s great love for mankind and His desire that they be saved. “What do you think?” He asked rhetorically. “If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? And if it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray. Thus it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish” (vv. 12-14). Many years later the apostles echoed that truth. Paul wrote, “God our Savior … desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3-4), and Peter declared that the Lord does not wish “for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

Being rightly related to Christ, however, requires more than a mere verbal declaration of loyalty. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus warned; “but he who does the will of My Father who is heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:21-23). Saving relationship to Jesus Christ comes only from submissively believing in Him and receiving the gift of salvation He offers. “There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

At best, reformation changes only the outside of a person; at worst it becomes a barrier to his being changed on the inside. A right relationship to Christ, however, brings completely new life, both inside and outside. All the rest of Scripture surrounds the central truth that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners—to transform them, not reform them. Until a person claims that truth, no other can be of any benefit.

The great message of the gospel, and therefore of the church, is not a call to morality but a call to deliverance from sin through the Lord Jesus Christ.