Category: Matthew Chapter 12

The beginning of this passage is one of those places which strikingly illustrate the truth of Old Testament History. Our Lord speaks of the Queen of the South as a real true person, who had lived and died. He refers to the story of Jonah, and his miraculous preservation in the whale’s belly, as undeniable matters of fact. Let us remember this if we hear men professing to believe the writers of the New Testament, and yet sneering at the things recorded in the Old Testament, as if they were fables: such men forget that in so doing they pour contempt upon Christ Himself. The authority of the Old Testament and the authority of the New stand or fall together; the same Spirit inspired men to write of Solomon and Jonah, who inspired the Evangelists to write of Christ. These are not unimportant points in this day: let them be well fixed in our minds.

The first practical lesson which demands our attention in these verses is the amazing power of unbelief.

This passage of Scripture contains “things hard to be understood.” The sin against the Holy Ghost in particular has never been fully explained by the most learned divines. It is not difficult to show from Scripture what the sin is not: it is difficult to show clearly what it is. We must not be surprised. The Bible would not be the book of God, if it had not deep places here and there, which man have no line to fathom. Let us rather thank God that there are lessons of wisdom to be gathered, even out of these verses, which the unlearned may easily understand.

Let us gather from them in the first place, that there is nothing too blasphemous for hardened and prejudiced men to say against religion. Our Lord casts out a devil; and at once the Pharisees declare that He does it “by the prince of devils.”

The first thing which demands our notice in this passage is the desperate wickedness of the human heart, which it exemplifies. Silenced and defeated by our Lord’s arguments, the Pharisees plunged deeper and deeper into sin. They “went out and held a council against Him how they might destroy Him.”

What evil had our Lord done, that He should be so treated? None, none at all. No charge could be brought against His life. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners; His days were spent in doing good. No charge could be brought against His teaching. He had proved it to be agreeable to Scripture and reason, and no reply had been made to His proofs. But it mattered little how perfectly He lived or taught: He was hated.

The one great subject which stands out prominently in this passage of Scripture is the Sabbath day. It is a subject on which strange opinions prevailed among the Jews in our Lord’s time.

The Pharisees had added to the teaching of Scripture about it, and overlaid the true character of the day with the traditions of men. It is a subject on which diverse opinions have often been held in the churches of Christ, and wide differences exist among men at the present time. Let us see what we may learn about it from our Lord’s teaching in these verses.