22Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. 23And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?” 24Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”
12:22
Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw.
The man they brought to Jesus had three problems: He was (1) blind, (2) mute, and (3) demon-possessed. Jesus healed him of all three.
12:23
And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”
The Greek indicates that the crowd was constantly amazed. People began to open themselves to Jesus as the Messiah because of His healing the blind and mute man.
12:24
Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow [contempt] does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”
Note the contrast in conclusion about Christ. The Pharisees saw the positive reaction of the crowd and charged Jesus with a radical position. They did not claim that His miracle was a fake or an illusion but that it was indeed supernatural. Their only recourse was to attribute His miracles to demonism. This was the best way to explain away this amazing miracle. The multitudes thought that Jesus might be the Messiah (Son of David) but the Pharisees put Jesus in league with the Devil.
PRINCIPLE:
No one can commit the unpardonable sin today.
APPLICATION:
This episode is the first indication of the unpardonable sin. The unpardonable sin was to attribute the work of Christ to Satan. People could commit this sin only during the earthly ministry of Jesus.
In another sense, to reject the work of Christ on the cross permanently will cast a person forever into a Christless eternity. However, no individual rejection in time will do this. It has to be a decision a person carries to the grave. Just because a person rejects Christ at one point in life does not mean he will never change his mind and accept Christ before he dies. Christ could not die for the sin of rejecting His death to pay for sins. Non-belief in Christ is the state of condemnation, not personal acts of sin.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Jn 3:18
Jesus died for every personal sin except the rejection of Christ as Savior. The Holy Spirit convicts of the truth of Jesus as Savior from sins (Jn 16:9). The issue of salvation is not a particular personal sin but what Christ did about our sin (Jn 3:36).
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. Jn 3:36
