Matthew 12:43-45 and demonic squatters
What's the point of Matthew 12:43-45 and how does it relate to us? Without entering into a rehearsal of recent scholarly opinion maybe it’s safe to say that there’s enough information about the origins of the Pharisees to warrant us saying that they protested the apostasy of Israel that came about in the days of the Seleucid kings. Given this kind of setting they meant to keep Israel from a full-scale departure from the Torah as the expressed will of God. Perhaps they didn’t have as much influence in the Palestine of Jesus’ day—as Neusner, Sanders and others have taught us—but it’s clear from the New Testament and some references from Josephus that they weren’t a mousy little sect that practiced a quietist religion. (If they nurtured a Saul of Tarsus some of them must have been fiery indeed.) It’s true that Jesus seemed always to be in conflict with them but he did teach his disciples to pay attention to them though he had serious criticisms about their overall view and practice (Matthew 23:2-3, 25-28).
In what Arthur Gossip called "a shuddery little tale" Christ spoke to (or at least in the presence of) these Jewish leaders (12:2,14,24,38) about the owner of a house that was haunted (so to speak) by a demonic squatter who then (presumably) was driven from the house. The owner scrubbed the place spotless, papered and painted it and left it like that—scrubbed spotless and orderly. But empty! Meanwhile the demon wandered through waterless/wilderness places and finding no rest decided, he said, to "return to my house" (12:44). When he got back he found it even more suitable to him so he invited seven more squatter-friends even more vile than he into that scrubbed and orderly house. Christ said the latter situation was even worse than the first.
I want to take it that the Pharisees had enough influence in the land to be blind leaders of the blind (Matthew 15:1-14). I also want to link the cleansing of the house with something like the rejection of idolatry and pagan ways, which showed up in the days of John Hyrcanus and the Hasmoneans. The Pharisee types would have been leaders in this revolt against pagan uncleanness. That would indeed have been a work of God and it could easily be expressed in a parable about the removal of a demon from a house (a person or a generation). But a work begun is not a work ended and instead of filling the house with warmth and goodness, mercy and faithfulness it was scrubbed till it shone, ordered until it looked like a mausoleum—a place for dead mean’s bones (see 23:27). Paganism was cast out and in its place they substituted a spotless, ordered emptiness and into it rushed a greater demonism that just loved spotless and ordered emptiness.
A generation (12:39,45) that would see life as consisting of nothing but choices between two evil choices is in sad, bad trouble. To choose moral evil and be like publicans and sinners (characterized in Luke 15 as a selfish and immoral brat) or a spotless, ordered emptiness (characterized in Luke 15 as a sour, duty-conscious and self-righteous brother) is no good choice at all. Here comes the Christ, the possibilities are enormous and hope is alive again. Not to seize the moment and turn to God in full joy and righteousness is to prepare for future misery-—worse than they had known. Israel brought polished emptiness or brattish immorality with them into the temple. What would all that bring into the temple berfore very long? I think 70 AD and Jerusalem’s destruction hovers in the background (compare Matthew 23:29-39).
The issue here involves more than just individuals. It involves generations and even nations. Do you think it's possible to look back on history and see the work of God casting out demonic structures and world-views that weren't followed up by the generation? Have we any reason to believe that evil structures have fallen and others at least as evil have rushed in to fill the vacancy? Have we the record of such things in biblical history? Is it going on before our very eyes? And our individual lives? What happened when the USSR collapsed? And when the Berlin Wall came down? How might all that speak to us? You tell me.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
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