Still meditating on Matthew 12...this time on vv 24-37. Before proceeding, I believe that it's important to remember that man is a tri-part being consisting of spirit, soul, and body. It's also important to understand the functions of those three parts. The spirit is that part of us that, when "born again," is in contact with God and comprises the "conscience."
The terms soul and heart are used interchangeably throughout Scripture, but to avoid confusion I'll use the term "heart." The heart is the core (center) of man...the seat of his thought processes, his will, and his emotions. In its untransformed state it produces what's referred to in the Scriptures as "works of the flesh" and carnality. It's also important to see the untransformed heart the way God sees it... as "more deceitful than all else.." and "desperately sick." (Jer.17:9, NAS) This is because the untransformed heart has been influenced by the world and wounded by life's circumstances, becoming bitter, unforgiving, hardened and twisted. As we undergo the transformation process, the degree to which the heart is transformed is the degree to which it's in synch with the spirit. We are admonished to be transformed by the renewing of our mind with the Word of God. We are to receive the Mind of Christ, which is filled with the Word of God and faith.
The body is our "earth-suit," if you will. It's our connection with the tangible world and is the servant of the soul. It is the means through which the five physical senses operate. Its outward appearance and activities are what man judges, whereas God looks on the heart.
(I Sam.16:7)
Having said all that, I'll return to the subject at hand. The Pharisees earlier on were accusing Jesus and His disciples of breaking the Sabbath Laws when the disciples got hungry while traveling, and picked some heads of grain to eat; and Jesus had the audacity to heal the sick. In this passage, the Pharisees are livid with Jesus for delivering a demonized man on the Sabbath who was blind and dumb. They accuse Him of using the power of Beelzebul, the ruler of demons, to cast out demons.
In response to the accusations of the Pharisees, Jesus addresses the issues of blasphemy and plundering the house of a strongman. The strongman in this parable is satan and the property is the souls of mankind imprisoned in the kingdom of darkness. Jesus goes on to proclaim that those who are not for Him are against Him, and those who will not gather are responsible for scattering. Though there is more here to discover, I believe He was impressing upon me the concept of the relationship between man's heart and the words we speak.
He begins by speaking about trees and their fruit, which throughout the Scriptures symbolize people and their character, works, and/or words...in this case He's focusing on words. Jesus taught that if a tree was good, its fruit was good and visa versa. In other places He taught that pure water can't come from a corrupt fountain and corrupted water can't come from a pure fountain.
Men with good hearts speak (and believe) that which is good, men with evil hearts speak (and believe) that which is evil. Jesus, being God in a human body, was able to look at the hearts of the Pharisees and judged them evil. He called them vipers, which are the most deadly of snakes, injecting the poison from the fangs in their mouth into their unwitting prey. The Pharisees preyed on the very people they were to oversee and protect, ensnaring them in the traditions of man.
Jesus operated by the Holy Spirit of God, speaking pure Truth and doing good... healing all who were sick and oppressed by the devil. Jesus, the Tree of Life, spoke the Word of Life; the fruit of His ministry was good...the lame walked, the blind saw, the deaf heard, the demon-possessed were delivered. The Pharisees' hearts were jaded and their conscience's seared by their religiosity, pride, jealousy, and hatred, or they would never have attributed the work of God to Beelzebul. Their discernment was clouded and their words reflected the evil in their hearts. They were bad trees.
Jesus went on to teach that we will be judged by every idle word that we speak. Idle in this context means inactive...in other words, faithless. Jesus says that at the judgment we will have to account for every faithless word we speak. Therefore, rather than filling our hearts with worldly entertainment and with worldly news events, it would be a good idea to fill our hearts with the Word of God so that, when we speak, we'll speak faith-filled words that are in agreement with what God says. After all, faith comes by continually hearing the Word of God and learning about Who He is, how He works, and what His Will is. By our faith-filled words that are grounded in Truth and in agreement with God we will be justified, and by our faithless words we will be condemned.
Though in verses 25-26 Jesus is clearly directing His words at the accusations of the Pharisees, in light of verses 33-37 those same verses could be applied to our words. The Word of God is an expression of God's Will. Our thought processes have been trained in worldly concepts, our will has been trained to embrace those concepts, and our emotions have come to enjoy the worldly pleasures associated with those concepts. In order for us to stand in agreement with God, those thought processes must be torn down, removed, and replaced by God's thought processes. The heart must be transformed by the Word of God in order to be in sych with our spirit, which is in agreement with God's Will.
When the heart of the born-again person continues to be filled with more worldly concepts than the Word of God, it produces confusion and double-mindedness; therefore, their "house" is divided and they can not stand. James 1:6-8 tells us that this person is unstable in all their ways and will receive nothing from God. They can't stand in faithful agreement with God's Word because their thought processes are being tossed to and fro; therefore, they are unable to receive anything from God. Such a person is always going to agree with the circumstances surrounding him rather than professing God's ability to deliver him from all affliction. Putting faith in anything other than God and His Word reveals a heart steeped in profound unbelief, and without faith it's impossible to please God.
Earlier in Chapter 10:33 Jesus, the Word that proceeded from the bosom (heart) of the Father (John 1:18), always spoke "what He heard the Father speak,"(John 8:26) and in this verse asserts that whoever contradicts (speaks contrary to) Him before men, He will contradict before the Father. Jesus, the Word, also declares Himself to be the Truth (John 14:6); which means that whoever speaks contrary to Truth speaks from a heart of unbelief and deception, lying against the Truth... and liars cannot enter the Kingdom of God (Rev. 21:8).
Thank God that, for those of us whose hearts are turned toward Him, He will use our words to convict us in order to show us that we are always in need of His mercy and grace. He has provided us with the gift of repentance, so that when we slip up we can be quick to repent, and take it to the cross; for we are all in the midst the transformation process. We must continually allow our hearts to be filled with God's Truth so that when we speak, our words will be full of faithfilled Truth from the Heart of God.
Jesus asks if, when He returns, He will find faith in the earth (Luke 18:8). Will He judge us as good trees, rooted firmly in Truth, with faith-filled hearts speaking in agreement with His Will?
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