For or Against

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

FOR OR AGAINST

Matt 12:29-32

29 "Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house.

30 "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. 31 And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

NIV

We should have included this strong man’s house with the preceding verses about driving out demons by the power of Satan and that Jesus said a house divided cannot stand. Nevertheless, he continues telling his accusers that if they are not with him, they are against him. This whole idea about every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven has much to do with all the negative comments made about Jesus. That nothing good can come from Nazareth, and that he is a Galilean from Galilee, a place no prophet came from. They made comments about his lowly, birth. Those sins about his human nature would be forgiven, but there is no forgiveness blaspheming His divine native. Here is where the rubber meets the road for us as well. Of course, we who believe would never speak against the Father, the Son, or the Spirit for we know the three in one are God, who is the almighty creator of all things, including us, who He made in His image. How could we say anything against God? However, there are many people today who do speak against the Spirit. As is noted, the Spirit could refer to the divine nature of Jesus, but it also could speak directly regarding the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus refers to himself here, as the Son of Man, it does appear He is speaking about his human nature, the humble fully man that he appears as. Yet, at the same time, He speaks not of his Spiritual nature but speaks of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity. The Spirit would be something new to the Jews, as they were familiar with God as God, and not as a triune Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit. They knew about God sending a Messiah, a Savior, although they may not have been waiting for salvation or right standing with God because of the Messiah, for they looked to the law for their righteousness. However, they may have, at least for the moment, felt the Messiah would save them from Roman oppression, looking at their physical problem rather than their spiritual problem. Today, we must be careful not to speak against the Spirit. Surely, we would not openly speak negatively about the Spirit, but maybe by our dismissal of many of his gifts and even his fruit, we are not fully living with the Spirit, and therefore in some sense against Him. We know this may have much to do with denominational bias, yet it should not be so. If we believe in the Spirit and we want Him to manifest His fruit in our lives and accept His armor so we can take our stand, why do we insist that His gifts are not all-inclusive, that He stopped giving some gifts at the end of the lives of the Apostles? If God never changes, then why do we want to change the gifts of the Spirit? We want to accept only those gifts we want to and refuse to accept those we feel God changed his mind about and keeps those gifts to himself? By our saying this gift or that gift is not for today, are we, in some sense, speaking against the Spirit? Maybe we must rethink this whole idea of believing and what is it we believe. Are we for God or not? If we are for God, then we should allow God to have His will, His way with us, gifting us as He determines rather than how we determine. So then, we must say we are not against Him, therefore we are for Him.