00B.36 Chapter 29. Some Controversies of Christ

XXIX. Some Controversies of Christ

No. 1 Our Lord Jesus Christ was the most persistent, alert, resourceful, and masterful controversialist that ever lived. He lived at a time when controversy was the order of the day. The Pharisees and Sadducees were the leading sects among the Jews, and they were constantly in disputes among themselves. The Sadducees were cool and calculating, rationalistic and philosophical. The Pharisees were techni­cal, carping, and captious. They were past masters in the tricks of sophistry, caviling, and casuistry. But Jesus met the combined efforts of these masters of debate and quibbling and put them to silence. His quick analysis, his penetrating, powerful, and unsparing logic, and his unanswerable and embarrassing a d hominem replies to their assaults have never been equaled among men. They, therefore, prove him to have been something more than a man. A complete study of the forensic methods of Jesus would be a very profitable course of study for all students of the science of argumentation. It would also be helpful to all students of the Scriptures, as many passages in the Gospels cannot be fully understood unless we take into account what was the occasion for their utterance and what the point in dispute. But when we do this we are able to determine what conclusion our Lord meant for us to draw from his language. We should never be so illogical as to draw a general conclusion from a particular premise, or to apply our Lord’s language to any points except those that were at issue in the controversy in which he was en­gaged. As an example of our Lord’s masterly methods in con­troversy, let us examine his reply to the Pharisees when they accused him of being in league with Satan when he cast the demon out of the man who was so grievously possessed that he was dumb and blind. (See Matt. 12: 22-30; Mark 3: 22-27: Luke 11: 14-23.) This was a stupendous miracle, and it caused the honest-hearted people to exult and wonder. In admiration and astonishment they cried, "Is not this the Son of David?" meaning, "Can this be any other than our long-looked-for King and Messiah?" The Pharisees saw that they must in some way counteract the influence of this miracle. The people would look to them to acknowledge this unusual manifestation of divine power and accept this man on his own claim or else explain this miracle. The Pharisees were fully sensible of their situation and accepted it at once. There are only two ways of evading the force of a miracle. One is to deny the reality of the miracle, and the other is to attribute the effect to some other cause than the power of God. The Pharisees knew they could not deny the reality of this miracle, and they were shrewd enough to resort to their only alternative. They knew that all the people understood that demons were under the command of Satan, and they at once charged that Christ was in league with Satan and had by the power of Satan cast out these subordinate devils. This was a very ingenious answer, as it would leave the people in a position where they could not decide. Both the divine power and the satanic power were invisible, and the people believed that demons were subject to both powers, and they were now called upon to decide that which they had no means of determining. They would, therefore, be perplexed, and per­haps filled with a suspicious fear of Jesus. That Jesus recognized the cunning plausibility as well as the cruel in­justice and appalling blasphemy of their argument is seen in the fact that he made a fourfold, detailed reply to this charge and then drove upon their consciences the heinous­ness and unforgivableness of their sin.

Here is the analysis of his reply:

• "You admit that in the kingdom of evil Satan is ruler, and that demons are his subjects and his agents in carrying out his purposes. Now, if it is Satan in me that cast out this demon, then Satan is making war upon himself; his king­dom is divided against itself, and, of course, it will be over­thrown and brought to desolation."

• The people could see the truth of this statement, and they would be slow to believe that Satan is foolish enough to overthrow himself. Hence, they must look to some other source for the power that cast out this demon. Whence this power?

• "You all believe and claim that some people can cast out demons. Your own sons claim this power and prac­tice exorcism." (Jesus did not mean that these "sons" did actually cast out demons, but he was simply making an argument on their own claim—refuting them by the ad hominem process.) "Are you ready to say that your sons get their power from Satan? If not, you then admit the possibility of this being done by divine power and actually claim such power for your sons. Then with what consistency can you deny it to me? If you sanction the casting out of demons by divine power as an ordinary thing among your sons, why do you attribute this miracle to satanic power, as though such a thing never happened by divine power? Your own friends, your sons, prove your allegation against me in this instance false."

• The people were compelled to see that point, and the Pharisees felt it to their utter undoing. The people could see that it was prejudice against Jesus that would cause the Pharisees to deny to him that which they claimed for others.

• "You cannot say that I did this by natural, human power; for Satan is stronger than man, as you know. A man cannot enter into a strong man’s house and spoil his goods unless he first binds or overpowers the strong man. To do that, he would, of course, have to be stronger than the strong man. This I have done. In this case Satan is the strong man, the afflicted man is his house, and the evil spirits within the man were his goods. I have shown myself stronger than Satan, for I entered in, bound him, and spoiled his goods. What power is superior to Satan? The divine power only. Therefore, I did this by the Spirit of God." (Jesus had not the remotest reference here to the final binding of Satan mentioned in Revelation. He meant only to illustrate the one point now in question: By what power was Satan here dispossessed? The "house" here was not the world, but the man’s body.)

• "Since I have shown that I did this miracle by the Spirit of God, you must admit that I have divine sanction, and, of course, my claim is true. Instead of being in league with Satan, I am in communion with God. Therefore, the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you—it is at hand, just as I have been telling you in my preaching."

Jesus has now completed his argument, and he drives home the conclusion: "Here is a manifestation of divine power, and you have not been able successfully to deny it. It is the Spirit of God in me that did this. You must, there­fore, accept me and believe what I preach, or else reject me and blaspheme the Holy Spirit." But Jesus knew that some among the bystanders might say: "Well, we are not on either side. We are not joining in with the Pharisees and repudiating this man. But neither are we ready to accept his claim and follow him. He is a great man—he has shown that. But the Pharisees are very strong and popular; and no one can deny that they are a strict people, though they may be wrong in reference to this man. We do not know. We will just waive the ques­tion and be friends to both sides." But Jesus—or any other worthy exponent of truth— never gave his sanction to any such spineless, political, double-play equivocating and currying of favor as that. Hence, Jesus put it up to them straight: "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." Now, "be a pig or a puppy; be a man or a mouse." "You have seen this miracle, and you cannot deny it or explain it except to refer it to the Holy Spirit. Therefore, you must accept it for full value, or else reject it entirely and thus blaspheme against the Holy Spirit as the Pharisees have done." Then follow his solemn and soul- alarming words about the unforgivableness of the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Some Controversies of Christ

No. 2 The opponents of our Lord sought by every possible method to find ground for an accusation against him. They endeavored at different times to find a conflict between his teaching or claims and the Roman law. If they had suc­ceeded in these efforts, they would have accused him in the Roman courts and had the satisfaction of seeing him sen­tenced to death by the civil authorities. But they were also always alert and suspicious of some slight infraction of the Mosaic law or of the tradition of the elders. Many times they made charges against him that were based upon a technical quibble about the Jewish laws and customs. Our Lord always met these charges in a way that not only defeated the purpose of his accusers, but that also convicted them of ignorance and bad faith. He did this usually by what is called in logic the ad hominem process of reasoning. That we may know fully what this form of argumentation is and that we may not attempt to get more out of our Lord’s ad hominem replies than he intended them to contain, we will do well to consider a good definition of this form of reasoning.

Noah K. Davis, in his textbook, "Elements of Deductive Logic," defines this form of reasoning as follows: "The argu- mentum a d hominem is arguing from the premise of an opponent merely to defeat him. We accept his principles on which to base a counterargument, even if believing them false, our argument being directed against him personally, ad hominem. It aims to convict him of ignorance, bad faith, inconsistency, or illogical reasoning, and so to put him ex curia. Usually it attempts no more. Our Lord often used this method to silence his adversaries."

If we will keep this in mind as we study the controversies of Christ, we shall be kept from misunderstandings and false conclusions. In a former article we saw that Jesus based an argument upon the Pharisees’ claim that their sons could cast out devils, but he did not himself thereby concede the truthful­ness of their claim. In the argument examined in this pres­ent article we see him basing a reply upon what David once did. He does not in this sanction David’s deed; but the Pharisees regarded David’s conduct as a justifiable violation of the law, and Christ accepted their view of this act of David simply as a basis for an argument which would offset their charge against him. The Jews frequently accused our Lord of desecrating the Sabbath in his deeds of mercy. In the twelfth chapter of Matthew (verses 1-8) and in the second chapter of Mark (verses 23-28) we find them making the accusation against the disciples of Christ when they went through the grainfields on the Sabbath and plucked and ate the grain. Of course, Jesus was held to be responsible for what these disciples did, as he was with them and sanctioned their conduct. When the Pharisees complained about the disciples eating with unwashed hands, they brought the complaint to the Lord. The implication was that he should require his disciples to walk according to the traditions. Jesus defended the disciples and convicted the Pharisees of hypocrisy in each case. On the occasion that we are now studying the charge was stated thus: "Behold, thy disciples do that which it is not lawful to do upon the sabbath." This charge was false, for the law contained no such proscription, and Jesus expressly declared that these disciples were guiltless. But the answer of Jesus contained the following five points:

If the Pharisees had not held that what David did was justifiable, they could have replied: "Two wrongs do not make a right. David sinned, and so do you. You have said that David did an unlawful thing, and by putting the conduct of your disciples on the same ground you admit that their act was unlawful." But Jesus did not make the act of his disciples equal to that of David.

He said David did an unlawful deed, and yet the Phari­sees excused him. The disciples had done nothing unlawful, and the Pharisees condemned them. Thus their inconsis­tency and hypocrisy were exposed.

Because of their constant attendance upon the Lord the disciples had not been able to provide and eat food. There­fore, they were at this time hungry.

This completes the argument which our Lord made in reply to the charge that was alleged against the disciples. It seems that all the points should be perfectly plain, but some­times we find people who overlook the point in dispute and take an expression and apply it to something that was not in the mind of the Lord when the expression was used. In a former article we analyzed the Lord’s argument in reply to the charge that he cast out demons by the power of Satan. He argued that Satan is not overthrowing himself; therefore, Satan did not cast out Satan. Next, he proves that a being that is inferior to Satan could not cast out Satan, for he must first overpower Satan. This he showed by an illus­tration about entering into a strong man’s house. Christ had entered into a strong man’s (Satan’s) house and spoiled his goods. Therefore, he was stronger than Satan, hence divine. But now comes a theorist who has read in Revelation that Satan will be bound for one thousand years, and he con­cludes that Christ had bound Satan when he cast the demon out of the afflicted man, and that the thousand years, or the millennium, had been begun, and that we are still living in that thousand years, notwithstanding nearly two thousand years—two millenniums—have come and gone since he says the one thousand years began! Theorists always have a convenient way of manipulating language and of stretch­ing figures to suit their purpose. This brother certainly has gone wild in his interpretation of Scripture. I do not profess to know what the twentieth chapter of Revelation means, but i t says that Satan was seen by the writer to be bound for a thousand years and cast into a pit, and it was then shut and sealed up over him so that he could not go about and deceive the nations any more until the thousand years were finished. Our theorist says that Satan was thus bound and confined when Christ was here on earth, and that he has from that time even until now been bound and imprisoned. But long after the gospel dispensation had begun Peter said Satan was walking about, seeking whom he might devour. (1 Pet. 5:8.) Surely our brother forgot this passage. The brother makes the earth Satan’s house and all men his goods, and because Christ has come into the earth and wrested some souls from Satan’s control he concludes that Christ has bound Satan. This does prove that Christ is superior to Satan, hence divine, and that was the only point intended in the illustration about the strong man. That was the point in dispute. But in that illustration the man’s body—not the earth—was the strong man’s (Satan’s) house; and the evil spirits within the man—not wicked men—were his goods. Let us not extend a figure of speech too far.

Another expression about which there has been a great deal of controversy is this: "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." We have seen that the only point in this is that the Sabbath was made for man’s benefit. The purpose of the Sabbath is here told, and there is no thought of announcing the universality of the Sabbath. The Jews gave no thought to that phase of the question, and our Lord was only replying to them. The only idea as to the limit of the Sabbath contained in this passage is found in the statement that the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Being Lord of the Sabbath, he could modify the law or abrogate the institution, if in his judgment it was best to do so. He did later abrogate it. But there are those who contend that Christ’s statement that the Sabbath was made for man proves that the Sabbath was made for all men—for the whole human race. They claim that the Greek word with the article ("ho anthropos") is generic, and therefore includes all mankind.

It should not cause us any surprise to hear those who insist that Christians should observe the Jewish Sabbath make this argument, but that those who claim that Christ removed the Sabbath with the rest of the Mosaic code should make this same argument is an occasion for astonishment; for, if the Sabbath was made for all men, the abrogation of a system of laws that belonged to and included only one small nation of men could not in any way affect a universal law. A statute that included all men long before that narrow national system was given could not be changed simply by the taking away of this system. The argument is fallacious. It makes a point that was not in any way included in the controversy. The English word "man" may be either generic or specific. It may in­clude only one individual—a single male person—or it may include the whole human race, both male and female. The same is true of the Greek word "anthropos." It may include one man or it may include all men. We must determine from its use—from the context—which meaning the writer or speaker intended it to convey. In the passage we are studying, the extent of the Sabbath law was not in question. The Sabbath was made for man’s welfare. That was the purpose of the Sabbath. Now, whether it was made for all or only for some men cannot be determined by this passage. This passage affirms that the Sabbath was made for the benefit of all those who come under the Sabbath law, but how many are under that law this text does not tell us.

Crutches are made for man—that is, for man’s benefit; but crutches are made for only those men who need them. Spectacles are made for man; but they are for only those who need them.

We can go back to the time when the Sabbath was made (Ex. 16) and find out for whom it was made, to whom it was given, and whom it included (Ex. 35: 1, 2). Then we will know how many men the word "man" includes in Mark 2: 27. Those who try to find the extent of the Sabbath law from this passage instead of from the law itself must be dissatis­fied with the law as it was given by Jehovah to the Jews; and those who try to interpret the law by this text instead of understanding this text in the light of the law have reversed the telescope.

Let us never put more into our Lord’s arguments than he put into them.

Some Controversies of Christ

No. 3 ANOTHER ARGUMENT MISUSED

We have seen that our Lord frequently used the ad hominem process of reasoning in meeting his adversaries. But we must also notice that he often made use of very apt and striking illustrations in setting forth the principle upon which he acted and teaching the truth that he had come to bear witness to. We have also observed that these illustra­tions or parables should not be made to teach something that was not in the mind of our Lord at the time he uttered them. We should always carefully ascertain what was the question at issue and then trace the relationship of the illus­tration to the question. What bearing does it have upon the question at issue? In what way does it answer the ques­tion propounded or refute the charge alleged? These are questions that should always be in the mind of the student. In this article we are going to analyze an answer to a question that was put to our Lord by some of the disciples of John. It was, therefore, not a captious objection, but an honest inquiry. The answer, as usual, was plain and con­clusive, and was illustrated by things and incidents with which they were well acquainted. The Question Was About Fasting. (Matt. 9: 14-17; Mark 2: 18-22; Luke 5: 33-39.) Matthew had just been called from the receipt of customs to the companionship of our Lord. He was ready to give up his position, leave his home, and follow the Lord. But the abruptness of the narrative does not mean that Matthew failed to settle the accounts of his office and leave it in an orderly manner to his successor. He no doubt took leave in a businesslike and satisfactory way. And we see from this incident that he prepared a fare­well feast in his house for Jesus—that is, it was given in honor of Jesus, but was a farewell to Matthew’s friends and business associates. Publicans—men of Matthew’s own pro­fession—and sinners were the only persons who would at­tend, except Jesus and his disciples. This brought a severe criticism from the Pharisees; but Jesus answered this criti­cism and vindicated himself by an argument that we cannot now analyze. But the Pharisees were not the only persons who thought Jesus was at fault here. Jesus was not only eating with sinners, but this feast fell on a fast day. John’s disciples and the Pharisees were all fasting that very day. John came neither eating nor drinking: he was particularly and continually abstemious. His disciples would therefore not be expected not to fast at least as often as did the Pharisees. They fasted twice each week. The Pharisees did things mechanically or by rote. It was generally observed that Jesus paid little attention to their formalities and customs, and that his disciples ate and drank as they chose. This caused John’s disciples to propound this question: "Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?" To this question our Lord made the following reply:

There is but one point here made, and it is illustrated in three ways. This one point thus illustrated was the answer to the question propounded. The whole meaning of the answer and the three illustrations may be stated in these brief words: "It is inappropriate for my disciples to fast while I am with them."

How often have we heard our Lord’s language here mis­applied! It has not been used to teach an untruth, but it has been misused to teach a truth. The truth was taught, but this passage does not relate to that particular lesson of truth. The old garment has been made to represent the old Jewish law, and the new piece or patch to represent the gospel. Also, the old wineskins or bottles were thought to typify the Mosaic law; and the new wine, the new Christian system. Therefore, Jesus was understood to illustrate the fact that he did not intend to piece out or patch up the Jewish covenant, but that he would make an entirely new covenant. This application of this passage has been made by preachers of the gospel for decades. One of our pioneer preachers, Elijah Goodwin, in a very excellent sermon on "The Middle Wall," states this point in the following rhetori­cal form:

"On one occasion Jesus said, ’No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse’ (Matt. 9: 16); thus intimating that he had not come to mend and patch up that old garment, or Jewish church, but that he intended to make a new garment, an entirely new church.

"Again, he said: ’Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.’ (Matt. 9: 17.) By this parable the Lord teaches that he did not intend to pour the Holy Spirit, with all its quickening, sanctifying, and miraculous power, into that old, moldy, leathern bottle, or national church, but that he was about to make a new vessel entirely—a new church—into which he would put the new wine of the kingdom, the Holy Spirit, with all its divine influences." The point made is entirely true, but it was not the point our Lord intended to illustrate. His point has already been clearly stated and emphasized. To state it again, it was about the propriety of fasting on certain occasions. In Luke’s account of this answer we have this statement from our Lord: "No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better." (Luke 5:39) Then, if we carry out the interpretation of Brother Goodwin and those who follow him, we will have Jesus arguing that the old dispensation is better than the new.