Matthew has been parading Christ’s nine miracles before us in chapters 8 and 9, and today we will look at the last one. As we read the chapter, we notice the speed with which the Savior’s cures followed each other and how much mercy was compressed into a short space of time. In this chapter, he had no sooner healed the paralytic than we find him curing the woman who had a bleeding issue, then raising the ruler’s dead daughter to life, next giving sight to two blind men, and then, quickly after that, healing this poor man who was mute and possessed by a demon. Last time, we looked at how Christ healed two blind men, an amazing work of God. Though they were blind, they were the first ones to call Jesus Christ the Son of David. He shamed all the Pharisees and other people who had eyes but were spiritually blind. The blind men followed him even into the house and cried out, “Son of David, have mercy!” The Lord said, “According to your faith let it be done,” and they immediately received their sight.
Now, we will look at verses 32 and 33, which cover three main points:
- The healing of the mute man
- The responses of the people and the Pharisees
- What our response should be
The Healing of the Mute Man
Verse 32 says, “As they went out, behold, they brought to Him a mute, demon-possessed man.” The word for “mute” here is koufos, which is translated as “deaf” in Matthew 11:5. It probably means both deaf and mute. We see such healings of deaf and mute men in other gospels. This man would have been a friend of the two blind men. They were blind, and he was deaf and mute; together, they were a whole person. The newly healed blind men immediately went out, got their friend, who was “possessed with a demon,” and brought him in. He was one of their fellow beggars.
Being deaf and mute is a very sad condition. I know the frustration and struggles that a person who cannot hear or speak lives with. Many times, they just cry and babble to themselves. There is limited communication. A person in this situation cannot teach their children deeply good or bad things, explain things, tell stories, or express their love and care. They may scream very loudly, so much so that five or six houses can hear, but they cannot hear anything themselves. All they can figure out is from lip movements and actions. They cannot hear any sound or speak. This is a sad situation.
In some aspects, it is better to be blind. People say it is rare to find a cheerful deaf person. The blind are not like that. A blind person may not be able to see anything, but it is easy to communicate with them. They can hear, talk, listen to songs, and sing songs, which a deaf and mute person cannot. A deaf person may have eyes, but they cannot communicate, share any of their feelings, or hear anything good. They live in a world of total silence, cut off from all communication, locked in a soundless world. They have never heard the chirping of birds or the sounds of children laughing and playing. They could hear no music or songs. When a person is deaf, they are naturally unable to speak because they learn to pronounce words by hearing them. They have a speech problem.
Not only do they live in a world of silence, but they also know the frustration of not being able to communicate their thoughts, something we take for granted. We never thank God for our ability to speak and hear. When they try to speak, people would make fun and mock them. Children would point their fingers and make fun of them. People would say bad things about them, and they couldn’t hear. In those days, there was no institute where they could go and learn how to communicate.
Deafness was very common. Many reasons for it existed, such as infections in the middle and inner ear and congenital birth defects. However, with this man, it was none of those things. Naturally being deaf and mute is sad, but this man’s muteness was even worse. His deafness and mutism are specifically identified in verse 32 as being caused by a demon. He had demon-deafness and demon-mutism. It is possible, as we see from scripture, that demons can affect people in a physical way.
“And when the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke.”
I think this is an unparalleled and more grand cure than all the others. Out of the nine miracles, this one is told with singular brevity. It doesn’t mention anything specific about the man, his suffering, how he pleaded, the appeal to his pity, or the method of his cure. In all the other miracles, we see the efforts and faith of people. The leper comes and pleads, the centurion asks, the paralyzed man comes by breaking the ceiling, Jairus kneels and pleads, the woman comes behind him and touches the hem of his garment, and then the blind men pursue him, crying, “Son of David, have mercy!”
But here was one who could not ask because he was mute. I do not suppose that he even went to the length of a desire or belief because he was possessed by a demon—and that demon mastered the poor creature who was both deaf and mute. So, the Savior, even though he perceived no faith in the man and no prayer could come from him, still noticed and honored the faith of those who brought him. Swiftly and spontaneously, his mercy flowed out to this poor deaf and mute demoniac. We see how the wonderful blind men, as soon as they were saved, immediately became useful and brought others to Christ. We need to learn from this.
This is a very grand and wonderful story. Observe the great ease with which the Savior healed him. It seems to me that Matthew, in this text, shows the remarkable ease of the Savior. “As they went out, behold, they brought to Him a mute, demon-possessed man. And when the demon was cast out, the mute spoke.” The verse doesn’t say how he chased the devil out or that Jesus Christ cast the devil out—it was done so much as a matter of course by the Savior that Matthew takes it for granted that it was done! When you get into the swing of a narrative like this and you have five or six different cures to relate, you arrive at the feeling, “Well, they only have to come to Christ, and the cure is worked at once.” Sometimes the Master healed with a word, at other times with a touch, or a command to the demon. But here, we are not told whether it was by a word, a look, or how the healing act was done. Let Christ himself once meet the devil, and that is an end to Satan’s dominion!
And so we find in verse 33, “And when the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke.” That, also, was a wonderful thing. Deaf and mute from birth, how did he know the meaning and value of different sounds? Ordinarily, we would have to teach speech in a speech and hearing school, but this man spoke at once! He spoke fluently, just like that. This is a divine miracle. What joyful speech it must have been, maybe praising God, “Blessed be the Lord God who has delivered me from the power of the devil!” He must have been saying thanks and praise to God.
Can you imagine? He could hear the sound of his own voice for the first time in his life. How he must have screamed. He would have been worse than a kid who gets a new bike. He must have been screaming and shouting, touching his mouth and ear. When he could suddenly hear all the sounds and could speak and communicate to others, he would enjoy every sound in the world and look at everything with new eyes and wonder. It was a divine miracle.
The Response of the Crowd and the Pharisees
Now for the response of the crowd and the Pharisees. Verse 33 says, “The multitudes marveled.” Verse 34 says the religionists rejected him and said he did it by the power of Satan. They couldn’t deny that he did it; they just denied that the source was God. Two more kinds of responses.
Let’s look at the marveling of the crowd for a minute in verse 33. It says, “The multitudes marveled, saying, ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.'” This is without question, they said, the greatest display of power in the history of Israel. And Israel was a land of miracles. They remembered Moses and the miracles of his time, the plagues, the parting of the sea, and the drowning of the Egyptian army. They could talk about incredible things like God writing the law on stone on Mount Sinai. They could talk about so many things: the Jordan splitting and the fall of Jericho. They remembered Elijah and Elisha and the miracles of their time. They had heard wondrous things from their past, but never in all their history had anything like this been seen. Jesus’s actions were unprecedented. This was a display of divine power that was unequaled in Jewish history.
And so you know what? It’s amazing how unbelief expresses itself in so many varied ways. It doesn’t say they believed in him, but they marveled. To marvel is a very full, comprehensive kind of word. It can mean they were amazed, astonished, and in fact, super-astonished. They were amazed beyond amazement at what he did. It was breathtaking to see the things he was doing. It was incomprehensible to their human minds. They were shocked. They were in awe. It was literally more than their minds could conceive. They marveled. They were fascinated.
So much so that eventually, in Matthew chapter 21, they could make only one conclusion: “And the multitude,” it says, the same multitude that marveled, “said, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.'” They threw palm branches at his feet. That’s the marveling multitude: “Isn’t he wonderful? Oh, he’s the Messiah.” The next thing you know, they got the word that he was going against the establishment. He was not going to politically deliver them. He was not what they expected. He was preaching a message that they didn’t want to hear, that he was a threat to their security and a threat to their life. But it says in Matthew 27 that the same multitude screamed at him to be crucified, that Barabbas should be released, and Jesus should be executed. But that’s how it is with fickle mobs, you see. Marveling multitudes eventually screamed for his death. The fickleness of that superficial fascination is like John 6. They followed him for the free food, you know? They really weren’t interested in what he said. They liked him at a distance. They liked him doing his miracles. They were fascinated. There was a certain awe.
One preacher said some people love to go see these movies that scare them to death, that scare them out of their wits and just sit there and let themselves be scared into a frenzy, sweating. Some of them have to run out into the lobby during the scary parts. Why would people line up for blocks to see movies about the devil? Well, you know, there’s a certain funny fascination about that, as long as you’re sitting in a soft seat, shoving popcorn in your mouth, and you can leave when it’s over. You see, you don’t want to get in the situation. You just don’t mind watching somebody else in it. There’s a certain thing about that. And I believe there was something of this fascination in these people who were terrorized by Christ but also astounded and amazed at the supernatural. But they wanted to make sure it was just at arm’s length. When it began to touch their personal lives, their likes and dislikes, their lifestyle and ways of their thinking, the fascination ended, and that was the end of it: they wanted him dead.
Many people have been in awe of Jesus who didn’t know him. Today, multitudes coming to churches and claiming to believe in Jesus have just that fascination. They applaud Jesus. It is a sentimental attachment, nothing more. Just because they don’t like other gods, they like Jesus’s stories and Christmas sentiments, “his baby, my Jesus.” They like Jesus as long as he’s sort of warm, loving, and fuzzy, you know, as long as he’s not confrontational, as long as you preach a message of love and sweetness. I mean, you can talk about Jesus all you want as long as you just don’t confront people with a message about sin and the fact that he eternally damns men who don’t obey him and live sinful lives, who fail to live by God’s law, and he sends those kinds of people to an eternal hell. All fascination goes away. If you say that to folks, they’re not so thrilled about it all.
You can always deal with a holy person at a distance. It is amazing to me that the Pharisees of Jesus’s time were always honoring the prophets, but the people who lived when the prophets were alive killed them. And the only prophet that was alive in Jesus’s time was John the Baptist, and they killed him. Then there was Jesus, and they killed him. You can always deal with holiness that happened centuries ago because time makes heroes out of everybody if you don’t really know the facts. People always want to keep holy people at a distance. The amazed crowd kept their distance in a strange fascination, but when they got shoved too close as things moved toward the end, they joined the second category, the rejecting religionists.
A person’s salvation or condemnation is determined by their response to Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of Matthew, the responses of the crowd and the Pharisees to Jesus’s miracles serve as a clear illustration of this principle.
The Problem with Two Responses
The provided text discusses two flawed responses to Jesus: the superficial marveling of the crowd and the outright rejection of the Pharisees. Both, despite their differences, lead to the same result.
- The Crowd’s Response: The crowd was astonished by Jesus’s miracles, but their reaction was purely superficial. Their amazement was a passing feeling, not a life-changing commitment. They were fascinated by the spectacle but lacked genuine, saving faith. This response, while not hostile, is ultimately insufficient for salvation.
- The Pharisees’ Response: The Pharisees, upon witnessing a man being healed, attributed Jesus’s power to the “prince of demons.” They could not deny the miracle itself, but their hatred for Jesus was so profound that they came up with an illogical explanation to reject His divine authority. This is a tragic and dangerous form of unbelief, as it willfully rejects clear evidence and slanders the Son of God.
The passage explains that both of these responses are wrong and will ultimately lead to eternal damnation. It is not enough to be simply fascinated by Jesus; one must believe in Him and receive Him.
Jesus: The Ultimate Dividing Line
Matthew shows through these events that Jesus is the dividing line for all of humanity. He forces every person to make a choice.
- The Message of the Miracles: The miracles Jesus performed, such as healing the blind and casting out demons, were not just acts of compassion. They were also validation of His claim to be the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament, particularly in Isaiah 35:5-6. These signs were proof that He was the world’s only Savior.
- The Inescapable Choice: Because Jesus’s identity as the Messiah has been proven, humanity has only two options: accept Him or reject Him. There is no neutral position. As Jesus stated, “Whoever is not with Me is against Me.” Every person’s eternal destiny is determined by this decision. The response to Jesus reveals the true condition of a person’s heart.
Different Responses, Same Destination
The passage points out that throughout the Gospels, there are various examples of people with wrong motives for following Jesus.
- Superficial Disciples: Some people, like the men who promised to follow Jesus but turned back, are drawn to Him for selfish reasons like comfort, fame, or wealth. Their faith is not genuine and will not bear fruit.
- Self-Righteous Religionists: Others, like the Pharisees, are so consumed by their own religious traditions and pride that they become irritated by Jesus’s message, which exposes their hypocrisy. They prioritize their rituals and external actions over a true relationship with God.
- A True Follower: The only right response is to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, as Matthew did. When Jesus called him, he immediately left everything behind to follow Him and even brought his friends to meet Jesus. This demonstrates a faith that is willing to pay any price.
In the end, all those who reject Christ, whether actively or passively, will face judgment. The only way to avoid this is to genuinely repent and follow Him.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 