1. The Beelzebul controversy 11:14-26 (cf. Matt. 12:22-37; Mark 3:19-30)

The placement of these events in Luke's Gospel again raises the question of whether Luke recorded the same incident as Matthew and Mark or whether this was a similar but different one. I, along with many other students of the passages, believe it was probably a different occasion in view of the differences in the accounts.

The connecting idea with what precedes is the Holy Spirit (v. 13). Luke had stressed the Spirit's influence in Jesus' life and ministry, but the religious leaders rejected that possibility concluding rather that Satan controlled Jesus.

"To understand the significance of Jesus' miraculous work, especially his exorcisms, one must understand 11:14-23."²⁸⁹

11:14-16 Luke again first presented the setting for the confrontation that followed. Jesus cast a demon out of a man whom it had made dumb. This sign of His messiahship amazed the multitudes that observed it (cf. 4:36; 9:42-43; et al.). Some of them attributed Jesus' power to the head demon, namely Satan (v. 18).²⁹⁰Others demanded from Jesus an even more powerful sign than demon exorcism to demonstrate His messianic claim. This unwarranted request constituted a test or provocation of Jesus.

"The narrator previously distinguished between the attitudes of the scribes/Pharisees and the crowd or people (7:29-30). Now the opposition to Jesus characteristic of the former is emerging in the latter."²⁹¹

11:17-20 Jesus at least knew the thoughts of his critics by their request for a greater sign (v. 16). He argued first that the head of an army would hardly work with his enemy against his own troops. Second, if Satan was behind Jesus' exorcisms, it was logical to assume that he was behind the exorcisms that some recognized Jewish exorcists performed (cf. Acts 19:13-14). Jesus' antagonists would have been unwilling to concede that. They wanted to maintain a double standard believing that their approved exorcists operated with God's power, but Jesus used Satan's. God gave the Jewish exorcists their power too.

Jesus' allusion to the finger of God (v. 20) goes back to Moses' miracles in Pharaoh's court (Exod. 8:19). There the Egyptians confessed that the finger (i.e., action) of God was at work when they could no longer reproduce Moses' miracles. Jesus claimed the same divine source of power for His miracles. His miracles indicated the coming of the Messiah and the approach of His kingdom. This was Jesus' third argument.

11:21-22 The strong man in this parable is Satan, and the stronger man is Jesus. Satan had amassed much booty in terms of human captives and had kept these people imprisoned. Jesus had come, had attacked Satan in the instances of His exorcisms, and had overcome him. He had removed Satan's defenses, namely his demons, and had set free those whom he had taken captive.

11:23 Continuing the figure of battle Jesus reminded His hearers that whoever was not on Jesus' side was on His enemy's side. Changing the figure to reaping or herding He made the same point again. Laborers in God's field and among God's flock who did not gather people as sheaves and sheep into the barn and fold of the kingdom with Jesus scattered them abroad. There was no neutral ground. People either supported Jesus or opposed Him.

11:24-26 These verses were probably a word of warning to Jesus' critics who were scattering rather than gathering with Him (v. 23).²⁹²If so, they climax Jesus' argument. They warn against casting out demons, which some of these critics were evidently doing, without replacing them with something stronger, namely the life of God that entered those who believed in Jesus (cf. John 3:16). A formerly demon possessed person who did not believe on Jesus was in greater danger after his exorcism than he was before it. The expelled demon could return to inhabit his or her spiritually empty spirit with additional demons.

These final words then carried Jesus' warning further. Not only was it bad to oppose Jesus and attribute His works to Satan, but it was worse to exercise God's expulsive power without also preaching the gospel to people.