Casting out Demons by Beelzebul?

Have you ever stood near someone who was speaking ill of another person—someone you knew, someone you loved—and felt that strange, sinking weight in your chest? The room itself seems to grow colder. Words have that power. They can warm or wound, build or break, bless or curse. And in the Gospel of Matthew, we encounter a moment when words become the very battlefield on which the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of darkness collide.

Picture the scene. A man is brought to Jesus, blind and mute, oppressed by a demon. The crowd watches. The Pharisees watch. And then Jesus does something so quiet, so almost unremarkable, that we might miss its cosmic weight: He simply heals him. The man sees. The man speaks. The crowd is amazed and asks, ”Can this be the Son of David?” (Matthew 12:23).

But the Pharisees, instead of falling to their knees, instead of weeping at the beauty of a soul restored, sneer: ”It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out the demons” (Matthew 12:24).

And here, beneath the surface of the text, an ancient story is being retold.

 

The Breath of New Creation

To understand what is happening in this miracle, we have to go back to the beginning—to the very first breath. In Genesis we read that ”the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

The Hebrew word here, neshamah, is intimately connected with ruach—Spirit, wind, breath. The same Spirit who hovered over the waters of chaos in Genesis 1:2 is the Spirit breathed into the first man.

Now consider what Jesus does. He encounters a man whose very capacity for relationship has been stolen. He cannot see the faces of those he loves. He cannot speak words of love or prayer or praise. He has been made, in a sense, un-human—a creature unable to participate in the communion for which he was created. And Jesus, with the authority of the Creator, restores him. The Spirit who first breathed life into Adam now breathes through Christ to undo the work of the enemy.

This is not merely healing. This is new creation.

The Greek verb used for casting out, ekballō, carries a forceful sense—to expel, to drive out. Jesus is not negotiating with the demon; He is exercising the sovereign authority of the One who spoke the cosmos into being. The demon flees because the Creator has come to reclaim what is His.

It also echoes Genesis 3:24, as rendered in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament in use in Jesus' day): kai exebalen ton Adam. "And He cast out Adam..." That verb for "cast out" is the same verb (just in different grammatical form) that we see Jesus use when he casts out the demon, the same word the Pharisees use when they accuse Jesus of "casting out" demons by the power of Beelzebul.

There are more clues, here, in the naming of Beelzebul. It's a false deity who appears in anceint Caananite mythology. Jewish imagination, having encountered these false deities in history, often conflated them with the devil. The root of the name, Baal-Zebul, literally means "lord of the flies," but if we look at how this character factors into the myths associated with it, we see what's happening here.

In the Ugaritic Baal Cycle (which deeply influenced biblical idioms), Baal’s primary cosmic adversaries are explicitly serpentine. Litan/Lōtan is described in the texts as "the fleeing serpent" and "the twisting serpent, the potentate with seven heads." This is the exact linguistic root for the biblical Leviathan whom the LORD crushes in the Old Testament (e.g., Psalm 74:14, Isaiah 27:1), utilizing imagery that ancient pagan audiences previously associated with Baal's victories.

When the Pharisees look at Jesus casting out a demon and declare, "It is only by Beelzebul... that this man casts out demons," the theological irony is staggering:

1. They name Beelzebul—a figure historically defined by his mythological claim to have conquered the multi-headed chaos serpent.

2. They use that name to accuse Jesus of being in league with the devil.

3. Jesus turns it around to show that He is the true King. He isn't working with the serpent's surrogate; He is invading the "strong man’s house" (Matthew 12:29) to bind him.

By using the breath of the Spirit to execute an ekballō (casting out), Jesus acts as the true Sovereign, crushing the head of the primordial serpent, a creature associated with sowing chaos into the orderly creation, and proving that the kingdom of God has actually arrived.

Look at how the tables have turned.

In Genesis: The serpent sows chaos, The human is cast out (ekballō) of God's presence.

In the Gospels: The New Adam (Jesus), working by the power of the Spirit, breathes new life into a broken human. The demonic forces of the serpent are now the ones being cast out (ekballō).

 

The Serpent in the Garden, Again

Notice who responds with venom. The Pharisees, the religious experts, the men whose entire vocation was supposedly to point others toward God, look upon this miracle of restoration and call it the work of the devil.

Jesus’ response is severe: ”You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).

The phrase “brood of vipers”—gennēmata echidnōn in the Greek—literally means “offspring of snakes.” This is not a generic insult. Jesus is identifying their lineage. They are children of the ancient serpent of Eden, the one who first slandered God in the garden, who first whispered that God’s good gifts were not really good, who turned creation against the Creator with words.

The Caananite myth, evoked by using the word "Beelzebul" for the devil, reveals that just as the false-god was not the victor over Leviathan, the chaos-serpent, since it is absurd to imagine a devil casting out devils, they are the ones actually in league with the serpent. They are the ones who are sowing chaos against the re-ordering of Creation that Jesus demonstrates by healing the blind, mute, and demon-possessed man.

The parallels continue to pile up.

In Eden, the serpent looked upon the goodness of God’s creation and sowed doubt: ”Did God say...?” (Genesis 3:1). Here, the Pharisees look upon the goodness of God’s re-creation and sow blasphemy: “It is only by Beelzebul...”

And then comes more Edenic imagery, unmistakable: ”Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33).

Two trees stood in the garden. The Tree of Life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The choice has never really gone away. It stands before every human heart. And in this moment, the Pharisees reveal which tree they have chosen by the fruit their mouths produce.

 

The Sin Against the Spirit

This brings us to the most sobering words in the passage: ”Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:31-32).

These verses can be troubling if we do not understand them prolperly. Many a sensitive soul has lain awake at night fearing they have committed the unforgivable sin. So let us be careful here.

The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, in context, is not a momentary slip of the tongue. It is a settled disposition of the heart—a willful, persistent attribution of the work of God to the work of the devil.

It is to look at love incarnate and call it hatred.

To look at restoration and call it destruction.

To look at the Spirit who in Christ "makes all things new" (Revelation 21:5) and call Him a liar.

St. Augustine understood this. He wrote that this sin is “the hardness of an impenitent heart” (Sermon 71). It is not a sin God refuses to forgive; it is a sin the sinner refuses to bring to forgiveness that one would be re-made, re-created anew in His image.

For how can one be forgiven who insists that the Forgiver is the deceiver?

The Pharisees stood at the very threshold of mercy. They watched a man healed. They saw the Spirit at work. And they chose, in that moment, to slander Life and Love itself.

This is why their sin is so grave: not because God’s mercy is too small to cover it, but because they have hardened themselves against the very Mercy that would save them.

 

Words Reveal the Tree

What strikes me most deeply about this passage is how it forces us to take our own words seriously. Jesus says, ”I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36-37).

We live in an age awash in words. 

Words on screens, words in feeds, words spoken thoughtlessly into the air and lost in the wind. We have grown careless. We have forgotten that words are creative things, that God Himself made the universe by speaking, and that we who are made in His image bear that same beautiful power in our own small way.

When we speak ill of others, when we attribute the worst motives to those who differ from us, when we mock the good or call evil what God has called good, when we type hateful words against someone on social media...

...we are participating in the same spirit that moved the Pharisees that day. 

We are revealing what tree we have rooted ourselves in.

But the inverse is also true. When we speak words of blessing, of truth, of gentle correction, of wonder at the goodness of God...

...we are participating in the Spirit’s work of new creation. 

Our mouths become little echoes of the divine breath that first made the world.

 

The Breath Still Casts Out

Here is the good news: the same breath of Christ that healed the blind and mute man two thousand years ago is the same breath that breathes upon us today.

There are nights when the enemy seems to have the upper hand. Dreams that do not feel like our own. Thoughts that arrive uninvited and leave us shaken. Thoughts that we have that we cannot imagine come from anything less than the prince of demons. Doubts that seem to claw at the foundations of our faith.

The accuser, the liar, the ancient serpent is still doing his venomous work.

But so is Christ. And His work is greater.

In John’s Gospel, after the Resurrection, we read: ”He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22). The verb here, enephysēsen, is the same verb used in the Greek Old Testament for God’s breathing life into Adam. The risen Christ is breathing the Spirit of new creation into His Church. The same breath that cast out the demon, the same breath that animated the first man, is now given to us.

This is why the Pharisees’ sin is so tragic. They stood before the very fountain of new creation and turned away.

They preferred the dignity of their position to the joy of restored life. They preferred to be right rather than to be loved.

Do not be like them.

 

Living This Out

So how do we live in light of all this? Let me offer three small practices.

First, watch your words. Not with anxiety, but with reverence. Before you speak about another person, especially in criticism, ask yourself: Whose tree am I bearing fruit from right now? The Tree of Life produces words of grace, even in correction. The other tree produces words that diminish, accuse, and divide. We will not always get it right. But the awareness itself is sanctifying.

Second, rejoice when God works, even through unexpected vessels. The Pharisees could not bear that Jesus did what they could not. Envy is a serpent’s fruit. When you see God moving in someone you would not have chosen, in a person you find difficult—rejoice. The kingdom is bigger than your preferences. The Spirit blows where He wills.

Fourth, do not be hasty to ascribe the works of God to the devil. Whether it's discounting a miracle that appears to support beliefs that aren't a part of your tradition, or a phenomenon you just can't explain, don't leap to "that must be demons." Patient discernment, and humility, requires that we do the work, that we examine the fruit of the tree that produced it. Examine it honestly, not just looking for a reason to discount what you don't want to believe. Really look at the fruit that follows, and then ask yourself, whose work is this, really? In the context of the passage we've been looking at today, calling something that is a genuine work of God in the Holy Spirit the work of the devil is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and if you persist in such obstinance, this is what Jesus calls unforgivable. The harshest warning Jesus gives in the Gospels is against those who would wrongly ascribe the work of God to the devil.

(As an aside, I recently heard a rather well-known Protestant Apologist attempt to claim that the miracles at Fatima, since it draws attention to Mary, might have been a diabolical deception. But ask... did the woman who appeared to shepherd children, who gave them the most Christocentric prayer used in the rosary today, who thereby did what Mary always does, directing people to Her Son, who urged the world to do penance/repent, who warned of the threat against marriage and family... really have a diabolical motive? It's just as absurd to make this claim as it was for the Pharisees to accuse Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebul. Not to mention, the miracle of the sun is something, impacting the very forces of nature, that is the prevue of the Creator, not the devil. Those who came to Christ on account of Fatima number in the thousands, if not the millions. Similar things could be said about Eucharist Miracles. I recommend the work of Ethan Muse if you want to dig into the evidence and veracity of these miracles).   

Third, when the enemy assaults you, ask Christ to breathe upon you. This is not magical thinking. It is the deepest reality of the Christian life. When dark thoughts come, when dreams disturb, when the accuser whispers—turn to Christ and ask Him simply: Lord, breathe upon me. Send Your Spirit. Cast out what is not of You. He is faithful. He has been faithful since the first breath in Eden, and He is faithful still.

The man in our story walked away seeing and speaking. He had been given his life back, and more than his life: he had been given a glimpse of the One who is Life itself. May we, who have received the same Spirit by the same Christ, walk as he did—into the light, with eyes to see and tongues set free to bless.