“Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined ...” (Matthew 12:25-27)

“Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Matthew 12:25-27)

What does Jesus' statement about being 'divided' mean?

Jesus' statement follows criticism by the Pharisees after Jesus healed a blind and mute person.

Following the people witnessing this proclaiming that Jesus must be the “son of David” (see below), the Pharisees made offensive statements about Jesus, accusing him of being satan or a demon.

Jesus questioned these statements logically: Why would a demon remove other demons? That would create a house divided.

It would be like a kingdom divided against itself because when there is no common ground, things fall apart.

This logic by Jesus essentially proves to the Pharisees that Jesus was not satan or a demon.

How did Jesus cast out demons?

Jesus was able to extract demons utilizing the Spirit of God, who is the Supreme Controller, having the ultimate ability to control everything, including where demons live.

This contradicts any notion that God somehow has a competitor in satan. God has no competitor. The Supreme Being controls everything.

At the same time, however, the Supreme Being gives each of His children the choice of loving Him or not. For those of us who choose not to love Him - our natural need to love turned inward, producing self-centeredness.

This self-centeredness caused our downfall to the physical world, requiring us to take on these temporary physical bodies. This was described in Genesis:

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)

Now, what would "garments of skin" be then? Are they animal skins as some have interpreted? Did God go out and kill some animals so he could skin their hides and give the skins to Adam and Eve?

That would be a preposterous notion. 

What is being described is the physical body. Adam and Eve were covered up with physical bodies. After all, our physical bodies are each covered by skin.

Who are the fallen angels?

The concept of fallen angels has been hinted at throughout the Scriptures. But who are they?

We see in the texts of Genesis 3 above how God banned Adam and Eve. They essentially fell as they were "banished" from the "Garden:"

So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:23-24)

This confirms that not only were Adam and Eve pushed out of the Garden: They were also barricaded from returning. God put a barrier between them and the Garden.

This illustrates that the Garden wasn't just a plot of land in the East or Middle East. This is a story full of symbolism, and the Garden symbolizes the spiritual realm. Adam and Eve symbolize all of humanity. And where Adam and Eve went in their new skins (physical bodies) was the physical world - where we are all now.

Then we find in Genesis 6 that God saw humanity as becoming increasingly wicked:

When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. (Genesis 6:1-5)

What we find in the Scriptures is the story of how we ended up here in the physical world, and how we have become increasingly self-centered since our arrival.

Each of us at some point rejected our relationship with God. We became self-centered, and this initiated the process of us being booted out of the spiritual realm and sent to the physical world.

In other words, each of us in the physical world is - to some degree or another - a fallen angel.

Why are we here?

The reality that we are fallen angels may come as a surprise to some of us. We may think that we are really good people. We may even think we are one of the better people. Maybe we think we are pretty great.

This, however, is our disease. Feeling that we are great - or at least the most important person around - is why we have fallen. You see, the nature of the spiritual realm is that its residents don't think very highly of themselves. They love God and love everyone else. They are always caring about others. They do not see themselves as great.

This is why Jesus taught:

Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant ... (Matthew 20:25)

However, each resident of the spiritual realm also has the freedom to change, and become self-centered. This is because freedom is required for love to exist.

So we exercised this freedom to become self-centered. This led to our fall into the physical world, and our taking on a physical body. Why?

To allow us to express our freedom in the form of self-centeredness. Here, our self-centeredness can expand into lust, greed, envy and even violence as we chase the illusory dreams of the physical world.

In other words, while there is no competitor to the Supreme Being, there are many who have become, as a result of self-centeredness, envious of Him.

This is why so many of us strive to win. We want to be the champion. We want to be in first place and have everyone adore us. So each of us tries to find our little niche - our sport or skill - that we can win within.

What is this need to win? It is the desire to be king - to be adored and worshiped.

In other words, we want to occupy the post of God. We want to be God.

This is the strict definition of a demon - someone who is envious of the Supreme Being.

The purpose of this world and these bodies is to not only provide a place for us to expand our self-centeredness. It is also a place that can teach us - in hopes that we might one day choose that we would like to return to our relationship with the Supreme Being.

How does demon possession happen?

This concept of driving out demons has been quite controversial in modern times. Modern scientists have questioned the concept of demon possession, while the media has perverted the concept in movies and other dramatizations.

But now that we realize that practically every person within the physical world - to one degree or another - is a demon, we can now focus upon what is possession and what is demon exorcism.

We are not these physical bodies. We are each spirit-persons.

This means that our bodies are all possessed. For most of us, the possession of our physical body is sanctioned. It is an approved possession.

But if the spirit-person who is occupying this body has a defect - say a penchant for harming others - well that body is being possessed by a demon. This can be symptomized also by a mental defect, illustrating the demoniac trait through activities.

It is also to be understood that during Jesus' time, a physical disorder was often considered to be a demon. If someone had leprosy, for example, that was considered to be caused by a demon. In this case, the "demon" is a bacterial infection (leprosy is caused by an infection of Mycobacterium lepromatosis).

These points should broaden our understanding of what was considered to be a cleansing of a demon during Jesus' time. If someone was healed of a disease, their demon had been expelled.

Given these potential disorders during Jesus' time, we find that one could be healed of a physical or mental disorder, the development of an addiction, or darkness within the soul related to a person's consciousness, all of which could be described as cleansing a demon.

Jesus was able to help any of these instances because he could heal a person's physical body or mental defect by the power of God. He could also change a person's heart, therefore curing a mental defect or issue of consciousness.

The more remote type of possession is the outside influence of a spirit-person who isn't the rightful possessor of a particular physical body. This can occur in the case of a spirit-person who seeks to influence someone in another body.

Sometimes, when a person dies and remains attached to the things surrounding their former physical body - or they commit suicide - they may stay in the subtle regions of the physical dimension without a gross physical body.

Such a spirit-person may become an intruder by becoming influential to someone else's physical body.

This has occasionally occurred in cases of schizophrenia and something called the “Jekyll and Hyde complex.” Sometimes it is a defect of consciousness. Sometimes, but rarely, it is caused by the presence of an outside influence.

This type of outside influence could also be removed by Jesus according to the Scriptures. 

Jesus’ method was described repeatedly: He touched the person while he prayed to or praised the Supreme Being. The prayer and praise brought upon that person the Supreme Being's presence, which had the effect of healing the disorder or otherwise circumventing the outside influence. 

Jesus confirms this as he says above:

"But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

“When an evil spirit comes out of a man ...” (Matthew 12:43-45)

“When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45)

How does 'an evil spirit come out of a man'?

There are two justifiable interpretations that can be made from Jesus' statement here. One is utilizing metaphor. The other, more literal, is a little more unpleasant.

As far as the latter, Jesus would be referring to how unembodied spirits can occupy a physical body. The physical body is a vehicle, and the spirit-person is occupying this temporary vessel ("a man").

Thus each spirit-person is the rightful occupier of our physical body. We were assigned this physical body as a result of our consciousness and prior activities.

And we each leave our bodies at the time of death.

Jesus is explaining is what a harmful spirit-person without a physical body could do. An unembodied harmful spirit could attempt to occupy someone else's physical body.

In this sense, Jesus would be discussing the fate of such an "evil spirit" who is purged from the body (e.g., cleansed).

The metaphorical interpretation would be that Jesus is speaking of how people can become influenced by others who are trying to take advantage of those who are more vulnerable.

Say a person is abused as a child. That abuse takes form in a manner that creates long-term psychological injury for the person who was abused.

Such long-term psychological injury can be symptomized by self-harm, fear, anxiety, and even flashbacks of the abuse for many years. This can also affect that person's ability to live a normal life.

During Jesus' time, psychological injury was often characterized as an evil spirit. The person - the spirit within - was damaged by a harmful person. Such a harmful person can be considered evil in this respect.

Now that psychological injury may at some point be able to be cured. But this injury may end up coming back later in life or may express itself in other ways, further compounding the injury. This has often been characterized as evil.

That is the metaphorical interpretation of Jesus' statement, given that psychological injury - as well as ailments and diseases - were often seen as being demons.

What are 'arid' or 'dry places'?

Jesus said that such an evil spirit, "goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it."

Other Bible versions have translated this to "dry places," "the desert" or "waterless places." These words are being translated from the Greek word ἄνυδρος (anydros), which means "without water." It can also mean places that "promise rain but yield none" according to Thayer's lexicon.

This terminology is derived from the notion that demons often haunted desert places.

This would also refer to a place that is alone and without life because humans cannot survive long without water.

Metaphorically speaking, someone sent to a desert is being sent to a lonely place without comfort or life.

An unembodied spirit-person with unresolved issues is in a hellish situation because they cannot access the physical world the way they used to. They might see the physical world but cannot participate in it. If they cannot solve their issues in the spirit world they may seek to disturb the physical world.

This is why such harmful spirit-persons may seek to become involved in a physical body where they are not the rightful possessor. They might attempt to gain control or influence over a physical body occupied by an unaware spirit-person.

The metaphorical interpretation of Jesus' statement would make for a more esoteric view of psychological injury and how it can be healed with time and learning. Those who have been abused or otherwise harmed by others may be cured of their injury over time, but the injury will still be there. It is difficult to completely erase psychological trauma.

How does an 'evil spirit' gain access?

In the metaphorical interpretation, anyone with power may harm someone who is more vulnerable. Their vulnerability may be if they are a child or perhaps they are an employee or in some other kind of subservient position.

Otherwise, a person may be harmed by someone who is some kind of teacher or institutional official who may take advantage of the authority given to them by that institution.

In the literal interpretation, the reason a living being becomes unembodied in the first place is due to a continued attachment to their previous life after they left their physical body at the time of death.

Typically we move on after our body dies. We leave the body behind and continue on our journey of learning. This may include another physical lifetime in another body, with an interlude of learning in between.

But should a person not disconnect with their dead physical body, they may continue to hover within the environment of the physical time and place their body lived within. They may watch, and perhaps struggle to participate somehow.

Such an unembodied spirit-person may in some cases be able to force their influence onto another physical body. This can take place should the owner of that body become disengaged from their body - through intoxication or illness that weakens their nervous system control over the body.

This lack of control allows another unembodied spirit(s) to gain some influence over the body. They see the opportunity to move in because unembodied spirits are lonely and looking to engage in the physical world.

This may be the reason that some become uncharacteristically violent or otherwise different when they are drunk. Another spirit-person may have exerted undue influence over that body while its owner was disengaged.

What happens to the primary occupant during this time? They remain in the body, but in a partial state of limbo. When the body wakes up the next day, after the drugs and/or alcohol have been partly flushed out, they may again be in control over the body.

The possessing spirit that entered during drunkenness is still probably around, however, awaiting the next period of weakness - as Jesus is describing.

How can we discourage harmful influence?

Destructive spirits typically do not like to worship the Supreme Being - which is one reason they are away from Him in the first place. They do not like to witness prayer. They do not like to participate in loving service to the Supreme Being. They don't want anything to do with God.

This is our weapon against such harmful spirit-persons. To protect ourselves against harmful people and spirits, we should avoid joining fanatical organizations, or becoming intoxicated with drugs and alcohol. Secondly, we should regularly invoke the Supreme Being. We can bring the Supreme Being into our lives using prayer and praising of the Supreme Being.

This is the power and authority Jesus wielded as he was able to fend off destructive influences:

"By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me." (John 5:30)

Jesus is speaking of the Supreme Being's power and authority.

Meanwhile, demons are devoted and committed to themselves.

What about evil spirits around us?

There are also evil spirits who appropriately occupy bodies in this world. They live all around us and create mischief by harming others in one respect or another.

This sort of evil influence is like mud: A person who enters a mud-slinging contest might start out nice and clean, but then as the mud starts flying they will get covered in the mud.

But underneath all that mud - once they wash it off - is a clean person.

In the same way, each of us is a child of the Supreme Being - even the worst of evil spirits. But as self-centeredness progress into activities, that person's consciousness becomes increasingly covered up. The more it is covered up the worse it can get.

But contact with the Supreme Being - through praising God and worshiping Him - can clean and purify our consciousness, just as soap and water can clean the mud off.

This means there are also different shades of "exorcism." An evil spirit can be driven out of a body they don't belong in or an evil spirit can be purified while occupying their own physical body.

Was Jesus purifying the primary spirit-person within, or was he driving out a secondary spirit-person when he did exorcisms? In some cases, he was purifying the spirit-person within with his devotion to God. For example:

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. (Matthew 8:3)

In such cases, Jesus connects an illness with the cleanliness of the spirit-person within. This is because our physical ailments are often connected to self-centered things we have done in the past.

Jesus’ statement in Matt 12:43-45 also explains how human society will suffer a worsening of its enterprise of greed and violence as time goes on. This is because self-centeredness often produces increasing self-centeredness - which can give rise to greed and violence.

Greed leaves a person empty, because the forms and things of the physical world cannot feed the spirit-person, and self-centeredness is a very lonely existence. Only love for the Supreme Being can feed the spirit, and cure this emptiness. This is the foundation of Jesus' teachings:

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment." (Matthew 22:37-38)

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never ..." (Matthew 24:35-36)

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Matthew 24:35-36)

When will this 'day or hour' happen?

As discussed with the previous text, some make the case that Jesus is speaking of the end of the world - someday in the not too distant future when all the sinners will be annihilated and Jesus will ride over the clouds on horseback or something and sweep up all those who are saved.

Is this true? Well, first of all, Jesus spoke these words over 2,000 years ago, and what they describe still hasn't happened. So was Jesus taking his disciples for a ride? Was he threatening them with the end of the world when it was not going to happen for thousands of years after their bodies were dead and decomposed?

Don't be ridiculous. Jesus is speaking about a real day and hour that something will happen to each of us. Let's understand Jesus' statement here carefully.

What did he mean by 'heaven and earth will pass away'?

The "heaven" that Jesus is referring to here, from the Greek οὐρανός (ouranos), which means, according to the lexicon, "the vaulted expanse of the sky with all things visible in it, the universe, the world, the aerial heavens or sky, the region where the clouds and the tempests gather, and where thunder and lightning are produced" and "the sidereal or starry heavens."

In other words, Jesus is not speaking of "heaven" as in the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm is eternal.

Rather, Jesus is speaking of the temporary nature of the physical universe, which includes the earth - translated from the Greek word γῆ (gē), which means "arable land," and "the ground, the earth as a standing place." It also includes the sky - translated from οὐρανός (ouranos) in this context.

This entire physical world is temporary. It has a beginning and it has an end. This has been confirmed as we've seen entire solar systems explode and collapse into black holes. This illustrates that each universe is temporary - along with all of the planets and life forms - physical bodies - that live within each universe.

What does 'my words will never pass away' mean?

"Words" here is being translated from the Greek word λόγος (logos), which means teaching or doctrine according to the lexicon. In fact, "words" is a poor translation choice because Jesus is not speaking of "words" - he is speaking of his teachings.

So why will his teachings "never pass away?" Because they are coming from the Supreme Being. Jesus confirmed this when he said:

“My teaching is not my own. It comes from the One who sent me." (John 7:16)

and

"For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken." (John 12:49)

These verses and others clearly illustrate that Jesus is speaking for the Supreme Being. Therefore, his teachings were coming from God - and because God is eternal, Jesus' teachings are also eternal.

Why does 'no one know about that day or hour'?

If Jesus is predicting the end of the world in the future, why would he say this? It would be a contradiction to say he is predicting the end of the world but he doesn't know when it will happen.

So what is "that day and hour" that Jesus is referring to here then?

The particular "day and hour" Jesus is discussing with his disciples "privately" (Matt. 24:3) is their moment of death.

This is clear because Jesus is speaking of a moment - not an hour. This is confirmed by the use of the Greek word ὥρα - which has been translated here to "hour." Rather, the word means, "any definite time, point of time, moment."

Now if we consider this logically, this cannot be referring to some kind of "end of the world" scenario as described by some. Their scenario would take some time - for Jesus to ride through the sky and kill all the sinners and save all the "saved" - and therefore make judgment upon each person.

Thus Jesus could not be describing this. Even if we accepted that ὥρα did mean "hour" - which it doesn't here - then it also could not take an hour even, as they are describing it - with all the billions of people around the planet, plus all the billions of people who would be hanging out in the Church's speculative "purgatory" state awaiting judgment.

But death is a different matter. A person's physical body may go downhill for a while but there is one moment - that moment when the spirit-person leaves the physical body - the time of death occurs. This departure takes place at a particular moment in time. This is the "moment" Jesus is referring to here.

What does 'not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father' mean?

Jesus is clearly describing the moment of death here - a moment no one but the Supreme Being knows in advance.

This particular day and hour of each his followers' deaths is uncertain to everyone but God.

As Jesus describes, he, nor the angels in the spiritual realm do not know when the physical body will die and the spirit-person leaves.

So why is this a big deal? Why is Jesus discussing the time of death with his disciples? Because they were concerned about the coming Jewish-Roman wars that Jesus was predicting prior to this. Jesus was foretelling - in the verses surrounding this one - that they will likely die along with the hundreds of thousands of other Jews and early Christians who died at the hands of the Romans. This occurred in a brutal war that began about 30 years after this discussion and ended more than six decades later.

This is indicated with statements such as, "let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains" (Matt. 24:16) and "I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." (Matt. 24:34).

During the Jewish-Roman wars - which began around 66 AD and lasted through about 130 AD - the Romans brutalized the Israelites. They burnt down most of their cities and villages, including their temples and libraries. Hundreds of thousands and likely millions- including most of Jesus' followers - were massacred. Jesus was warning them of this event.

So certainly his disciples became worried - but Jesus is giving them reassurance. He is telling them that while their physical bodies are temporary - and will die one day - his teachings coming from the Supreme Being were not temporary. He was telling them that they could rely upon his teachings.

At the moment of death, we lose everything. We lose all the money we've made and saved. We lose the house, cars, and whatever other material possessions we've accumulated. We also lose all of our relationships. We are no longer the husband or wife of someone else. We are no longer the father or mother of someone.

We also lose our reputation and any fame we might possess. Our entire identity is stripped away. All vanishes with a blink of the eye and the stop of a heartbeat.

Why? Because all of these are related to the physical body we are wearing. Once the physical body dies and we leave it behind, we also leave all these other elements behind as we move to our next destination.

What happens at the moment of death?

What Jesus is saying is that at the moment of death, the physical world will vanish as we separate from the physical body. This includes the earth below our feet and the sky over our heads. The entire environment will disappear.

The physical body is simply a tool that gives us access the environment of the physical world. The physical world is like a virtual landscape in a computer program or a video game - often referred to as the environment.

Just consider accessing the environment of a particular video game. We need a computer loaded with a particular program to access this environment. We also need a computer monitor, a keyboard and some other gear (mouse, joystick, whatever) to access the computer game's tools. Without the computer, the program, the monitor, keyboard and gear, we could not access the video game's virtual environment.

It is the same with the physical world. The environment of the physical world is accessible by someone with a physical body. The senses of the physical body can be compared with the computer's monitor and speakers, and our ability to manipulate the body through the brain is like manipulating a computer program with the mouse or keyboard.

And just as a person can get up from the computer and turn it off, we immediately leave the environment of the physical world when our physical body dies.

Of course, there is a short period of time after death where a person may still observe the physical world with the more subtle bodies which include the mind - as evidenced by clinical death studies. Depending upon our destination, we will likely carry this subtle physical covering to our next destination.

However, for some people - those who have committed suicide or have spent a considerable amount of their lives in drunkenness or drug abuse - they may become locked in a state of suspension within the subtle environment and their subtle physical body. This is because they cut their body's life short. They must now make up that time with a residual subtle body.

In this subtle (ghostly) body, the person can observe the physical world but is unable - except in some rare cases - to manipulate or engage in it. This might be compared to watching a video game but not being able to access any controls in order to participate. It is a state filled with emptiness and frustration, as we see those we knew, but cannot contact them.

The physical world can also be accessed by angels and God at any time. Because God is the ultimate "Programmer" of the physical world, He has free reign. He also often sends angels from the spiritual world to help particular individuals. This is His prerogative, as the Owner of this virtual landscape, the physical world.

By saying, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away," Jesus is telling his students they can take away his teachings. Even though their bodies will pass away, they can take his teachings with them at the time of death of the body and thus return to the spiritual realm with their spiritual selves. And what was Jesus' most important teaching?

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-40)