With a Subtitle: How Mark 9:40 and Matthew 12:30 fit together in Christ’s Kingdom

A brief Excerpt: Jesus’ words on unity are not contradictory. Mark 9:40 and Matthew 12:30 together show a Savior who welcomes all who gather to His Kingdom and warns that neutrality toward, Him becomes scattering.

The Author is: Zack Duncan

Jesus has a view of unity that is at once both open and narrow.

In Mark 9:40 we see openness and flexibility. An unknown person is doing ministry work in the name of Jesus, and the Apostle John asks his Master if this unvetted person should be stopped.

Jesus says no way.

He explains why with a broad and seemingly flexible view of unity for those in His Kingdom: “whoever is not against us is for us.”

How relaxed that seems of Jesus!

It suggests He has a broad and flexible view of what it means to follow Him. He may not have trained the unknown minister, but He has a bias to trust that such a person has good intentions.

Open … Yet Exclusive

But that’s not all that Jesus has to say regarding who gets to be on “Team Jesus.”

In Matthew chapter 12 we see Him using words that sound similar … but land with a very different emphasis.

30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. [Mathew 12:30]

Rather than operating from a place of openness, Jesus seems to inflexibly divide the world into camps: those who are expressly on His side and working for Him vs. those who are not.

And He offers no quarter for those who haven’t yet signed on to the Jesus movement; they are not merely neutral, they are against Him.

What gives?

Is the real Jesus open and accepting as Mark 9:40 seems to imply? Or is He rigid and narrow as His words in Matthew 12:30 suggest?

What the surrounding Scripture reveals is that He is both at once.

The Clue in the Context

The apparent paradox is reconciled once we see what Jesus is talking about. He’s discussing the same subject in both Mark and Matthew, but from two different perspectives.

He’s talking about a world that is divided between light and dark.

A world where He has come to bring the Kingdom of truth and mercy and love against the long reign of darkness, legalism, and oppression.

Jesus is talking about cosmic regime change.

The Gospel of Regime Change

Jesus was constantly talking about the Kingdom of God. The phrase appears 68 times in the New Testament. ¹ Check them out here in the Gospels.

The Kingdom is the world run by His government of truth, compassion, forgiveness, and love. And it stands opposed to the darkness.

Here He is in John 12 sharing the message of His light coming into the darkness:

44 Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. 45 The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. [John 12: 44–46]

The Gospel is that Jesus came to save us from our sins.

He paid the price we could never pay. And because of what He did on the Cross, all who place their faith in Him have forgiveness and redemption in His name.

This is true.

But it’s not only my sin and your sin that Jesus came to save us from.

Jesus came to defeat the reign of sin entirely.

And death and Satan as well. Because the story the Bible tells is that the world had been in bondage to sin and death and Satan ever since the Garden.

Because our human ancestors chose to distrust God. They listened to the whispers of the serpent who suggested that God was not trustworthy.

We chose Satan and our own desires over God. Humanity was given over to our choices, and we lived in darkness instead of the light of trusting God.

This is why Satan is called the “prince of this world.” It’s why he was able to offer Jesus all the human kingdoms of the world when Christ was tempted over 40 days. Satan truly did have this authority after the Fall. We gave it to him.

Jesus came to bring the light into that darkness.

Paul’s Kingdom Account

This is the story of human existence that Paul recounts in Acts 26 when he’s in the court of Herod Agrippa II.²

The same Paul who had previously been so committed to wiping out the Jesus movement is now fully on the side of Jesus.

He’s recounting his incredible supernatural encounter with Jesus, and we see the connection between Satan’s kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of God.

15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ [Acts 26: 15–18]

This is the worldview that informed Paul’s ministry.

There are deceitful “powers and principalities”³ in the heavenly realms. There are “elemental spiritual forces” that long held humanity in slavery. 4

Just like the serpent who had offered the promise of secret knowledge and deceived our ancient human ancestors, these spiritual powers have never been for us.

Jesus offers a new life outside of this bondage to the kingdom of darkness.

Paul gives an even more succinct synopsis of the finished Gospel of Christ in Colossians.

13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. [Colossians 1: 13–14]

Gathering is the work of bringing people into this Kingdom. Scattering is keeping people away from the Kingdom.

Back to Mark and Mathew

Let’s go back to those references from Mark and Matthew and see the full picture of what Jesus was discussing.

Here’s the full context of the Mark reference where Jesus had seemed so open and flexible about His Kingdom.

38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” 39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward. [Mark 9: 38–41]

This is the worldview of Jesus in action.

He sees the world in terms of a new Kingdom. The Kingdom He is ushering in vs. the old kingdom of darkness under Satan. And Jesus gladly welcomes anyone into His Kingdom.

He’s talking about the exact same subject in Matthew 12 when He had seemed so narrow and restrictive.

He had just healed a demon-afflicted man who had been deaf and mute.

He has just proved the supremacy of His Kingdom over the darkness. He has demonstrated His authority and His sufficiency to reclaim humanity from the powers of sin and death.

And instead of celebrating, the religious leaders accuse Him of performing miracles through the power of Satan.

Jesus responds with His standard Kingdom language:

26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house. [Mathew 12: 26–29]

This is the backdrop for what Jesus says about choosing sides.

The next words out of his mouth are His black and white declaration that we saw earlier.

30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. [Mathew 12:30]

All who are not choosing to actively gather into the Kingdom of God with Jesus are scattering His sheep and working against Him.

The Work of Unity: Gathering vs. Scattering

The Kingdom of God is a community of forgiveness, faith, truth, hope, and restoration founded on Jesus.

Those in the Kingdom have forgiveness and new life in Jesus. And grow in loving God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind and to loving their neighbors as themselves.

This is no earthly kingdom. Followers of Jesus are citizens of Heaven. We owe ultimate allegiance to Christ above any earthly government or any earthly leader who might imply his own divinity.

Caring enough to truthfully and lovingly share the hope of Jesus through word and deed is the work of gathering. It is the hope of inviting people into this community.

If we are not working to see others reconciled to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus says we are scattering.

Jesus refuses to see neutrality. Apathy and indifference are scattering to Jesus. Scattering is seeking to tear down unity in Christ.

And of course, then there are situations where the scattering is more direct than mere passivity. Like the curious case of one specific satanist who works to deceive and sow divisions between Christians.

We’ll see that next week.

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Sources

1: Kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven: https://www.gotquestions.org/kingdom-heaven-God.html

2: Who was Herod Agrippa II? https://www.gotquestions.org/Herod-Agrippa-II.html

3: 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. [Ephesians 6:12]

4: 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. [Galatians 4:3]

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