<p>3:22 <em>And the scribes that came down from Jerusalem said</em>- Perhaps the very ones who had come from Jerusalem to be baptized by John; see on 1:5.</p><p><em>He has Beelzebub, and by the prince of the demons he casts out the demons</em>- &quot;The Prince of the demons&quot;,&nbsp;a<em>rchon</em>, &quot;the first&quot;, would imply that Beelzebub was also a demon, the &quot;first&quot; or leading one. Thus the fallacy of their argument is the more apparent- if Beelzebub really existed, why would he cast out his own fellow demons?</p><p>Their comment appears to have been made in very hot blood, for it was logically contradictory to claim that someone who cast out demons must therefore be in league with the prince of the demons; because their own sons (either literally or in the sense of their disciples) claimed to cast out demons (Mt. 12:27). And if Jesus was actually on the side of the prince of demons, why then was he as it were fighting for the other side by casting out demons. Such gaping error in logic was exactly what the Pharisees were constantly careful to avoid; but their intense jealousy of the Lord led them to make this logical error. Again we note that the Lord's style was not so much to directly state the errors of his opponents, but to work on the assumption that their beliefs were correct- and to then follow those beliefs to their logical conclusions, thus showing how those positions contradicted themselves to the point they could not be true. This is one explanation for the use of the language of demons in the Gospels, even though demons don't in fact exist.</p><p>They were driven to assume that the Lord was in league with some higher power in order to perform His miracles. If it wasn't the Holy Spirit of God- it had to be by some other power, and the only option in their theology was some form of the Satan myth. Their logical desperation is a reflection of the undeniable nature of the Lord's miracles (as in Acts 4:16). Any who claim to be able to do miracles through the Holy Spirit should likewise be producing healings which even their most sceptical opponents cannot deny are miracles; but that feature is not seen in many claims of healings today. When accused of being in league with &lsquo;satan&rsquo;, the Lord didn&rsquo;t read them a charge of blasphemy. He reasoned instead that a thief cannot bind a strong man; and likewise He couldn&rsquo;t bind &lsquo;satan&rsquo; unless He were stronger than Satan (cp. Mk. 3:23-27). He doesn&rsquo;t take the tack that &lsquo;Satan / Beelzebub / demons&rsquo; don&rsquo;t exist; He showed instead that He was evidently stronger than any such being or force, to the point that belief in such a concept was meaningless. Faith must rather be in Him alone.</p>