Matthew 12:22
Matthew 12:2222Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed the man so that he could speak and see.
JWs treat as background detail establishing the occasion for Jesus' Beelzebul controversy with the Pharisees in vv.24-32. The Watchtower has no distinctive doctrinal reading of the verse itself. Where it becomes apologetically relevant is six verses later: Jesus' conclusion in v.28 — "the Kingdom of God has come upon you" — depends on the exorcism the verse describes.
Matthew sets up the exorcism that grounds Jesus' Kingdom- inauguration claim in v.28. The man is brought, blind and speechless under demonic affliction; Jesus heals him; the crowd marvels and the Pharisees attribute the power to Beelzebul. Jesus' counter is that if he casts out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has overtaken them — present tense, perfect of arrival. The verse matters because it provides the visible evidence Jesus uses to inaugurate the Kingdom in his own ministry. The 1914 framework requires reading Jesus' "has come upon you" as somehow not yet referring to the Kingdom in its full sense; the exorcism narrative gives the framework no room to do that.