---
title: Matthew 12:28
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-12-28/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-12-28.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Matthew 12:28
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Matthew 12:28

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

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

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "But if it is by means of God's spirit that I expel the demons, the Kingdom of God has really overtaken you."

## JW Usage

The Watchtower reads Matthew 12:28 as Jesus's foretaste of the Kingdom that would later be established in heaven in 1914 — his exorcisms during his ministry are read as small-scale displays of Kingdom power, not as the Kingdom itself arriving. The perfect-tense ephthasen ("has come upon") is reframed as "has drawn near" rather than as describing a present-tense inauguration.

## Protestant Usage

Take Jesus's verb seriously. Ephthasen is a strong perfect of arrival — "has come upon you" — and Jesus is making a consequential argument: he is casting out demons, demonstrably, and his exorcisms prove that the Kingdom has actually arrived in him. He is not previewing a future Kingdom; he is demonstrating that the King is here. Pair Matthew 12:28 with Matthew 12:29 (binding the strong man), Mark 1:15 ("the Kingdom of God has come near"), Luke 17:21 ("the Kingdom of God is in your midst"), and Daniel 2:34-35 (the stone that struck the image and grew into a mountain). The Kingdom is not waiting for an invisible 1914 founding; it broke into history at Christ's first advent and has been growing ever since. The Watchtower needs an empty period between Christ's ascension and 1914 to make its chronology work; the New Testament does not allow it.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders the clause "by means of God's spirit" rather than the standard "by the Spirit of God." Two doctrinally loaded choices: lower-cased "spirit" (depersonalisation, consistent with the JW doctrine of the Spirit as an active force rather than a person) and "by means of" (instrumental framing, recasting the Spirit as a tool used by God rather than as the divine agent acting in concert with the Son). Standard English translations preserve "by the Spirit of God" because the Spirit is the personal agent doing the casting-out in cooperation with the Son's authority — Trinitarian work the NWT systematically softens.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Armageddon, the Millennium, and the Assurance Watchtower Cannot Give](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/jw-armageddon-millennium-doctrine.md) — Revelation 19-20 / 2 Peter 3:9 / 1 John 5:13 [Eschatology]
- [The Kingdom Was Already Here in Jesus's Ministry](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/kingdom-already-present.md) — Matthew 12:28 / Luke 17:21 — the King among us, the kingdom upon us [Eschatology]