IN MARK’S GOSPEL , Jesus is quickly defined as having miraculous powers. He has returned from the forty days and nights of temptation in the desert, and immediately gathers disciples by the force of his personality and his conviction of mission: “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17) In Luke’s gospel, Jesus returns from the desert “in the power of the Spirit.” (Luke 4:14) This first display of Jesus’ power comes in the form of the exorcism of an evil spirit, and is the first of numerous times that Jesus casts out demons. There are many historical instances from ANE writings that record stories of exorcism, but Jesus is the first to employ what has been labeled as charismatic exorcism. This event takes place in the synagogue in full view of those assembled for teaching and for prayer. His authority to do this is clearly centered in an inner source of power. “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” (Mark 1:25) The astonished response from the witnesses testifies to the unique aspect of this singular event: “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.” (Mark 1:27b)
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus performs an exorcism that frees a man both blind and dumb and restores his sight and hearing. He defends himself against false accusations by the Pharisees, claiming that he has done this from the power of “Beelzebub, the prince of demons.” ( Matt. 12:24) Jesus rebukes them, saying, “If I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Matt. 12:28) The people looking on exclaim, “Could this be the Son of David?” (Matt. 12:23) They appear to have a better grasp of the scriptures than the Pharisees, for they are relating to an incident in the story of David, the shepherd boy who became king, and are inferring, perhaps invoking, a Messianic prophecy about a descendant of David.
An illustrative incident took place in the O.T., in the life of King Saul. “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. Saul’s attendants said to him, ‘See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the harp. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes upon you, and you will feel better.’ David came to Saul and entered his service. Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.” (1 Sam. 16:14-23) Perhaps the Pharisees of Jesus’ time understood this element of wonder and belief working its way through the people who came in contact with Jesus, who witnessed and experienced miracles, and began to think that he might be the Messiah, and were reacting to him out of fear and distrust. Whatever they may have been thinking, they might have thought far differently if they could foresee that God was about to cast them out of the Promised Land. And they should have known this; Moses severely warned of this in Deuteronomy, which they studied diligently. (cf. Deut. 28:15-68)
As for the witnesses in the synagogue that day of Jesus’ first exorcism—certainly they knew of the issues that the demon-possessed man had to deal with, and with which they also had to deal in relationship to him. They all lived in a small community, slightly more than a village, and they congregated at least weekly in the synagogue. His behavior in the community and at synagogue was fully evident to them. It is the same way for us today in our churches. We all know the ones who display odd, even dangerous, behaviors. We make allowances for them most of the time: “We are all under construction, and God is not quite finished with (him/her) yet.” Or, “If you knew the way they were raised.” Or, “If you had been through what they have been through.” When their behavior goes completely out of bounds, however, and the damage has been done—there has been a physical assault, or a child has been molested, or something has been stolen—the response becomes different. “The pastor and the deacons should have done something about this! We all knew it was coming!” And so forth.
As we examine the out-of-bound instances, either in their aftermath, or perhaps in a forward view, seeing something coming, we use the psychological terms developed from our medical paradigms. And in doing so, we think in terms of nature or nurture: “They were just born this way.” Or, “See what they have experienced that has done this to them.” We attribute the behaviors to chemical imbalances, and believe that the answers, in their softest response, come in the form of talk therapy—counselors—or a prescription remedy for a chemical imbalance—psychiatrists. In the most stringent of these circumstances, the treatment for the individual includes incarceration, whether in a prison or a medical institution. These are our remedies.
But Jesus cast out demons. This grates on our thinking, and strains modern credulity. This is primitive thinking, and comes from the strange world of voodoo and witchcraft and shamans, which has been explained away by modern thinking in the form of logic and reason, and the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry. Those who cast out demons today are usually seen on late night television on the cable channels, and we call them charlatans—and most of them are. If only we could bring our superior knowledge to the more primitive areas of our world, surely we would elevate the condition of mankind more closely to an ideal society.
But again, Jesus cast out demons. Perhaps this needs another look. In the Greek language, the word “ekballo” means *“to forcibly throw out.” Jesus’ power to do this comes from the Spirit of God (cf. Matt. 12:28). The Greek word for demon-possessed is “daímonas,” and can be equally translated as “demon-possessed” or **“having an unclean spirit.” The latter translation is one that is more acceptable to modern readers of the bible because of our underlying thinking about mental illness; this thinking causes us to heavily favor the modern treatments of talk therapy combined with the use of medications. It also causes us to reject the idea of exorcism, and relegate it to primitive or modern third-world beliefs.
But our thinking also involves belief, and an unbiased examination of the effectiveness of modern treatment of mental illness clearly indicates that such practices deliver only moderate palliative returns. There are statistically few instances in which severely mentally and emotionally unbalanced people are made whole in mind and emotion because of such treatment. Yet there are myriad people who live in a world of talk therapy and medications as a way of life, and this, we would agree, is far short of the abundant life that Jesus promises, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10b) This is not to say that our modern practices should cease as useless, for they are not. There are people with chemical imbalances; we know this clearly from the science of medicine. There are people who have suffered a chaotic upbringing, or who have been impacted and stopped in their life by a traumatic event, and they do benefit from talk therapy and sometimes a medication to help them ‘level out.’ We are fortunate to live in an age when this is possible.
But there are also those who have been overcome by evil—their spirit has been taken over by demonic forces, and their actions manifest such evil presence. They helplessly do the wicked bidding of their demonic father, Satan, who has begot them through the power that he has in this world: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” (John 10:10a) He destroys the spirit of hope in the person whose identity he invades; he does this as he usurps God’s rightful place of habitat.
Jesus promises delivery; he came to set the captives free. (cf. Luke 4:18) For those who are set free, he says “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17) And, John tells us, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) And so, Jesus casts out unclean spirits. He cast them out of men blind and dumb (cf. Matt. 12:22), he cast them out of a boy we would call epileptic (cf. Mark 9:25-27), he cast them out of the man living in the caves and cutting himself, and restored him to his right mind (cf. Mark 5:9-16). And, he cast them out of this demon-possessed man—a man with an unclean spirit—in the synagogue this day.
Jesus cast out demons. This is a lesson for the church of today. We must be wary of those who enter the body of Christ and display unclean spirits; we must be especially wary of those who seem only to hint of such a problem, as they volunteer to serve in the church and perhaps rise into a position of leadership. This wariness is not a responsibility only of the pastor and the elders—it is in fact everyone’s responsibility. And a healthy church body will have effective discipleship that trains people in spiritual discernment, and which has an effective balance of love and mercy and grace on one side of the scales, and a keen understanding of fallen human nature and the wiles of the enemy of our souls on the other side of the scales. The scales ever must ever-tip to the side of forgiveness and redemption, but cannot ignore vigilance, and the armor of God necessary for spiritual warfare.
One wonders what the spiritual culture of the synagogue in Capernaum was like after this incident. One wonders how the first-world church culture would respond to this sign performed before them today.
Q. Can I reconcile in my own mind and spirit demonic forces and modern medical practice?
*Strong’s 1544.
** Strong’s 169.
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