Luke
8:26-39 The Gerasene demoniac. This story is paralleled in Matt 8:28-34 and
Mark 5:1-20. There are many puzzling aspects to this story. To me Luke 8:29
tops the list. Jesus had been commanding the unclean spirit to come out, and it
was not immediately cast out, but pleaded to not be tormented. Why did the
demon not obey immediately? Instead we see a conversation in which they, that
is the legion of demons, appear to be negotiating terms of exile. Why did Jesus
entertain this conversation? Why did He permit them to go into the herd of
pigs? (Luke 8:32-33)
There was at least one element of fact
in the demons' argument. They knew that in the end they would lose the war, but
evidently not yet. Actually we don't have explicit revelation in the Scripture
of what will happen to the demons in the end, only what will happen to Satan,
their king. It appears that the demons, represented by locusts, come up out of
the abyss during the great tribulation (Rev 9:1-4). But we don't know when they
were sent there. Rev 9:11 tells us that their king, whose name is destroyer,
also comes up out of the abyss. Rev 11:7 & 17:8 also mention the beast that
comes up out of the abyss - presumably, but not necessarily the same as the
king of the demons. And in Rev 20:3 we see that Satan is bound in the abyss for
a thousand years. This is before he is released to deceive the nations at the
end of the millennial reign of Christ, after which time he is thrown into the
lake of fire.
So the demons evidently know about what
will happen at the end, even if we don't. But is it possible that they are sent
into the abyss before the end times, and then released as described in Rev 9?
If that is the case, it suggests that the church, through its authority in the
name of Jesus, sends billions and billions of demons into the abyss during the
church age, which are then released during the great tribulation after the
church has been raptured. That would mean it would have been perfectly
legitimate for Jesus to send this legion of demons into the abyss at that time,
but for some reason He did not.
In any event, it is clear that Jesus
ultimately had authority over the demons, and that He did send them out of the
man and into the pigs. The demons then sent the pigs down a cliff into the sea
where the pigs drowned. No idea what happened to the demons after that. But the
man was restored to his right mind, and Jesus sent him home to testify about
his deliverance. The important feature of this story is not the demons, but the
greatness of Jesus, who has authority over the demons and uses it to deliver
people from their power.
A modern psychiatric perspective would
suggest that the symptoms exhibited by the man could be diagnosed as
schizophrenia. This is a mental condition that has both physiological and
behavioral causes. Yet Jesus did not address any of these. Of course, He could
have said, 'Be healed!', but He instead chose to cast out demons. And when the
demons had left, the man was in his right mind. This suggests that we need to
practice discernment in any situation like this - where people are acting
abnormally. There are multiple possible causes. I was once told that we cannot
cast out the flesh, it must dealt with through mortification. (Romans 8:13) So
we must seek wisdom from the Holy Spirit in each circumstance, to be able to
distinguish spirit from flesh. There are typical characteristics of the
operation of the enemy, as documented (for example) by Ignatius of Loyola in
the 14 principles for the discernment of spirits. There are also typical
characteristics of the flesh. (Gal 5:19-21) Ultimately, we need God to show us
what it is we are facing and tell us what we should do. Even Jesus said that He
only did what He saw the Father doing. (John 5:19)
No comments:
Post a Comment