Luke 11:14-28
Jesus and Beelzebub
14Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. 15But some of them said, “By Beelzebub,[g] the prince of demons, he is driving out demons.” 16Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven.
This story, or one similar to it in which Jesus gives essentially the same answer, appears in Mark 3:22-30. See my post on that passage here. Mark does not give a specific incident that led to Jesus being accused of being in league with demons, but here, Luke does. As Jesus mentions later, there were Jewish exorcists at the time who cast out demons, but the belief then was that you could only cast a demon out by knowing its true name. Therefore, a demon that caused muteness could not be cast out because its name could not be learned. That’s why the crowd was amazed, because Jesus was able to drive out a demon from a man who could not speak. Although the Bible does not say this, I suspect that Jesus knew and said the demon’s name without being told what it was, and this amazed the crowd even more. This also may have led to the accusation of demon possession. It may have seemed logical to some that Jesus knew the demon’s name without being told because he was in league with them.
Jesus was accused of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub. Many consider that to simply be another name for Satan, but it may be one of Satan’s lieutenants. The name derives from a pagan god that was worshiped in the Philistine city of Ekron in Old Testament times. He is mentioned in 2 Kings 1. The worship of any pagan god, ultimately, is Satan worship. There are levels of demons as well as levels of angels, because demons are fallen angels. When Satan fell from Heaven, he took many fallen angels with him. The demon that possessed this man and made him mute would be assumed to be a lower level demon which Beelzebub would outrank.
17 He knew their thoughts, so he said, “Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed. A family splintered by feuding will fall apart.18 You say I am empowered by Satan. But if Satan is divided and fighting against himself, how can his kingdom survive? 19 And if I am empowered by Satan, what about your own exorcists? They cast out demons, too, so they will condemn you for what you have said. 20 But if I am casting out demons by the power of God,[g] then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you. 21 For when a strong man like Satan is fully armed and guards his palace, his possessions are safe—22 until someone even stronger attacks and overpowers him, strips him of his weapons, and carries off his belongings.
23 “Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me. (NLB)
I’m using the New Living Bible for this part. I think it gives the meaning of the passage more clearly than the NIV does. If Jesus was casting out demons with the help of Beelzebub, then Beelzebub was at war with Satan, and Satan’s kingdom was in civil war. Jesus points out that if they accuse him of these things, they also accuse their own exorcists, although their exorcists were unable to do what he had just done, which may have given rise to this accusation in the first place.
I was always confused by the “strong man” analogy until I studied the Gospel of Mark. The NLB makes it clear that Jesus is referring to Satan as the “strong man” guarding his possession, the man this demon occupied. But Jesus is the stronger man who overpowers him. We are no match for Satan, but Satan is no match for God. Jesus is telling them that he was not under Satan, he is stronger than Satan. Verse 22 is encouraging. When Jesus defeats Satan in our lives, he overpowers him, strips him of his weapons, and carries off his possessions. We may never have been demon possessed like this man was, but in our sin we belonged to Satan. He had a claim on us. But when we accept Jesus as our Saviour and Lord, Satan no longer has any claim on us. We now belong to Jesus.
In verses 17-18, Jesus makes clear that Satan’s kingdom is not divided against itself, and in verse 23 he makes clear that the kingdom of God is not divided either. We are either with him or against him. This statement may seem at odds with his statement in 9:49-50 where he said “whoever is not against you is for you”, but it really isn’t. Both of these statements have to do with casting out demons. In chapter 9, someone was driving out demons in Jesus’ name and the disciples wanted to stop him. But no one can do anything in Jesus’ name without being on Jesus’ side. There can be no neutrality in the war between good and evil. As the band Rush said in their song Free Will, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Which side are you on?
24“When an evil[h] spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.”
This seems an odd passage to me, but I think Jesus may be talking about the other exorcists of his day. When they cast out demons, they were unable to replace that demonic presence with the presence of Jesus, so often the people they helped ended up worse off than before. But when Jesus defeats Satan in our lives, he carries away the strong man’s possessions. He takes up residence in the house that was formerly occupied by his adversary. We can try to change our behavior with self-help books or personal motivation techniques, but only the power of Jesus can defeat Satan in our lives. If we try to change on our own, we will end up worse off than we were before.
27As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”
28He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
So how do we show that we are on God’s side? By hearing the word of God and obeying it. Then we are truly blessed.