Mark Bradford's Bible Blog

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.

Mark Bible demon possession, Jesus, Luke

The Healing of a Demon-possessed Man

²⁶They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes,^[b] which is across the lake from Galilee. ²⁷When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. ²⁸When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” ²⁹For Jesus had commanded the evil^[c] spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

This account of deliverance from demon possession also appears, almost verbatim, in Mark 5:1-20. See my post on that passage here. In Mark’s gospel, this event also follows immediately after Jesus calmed the storm. In verse 20, Jesus tells his disciples to take him to the other side of the lake, but doesn’t say why he wants to go there. Here we see the reason why. I believe Jesus crossed the lake and went through all of that just to deliver this one man. What does that tell you about him? Jesus almost certainly knew that this was the only act of ministry he would be able to provide there, and he also probably knew they would encounter a lot of difficulty getting there, but he went anyway. No matter how impossible your situation seems to you, Jesus will do whatever it takes to deliver you. Just look at what he went through so that we could be saved. It makes our complaints about being inconvenienced for the sake of ministry seem petty, doesn’t it?

As I said in my post on Mark 5:1-20, the Gerasenes region was also called the Decapolis, or the Ten Cities. It was a mostly Gentile region, which explains the occult practices that must have led to this man’s possession. The occult is strictly forbidden in Judaism. It also explains the herd of pigs, which would not have been found in a Jewish area. Why would an observant Jew keep a herd of 2000 pigs? Demon possession can only happen by invitation. If you are a born-again Christian, you are protected by the blood of Christ. You cannot be demon possessed unless you engage in some sort of occult practice like psychic readings, astrology, Ouija boards, etc. If you do those sorts of things, you open yourself up to the demonic realm. One thing some Christians are tempted to do in a time of grief is to use a medium to try to communicate with their lost loved ones. Communication with the dead is condemned in the Bible (Deut. 18:10-12), and it’s not possible anyway. You only end up being deceived by a demon or a charlatan, and opening yourself up to possession. There are no such things as ghosts. There are only angels and demons. And angels do not communicate via seances. They only communicate with humans when God sends them to deliver a specific message.

³⁰Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. ³¹And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.

³²A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into them, and he gave them permission. ³³When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

We see some interesting things about demons in this passage. In verse 28, they call him Jesus, Son of the Most High God. This is not a confession of faith, it’s an attempt to control him by showing that they know his true name. Jesus turned it around on them by ordering them to tell him their name, and they could not refuse. Also, the demons begged him repeatedly not to order them into the Abyss, which I take to mean hell. They are acknowledging his authority over them. They are also showing that they don’t enjoy being in hell. Not even the demons want to be separated completely from God, which is what hell is. They’d rather drown inside a bunch of pigs than be sentenced to that. If that’s the demons’ attitude toward hell, what should our attitude be?

³⁴When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, ³⁵and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ³⁶Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. ³⁷Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.

³⁸The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹“Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.

I don’t think Jesus intended to stay there originally, and only agreed to leave when the people asked him to. As I said earlier, I think he crossed the lake and calmed the storm just so he could deliver that one man. He knew that once he did, the man he delivered would have a powerful testimony to the people of his region. Jesus did eventually come back through this area, and healed a deaf mute there (Mark 7:31-37). Mark 5:20 says that all the people were amazed at this man’s testimony, so I believe that his testimony prepared the people of that area to accept what Jesus could do, and as a result, some of them brought their deaf mute friend to Jesus the next time he came. The first time Jesus came, they begged him to leave. The next time, at least some of them had enough faith to bring someone in need to him. Jesus let his first miracle there plant the seed.  He didn’t push himself on them, he just let the man he delivered from demon possession be his witness. Then later, someone else was ready to come to him. We may not be the one to lead someone to Jesus with our testimony, but if we are faithful to tell others what Jesus has done for us, eventually some of the seeds we plant will fall on good soil and bear fruit.

Mark Bible demon possession, Jesus, Luke

Jesus Heals Many

³⁸Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. ³⁹So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.

Luke has not told us of the calling of Jesus’ disciples, but according to Mark 1, Jesus had called Simon, Andrew, James and John at this point. After they left the synagogue, they went to Simon’s home, where his mother-in-law was sick. Of course, this proves that Simon Peter was married. Some say this disqualifies him from being a Catholic priest, so he could not have been the first Pope. But the Catholic rules of celibacy had not been established yet. The earliest written evidence that celibacy was required of Catholic priests is from the Council of Elvira around 305 A.D. I personally do not believe that Peter was really the first Pope anyway, but this passage does not disprove that doctrine.

The striking thing to me about this healing is how complete it was. She immediately got up and started waiting on them. We’ve all known mothers like that! But seriously, after having a high fever, you don’t immediately jump up and start waiting on people. But Jesus not only rebuked her fever, he restored her strength so she felt like she’d never been sick in the first place. When God does something, he does it right.

⁴⁰When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. ⁴¹Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ.^[h]

At the sunset, the Sabbath was over, and people could bring their burdens to Jesus. Do our religious traditions help us experience Jesus, or do they hinder us? Jesus healed many, and cast out more demons. In reading passages like this throughout most of my life, I would always wonder why there seemed to be so much demon possession in Jesus’ time. In reality, there weren’t that many cases. It’s just that the same cases are repeated in the gospels, so it seems like a lot. But this was a country of 3 million people, and there are only 12 cases of demon possession mentioned in the gospels. 12 out of 3 million is not that many. But the fact that they are mentioned repeatedly is striking. As I’ve said before in this blog, demon possession only happens where the occult is practiced. The occult was strictly forbidden in Judaism, but Israel was occupied by a pagan culture in Jesus’ time, and they brought their occult practices with them. Perhaps these instances of demon possession are cases where some people were enticed by Roman idolatry, and opened themselves or their children up to possession.

I also would always wonder why Jesus didn’t seem to want anyone to know he was the Messiah. He wouldn’t let the demons speak because they knew who he was. First of all, it’s always a good idea to tell the devil to shut up. Second, Jesus’ ministry had just begun. If word spread that he was the Messiah, the crowds would have become even more unmanageable than they became, Jesus would have been arrested prematurely, and the pressure on him to be a political Messiah would have increased exponentially. At this point in his ministry, Jesus was still “flying under the radar”, not attracting much attention from the authorities. And for the time being, that’s how he wanted it.

⁴²At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. ⁴³But he said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” ⁴⁴And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.^[i]

Time after time in the gospels we see Jesus going off by himself to pray. If Jesus needed to do that, how much more do we? Especially after an intense time of ministry, like what Jesus had just done, we need to get alone with God and recharge our batteries. Understandably, the people there in Capernaum wanted him to stay with them. But Jesus needed to spread the gospel. At that stage, Jesus saw his mission mainly as one of preaching and teaching. He also worked miracles, but as he said in verse 43, preaching the good news of the kingdom of God was the reason he was sent. And that is also the reason we are sent. We have Good News, the best news of all. We can’t just stay in our Capernaum, we have to go and tell.

Mark Bible Bible, demon possession, Jesus, Luke, Peter

Jesus Drives Out an Evil Spirit

³¹Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the people. ³²They were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority.

³³In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil^[g]spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, ³⁴“Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

³⁵“Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.

³⁶All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What is this teaching? With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!” ³⁷And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.

This event also appears in the Gospel of Mark. You can read my post on it here. You can also read my posts on other accounts of Jesus delivering someone from demon possession here and here. I won’t repeat what I said in those posts here. But a couple of things strike me about this particular passage.

First, after he was driven out of his hometown synagogue, it seems Jesus settled in at a synagogue in Capernaum and taught there for a while. The language in verse 31 implies that Jesus taught there repeatedly. It’s sad that he could not teach in his home town. All they wanted was to see him perform miracles. They had been asking him to perform miracles like they had heard he did in Capernaum (4:23). So apparently Jesus had healed at least one person there prior to going to Nazareth. After being rejected in Nazareth, he went back to Capernaum where he had been better received before. The people there were interested in his teaching, so he was able to perform miracles there. In Nazareth, all they wanted was to see miracles, so he wouldn’t teach there either. Jesus performed many miracles, but he wanted to minster to those who were interested in his teaching.

Second, there are two references to Jesus’ authority in this passage, and they both have to do with his teaching. The people were “amazed at his teaching because his message had authority”. And when he commanded the demon to come out of the man, they didn’t ask, “What miracle-working power is this?” They asked, “What is this teaching?” They ascribed the power he had to drive out demons to the authority of his teaching. He taught as one who had authority, and not as the scribes taught (Mark 1:22). Jesus’ words had so much authority that even demons had to obey him. The source of his authority, of course, was God. The words of Jesus are the Word of God. We use the phrase “Word of God” to refer to the Bible, but to those people, the Word of God came to prophets. See how many times the phrase “the word of the Lord” appears in the Old Testament. In each case, it’s not talking about the written word, but a message directly from God to a person. Jesus’ teaching had authority and he had authority to drive out demons because his word was the Word of the Lord. Where do our words come from?

Mark Bible authority, Bible, demon possession, Jesus, Luke

The Healing of a Demon-possessed Man

¹They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.^{[a] 2}When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil^[b] spirit came from the tombs to meet him. ³This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. ⁴For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. ⁵Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

⁶When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. ⁷He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!” ⁸For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”

This is the most detailed account of deliverance from demon possession we have in the gospels. There seems to have been a lot of demon possession in that culture, which is surprising to me, since occult practices are forbidden in Judaism. Demon possession only takes place where the occult is practiced. There are many cultures today where demon possession is common, and they are all cultures where voodoo, witchcraft, or other occult practices are commonplace. Either the man in this story or his parents practiced the occult. That’s the only way this happens. There are Christians today that are under the mistaken belief that they are possessed by a demon. If you are a born again believer, that is not possible. You are protected by the blood of Jesus. But if you open yourself up to the spirit world via occult practices like seances, psychic readings, astrology, and others, you leave yourself open to possession. If you’re interested in those things, take the example of what happened to this man, and avoid the occult at all costs.

There is also a lesson here for all of us. Satan had so bound this man that he was driven away from his loved ones and forced to live alone in a cemetery, chained and cutting himself. Satan may entice us with all sorts of things that look appealing to us at the time, but the end result of what he offers is always destruction.

⁹Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” ¹⁰And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

¹¹A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. ¹²The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” ¹³He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

Demons would always call Jesus by name because of a superstitious belief at that time that you could have spiritual power over another by knowing and saying their exact name. When demons shouted out loud who Jesus really was, they weren’t acknowledging his lordship, they were trying to control him and negate his power over them. In Luke’s account of this event, the demons beg Jesus not to send them into the abyss, which I would think means back to hell. In any case, they wanted to continue possessing someone or something, even pigs. They couldn’t even enter the pigs without Jesus’ permission. If demons need Jesus’ permission even to enter into pigs, then it’s not that easy for them to enter into you or me.  They need both God’s permission and ours, and as long as we are under the blood of Christ, they will never get that permission.

I can’t help but wonder why there was a herd of 2000 swine in a country where pork was unclean to eat. What were they used for? I can’t help but think there was a connection between a large herd of unclean animals and a legion of unclean spirits so near an unclean place, the tombs.

¹⁴Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. ¹⁵When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ¹⁶Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. ¹⁷Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

This also makes me think there was something wrong going on here. In other places where Jesus delivered the demon possessed, their loved ones rejoiced at their deliverance. But not here. They were afraid of the power of Jesus over whatever occult practices they were involved in. Everywhere else Jesus went, he attracted large crowds, but here, they begged him to leave. The power of God will shake up our comfortable world. After enough time in sin, we can get comfortable there, and we won’t want Jesus to disturb our comfort. When they asked Jesus to leave, he did. Jesus will only enter where he’s invited. Do our lives and attitudes invite the presence of Jesus or the presence of evil?

¹⁸As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. ¹⁹Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” ²⁰So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis^[c]how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

The fact that this was near the Decapolis answers some of my questions. Decapolis means Ten Cities, and it literally was ten towns on that side of the Sea of Galilee that were mainly Greek. It was a mostly Gentile region, which would explain the pigs and occult practices. The man wanted to follow Jesus, which was perfectly understandable, but since Jesus and his disciples were not welcome there, this man was the only missionary those people would have. So Jesus told him to stay and witness to his neighbors. This is another difference in this story from others in the gospels. Other times, Jesus told those he healed not to tell anyone, but he told this man to tell everyone, because he was in no danger of attracting unmanageable crowds there. He wouldn’t be going back. Perhaps this man was a Gentile as well, so Jesus could not allow him to travel with his strictly Jewish group.

The man did as Jesus asked. He went to all the Ten Cities, which included Damascus, and amazed everyone with the story of his deliverance. How many hearts were prepared for Paul and the early church from this one man’s testimony? We never know what affect our witness will have on others.

Mark Bible Bible, demon possession, Jesus, Mark