Mark 5

¹ They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. ² And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. ³ He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, ⁴ for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. ⁵ Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. ⁶ And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. ⁷ And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” ⁸ For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” ⁹ And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” ¹⁰ And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. ¹¹ Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, ¹² and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” ¹³ So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. ¹⁴ The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. ¹⁵ And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. ¹⁶ And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. ¹⁷ And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. ¹⁸ As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. ¹⁹ And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” ²⁰ And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

What to do about demon possession? One modern example reveals the problems that people today have with the idea of possession and exorcism.

Here’s an item that gives “experimental technique” a new definition. “Exorcism is not a legitimate psychological treatment. An Arizona board revoked the license of Kenneth Olson, a psychologist and Lutheran minister who said he cast demons from a ten-year-old last year. Foster parents referred the boy, a victim of physical and sexual abuse, to Olson because repeated hospital treatments had not stopped his violent behavior. Olson said he laid hands on the child and prayed for him. News reports said the minister has a Bible, holy water, and a crucifix nearby. The exorcism was discovered when Olson billed the state $180 for a two-hour session. The Board of Psychologist Examiners, which earlier had placed Olson on probation for a 1988 exorcism, described the action as ‘an experimental technique’ and ‘ritual on someone who had already been ritually abused.’ But ‘no one seems to care that the boy seems to be cured,’ said Olson, who claimed he would perform other necessary exorcisms. The foster mother says the boy’s condition is improved markedly.”[1]

Now, assuming that the details of this case actually are as stated, one has to wonder what, in particular, is abusive about the following facts:

• A troubled young man whom nobody has been able to help is brought to a Christian psychologist who is also a Christian minister.
• He lays hands on the boy and prays, asking for deliverance from demonic possession.
• The boys foster parents say that the boy’s “condition is improved markedly.”

Granted, I do not know what I think of Dr. Olson billing the state for this, but, obviously, he saw this as an effective treatment and, based on initial feedback, it appears that it was.

One wonders what exactly the state opposes if the boy was in fact cured or greatly helped?

The tensions one sees in this story are endemic of the assumptions of modernity. To the thoroughly materialistic mind, there is no room for supernatural solutions. In fact, so thoroughly is modernity steeped in its anti-supernatural bias that is now commonplace for Christians to suspect that what the Bible clearly depicts as demonic possession must have been mental illness all along. Even so, demon possession just will not go away. Consider, for examples, the following news headlines just from this year!

“‘Exorcism and Demonic Possession’ Course Returns to Rome” (April 2016)

“Exorcism assault claim” (April 2016)

“Woman killed in failed exorcism attempt” (May 2016)

“Snarling ‘possessed’ woman passes out during exorcism” (June 2016)

“Possessed girl ‘evil smile’ in chilling exorcism” (June 2016)

“Teen howls through exorcism” (July 2016)

“Girl writhes and vomits during exorcism” (July 2016)

“Woman being interviewed about neighbour’s exorcism suddenly gets ‘possessed’” (August 2016)

Are these cases legitimate examples of actual demon possession? Maybe all are. Maybe none are. Maybe some are. Who knows? This much is clear, however: alleged instances of demonic possession appear consistently in the press all around the world and many believe they are increasing in frequency.

We Baptists have an uneasy relationship with things like this. We hear our missionaries speak of such things and we are inclined to believe them in general, but do we have an actual solid theology of demon possession? What would such a theology look like?

I would like to propose that our text is a great starting point for helping us understand what this means. In Mark 5:1-20, Jesus encounters a genuine case of demonic possession as He oftentimes did. Let us consider what this meant then and means now for us.

The devil exists and wishes to torment and destroy human beings.

My first point is a summary statement about the biblical worldview regarding evil. It is this: the devil exists and wishes to torment and destroy human beings. We see this demonstrated in Jesus’ confrontation with the Gerasene demoniac. You will recall that in the text immediately preceding this Jesus and the disciples encountered a storm in their journey to the largely Gentile eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. When they arrive, they face a different kind of storm, as Mark so vividly recounts it.

¹ They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. ² And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. ³ He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, ⁴ for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. ⁵ Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. ⁶ And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. ⁷ And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” ⁸ For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” ⁹ And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” ¹⁰ And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. ¹¹ Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, ¹² and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.”

First, let us address the fact that different translations use different names for exactly where this happened. While the issues surrounding this or complex and interesting, let us consider Joel Marcus argument that while “some texts read ‘Gedarenes’ and others ‘Gergesenes’…‘Gerasenes’…has the best external attestation…as well as being the most difficult text and [is] therefore likely to be original.”   We also learn the intriguing fact hat “the Hebrew root grs [the root of ‘Gerasenes’] means ‘to banish’ and is a common term for exorcism.”[2]

Note that the possessed man sees and runs to Jesus. There are numerous details throughout this passage to suggest that what we have in this case is a group of extremely aggressive and profoundly profane demons who are seeking to move against Jesus or who are seeking, at least, to deflect the full force of His power if possible.

Let us also note that this is clearly not mental illness. Jesus Himself speaks to the demonic presence and they respond to Him. We would do well to humble ourselves and accept that there are realms of reality that go beyond what we can see and touch and empirically verify. In fact, Christianity is utterly nonsensical without this recognition.

Not only do we hear the demons speak and see them act in this story, we can also construct a kind of profile of the character of these demons. What were these demons like in their encounter with Jesus?

• The demons were blasphemous. In verse 7, they refer to Jesus as “Son of the Most High God.” As we have seen already in Mark, the demons do this not in order to honor the name of God but rather in an attempt to use His name offensively against Him, wrongly assuming that knowledge of His name might give them a kind of power over the Lord God. That being said, it is quite possible that they are mocking Jesus in the specific way they referred to him. For instance, Adela Yarbro Collins notes that while “the title ‘God the Most High’…was not unknown among Jews,” it was the common Gentile word for God and, in Greek, it “occurs as a divine name for Zeus.” Furthermore, “an inscription dating to 22 or 23 CE attests a temple and cult of Zeus Olympius in Gerasa. Thus, for members of Mark’s audience familiar with this cult, the demon’s address of Jesus is equivalent to ‘son of Zeus.’”[3]

• The demons were mocking. This can be seen in the use of the phrase, “I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” The phrase “I adjure you” was, Marcus tells us, “standard exorcistic terminology, but it is usually employed by the exorcist rather than by the demon” and was likely said by the demon as “deliberate parody.” In other words, the demons mockingly attempt to exorcise Jesus or perhaps they are simply mocking what they knew He would say to them.

• The demons were obscene. Their request to be sent into the pigs “may contain sexual innuendo…‘pig’…could be a slang term for female genitalia.”[4] This is admittedly disturbing, but we should note that the demons may have been making their request in as obscene a way as possible.

• The demons were evasive. They gave Jesus a number and not a name when He asked for their name. They say, “My name is Legion.” “A Roman legion,” James Brooks writes, “consisted of four to six thousand men, but here the word merely refers to a large number (‘mob,’ GNB).”[5] Calling themselves “Legion” was likely, according to Collins, “a clever evasion.”[6]

The picture that emerges from these verses is of a man infested by an aggressive, obscene, blasphemous, mocking horde of tormenting demons bent on destroying him. This is a biblical picture of what demons do and of who they are. It was true then. It is true now. Our skepticism of this reveals how off base we are, not how off base this story is.

There have been occasions when skeptics have had to conclude, on the basis of the evidence, that there is evil in the world and that that evil has a name: Satan.

Consider, for instance, M. Scott Peck. Peck was a person of some distinction in psychiatric circles. He received his BA from Harvard and his MD from Case Western Reserve University. His career was marked by success:

Peck served in administrative posts in the government during his career as a psychiatrist. He also served in the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. His Army assignments included stints as chief of psychology at the Army Medical Center in Okinawa, Japan, and assistant chief of psychiatry and neurology in the office of the surgeon general in Washington, D.C. He was the Medical Director of the New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic and a psychiatrist in private practice in New Milford, Connecticut.[7]

In 1983, Peck wrote a surprising and unsettling best-selling book entitled People of the Lie. His premise was clear enough: “evil” needed to enter the lexicon of psychiatric terminology for there are many cases in which “evil” is the only explanation for what psychiatrists and doctors encounter. It is a fascinating read.

At one point in his exploration of evil, Peck requested to be allowed to sit in on purported cases of demonic possession. Some of these cases seemed to him to be legitimate. In one situation, Peck describes the possessed person as writhing in torment. The exorcist attempted to get the demon to leave the person’s body by angering it so that it would attack him. “The spirit,” writes Peck, “either could not or would not leave the patient’s body under such conditions.” After this experience and others, Peck reached the following conclusion:

Satan has no power except in a human body. Satan cannot do evil except through a human body. Although a murderer from the beginning, it cannot murder except through human hands.[8]

Biblically, we would disagree with this to a certain extent. After all, Satan can attack our minds and ruthlessly tempt us without possessing our bodies. That is a kind of power. Even so, Peck’s point is basically correct: Satan desires to inhabit a physical host so that he can inflict great harm on the person’s body as well as on the bodies and minds of others.

This helps us to understand the demons’ strange request: “Send us into the pigs.” They wish to be embodied. This also helps us understand Jesus’ fascinating statement in Matthew 12.

⁴³ “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. ⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. ⁴⁵ Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

However we understand the details of such dynamics, the point is clear enough and must be understood: the devil exists and wishes to torment and destroy human beings.

At this point I would like to address a commonly asked question: can Christians be possessed? At the end of the day, I agree with the general sentiment that a person indwelt by the Holy Spirit cannot be fully possessed by the devil, but that Christians are harassed and oppressed by the devil. Furthermore, it does seem clear enough that Christians can fall into sin and thereby allow the devil a foothold.

The old possession vs. oppression distinction is somewhat helpful, but I do rather wonder at times if it is a distinction without a real difference. Meaning, a Christian who falls into sin can have his joy robbed and his peace of mind obliterated by the devil just as much as a possessed man. While I do not think it is possible for a true follower of Jesus to be inhabited by demons, let us recognize that every time we rebel against God we are allowing demonic powers to have sway over us. This is a tragic turn of events. Beware of allowing the devil to get a foothold in your life!

The devil is real. To deny this is to deny the clear witness of scripture. If this belief is considered unsophisticated and primitive, then I am happy to be both. In truth, however, the reality of the devil seems to me to be one of the most easily verifiable truths of our faith. Look around you. Watch the news. Read the paper. Also, consider your own mind and heart and the temptations that can grab you out of the blue. Consider how evil is dressed up as good in our culture. Consider any of the countless evidences of evil in the world.

Peter put it in these terms in 1 Peter 5:

⁸ Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Be sober-minded.

The devil exists.

He wishes to destroy you.

Jesus exists, is stronger than the devil, and has come to liberate us from the devil’s malicious attacks.

Fortunately, the existence of the devil is not the primary point of this story. In fact, the point of the story is that something stronger than the devil is here, and we can run to Him for safety!

The demons beseech Jesus, begging Him to send them into the pigs. They desire a host. Jesus, in order to free the man, agrees to their request.

¹³ So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

What is happening here? Let me suggest that Jesus has, in essence, tricked the demons in order to torment them. I used to read this as the demons entering the pigs and then the demons destroying the pigs. Or it can be read as the demons entering the pigs and the pigs, in a state of agitation, killed themselves. But it is most likely that Jesus allowed the demons to enter the pigs and then Jesus caused the pigs to hurl themselves into the sea.

Remember: demons want a host. They do not want to be disembodied. It would make no sense for the demons to enter the pigs in order to kill the pigs. They desire to inhabit something physical. Many have also pointed to Jesus’ words in Matthew 12, which we looked at earlier, as an explanation for what is happening in this scene.

⁴³ “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. ⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. ⁴⁵ Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

Some point out that Jesus says disembodied demons pass “through waterless places seeking rest” and, finding none, they return to their host. Many have interpreted this to mean that demons do not like water. Thus, Jesus allowing the demons to go into the pigs and then Jesus causing the pigs to hurl themselves into the sea is seen as Jesus’ tricking the demons knowing that He would hurl them into water which they hate.

All of this intriguing, but I would urge caution. It is simply not very clear what exactly Jesus means in Matthew 12 when he speaks of demons passing through “waterless places.” Is He speaking about literal water? Frankly, the context of that passage would seem to suggest so, but it is not necessarily so. What we must do is avoid allowing our imaginations to run so wild on some of these enigmatic statements and details that we concoct whole theologies around such theories.

Regardless of what exactly is happening with the demons, let us note that the more important point is what is happening with the man. He is utterly freed! Verse 13 is key.

^13a So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out…

Jesus has complete, unquestioned, unwavering, and uncontested authority over any and all forces of evil and darkness. The demons themselves recognized this.

Satan trembles before Jesus. They are not equal powers.

Satan is a creation. Jesus is the creator.

Satan corrupts what has been made. Jesus creates what has been made.

Satan twists the truth into a lie. Jesus is the truth.

Satan seeks to inhabit our bodies. Jesus created our bodies.

Satan fears the end. Jesus is the beginning and the end.

Satan has ferocious power from the vantage point of human beings. Satan is a sniveling coward from the vantage point of Jesus.

The power of Satan causes us to tremble. The power of Jesus causes us to fall on our faces like men and women struck dead.

It was the power of Jesus in this episode that truly terrified the people of Gerasa. Consider their reaction to this amazing display of divine power and deliverance.

¹⁴ The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. ¹⁵ And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. ¹⁶ And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. ¹⁷ And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. ¹⁸ As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. ¹⁹ And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” ²⁰ And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

Ah! The possessed man raging among the tombs was one thing…but this Jesus who has the authority to free him is quite another. The demon possessed man they feared. Jesus they feared and could not comprehend. Their reaction was like that of the disciples in Mark 4 after Jesus rebuked the sea and the howling winds that threatened them.

⁴¹ And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Time and again when people realize the awesome power of Jesus they draw back in fear.

The power of Christ is astonishing and unsettling! He has power of the sea and the waves and sickness and disease. He has power of the demons themselves!

Consider the “before and after” pictures we get of the Gerasene demoniac.

Before

³ He lived among the tombs…⁵ Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

After

¹⁵ And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

Wow! What a change! What an amazing change!

I ask you: what happened between verse 5 and verse 15? How do we go from insanity in the cemetery to sitting calmly in his right mind?

What happened between verse 5 and verse 15?

Jesus.

Jesus happened.

Consider this man’s before and after. Look at his before. Look at his after. Then look at Jesus who stands between the two.

Jesus came to free us from the attacks and cruelties of the devil!

Jesus will also take you from “before” to “after.”

How is the devil tormenting you? How is he harassing you? In what areas of your life have you allowed him to have a foothold? In what areas of your life have you allowed him influence? Where have you let him in?

Would you like to be free? What you like to be unshackled? Would you like to walk in peace before your God?

Christ and Christ alone can bring this about. Not on that, Jesus very much wants to bring this about in your life!

There is a power greater than the power of the evil one. The power of Jesus is unmatched. If you will come to Him, He will set you free!

 

[1] RJN, “While We’re At It,” First Things. March 1994.

[2] Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8. The Anchor Bible. Vol.27 (New Haven, CT: The Anchor Yale Bible, 2005), p.341-342.

[3] Adela Yarbo Collins, Mark. Hermeneia. Ed., Harold W. Attridge. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), p.268.

[4] Joel Marcus, p.344-345.

[5] James A. Brooks, Mark. The New American Commentary. Gen. Ed., David S. Dockery. Vol.23 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1991), p.90.

[6] Adela Yarbro Collins, p.269.

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck

[8] M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie. Vol.3 (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Audio, February 23, 2010), 59 min.,30 sec.