5:10-20
Legion Delivered and the Swine Sestroyed
“And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there on the mountain side a great herd of swine feeding. And they besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And he gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered into the swine: and the herd rushed down the steep into the sea, in number about two thousand; and they were choked in the sea. And they that fed them fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they came to see what it was that had come to pass. And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was possessed with devils sitting, clothed and in his right mind, even him that had the legion: and they were afraid. And they that saw it declared unto them how it befell him that was possessed with devils, and concerning the swine. And they began to beseech him to depart from their borders. And as he was entering into the boat he that had been possessed with devils besought him that he might be with him. And he suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go to thy house unto thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and how he had mercy on thee. And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel” (v. 10-20, R.V.).
In the conversations which took place on this occasion, especially as they are reported by Mark and Luke (who refer to one only of the two Gadarene demoniacs), there is evidence of the significant fact that the personality of the possessed man was overridden by the indwelling demons. It is not intended to investigate the psychological effects of this fact. The result, however, is noted because of its serious importance; and while this condition no doubt exists in every case of possession, it is here thrown into unusual prominence, since not a single demon but many had entered into this man. We have, therefore, alike in the dialog and the narrative, the use both of the singular number (indicating the man himself) and the plural (indicating the evil spirits). The phrases used and the speakers are shown in the following statement—
Singular Number:
(1) By the man to Jesus: “What have I to do with thee?” “Torment me not"; “My name is Legion.”
(2) By Jesus to the man: “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit “; “What is thy name?”
Plural Number:
(1) By the man to Jesus: “We are many.”
(2) By the demons to Jesus: “All the demons besought him, saying, Send us into the swine that we may enter into them.”
The two forms, singular and plural, are to be seen in close juxtaposition in verses 9 and 10: “And he asked him (sing.), What is thy (sing.) name? And he (sing.) answered, saying, My (sing.) name is Legion; for we (plur.) are many. And he (sing.) besought him much that he would not send them (plur.) away out of the country.”
The Lord addressed the man as the responsible person, asking him, “What is thy name?” and He also distinguished between the man who was oppressed and the evil powers which possessed him, saying, “Come forth out of the man, thou unclean spirit.” The man is regarded as tenanted by the evil spirit.
This distinction and identification is found in another connection of an opposite nature. As this case was one of a man indwelt by unclean spirits for purposes of evil, so we learn from the Epistles that those who believe the gospel of salvation (Eph. 1) are indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit of God, who is assuredly distinct in His personality from those whom He indwells, bearing witness indeed, as He does, with our spirit that we are the children of God (Rom. 8:1616The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: (Romans 8:16)). At the same time He, in a blessed way, identifies Himself with us, helping our infirmities, and making intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. The Lord Himself declared to His followers, referring to their testimony, “It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you” (Matt. 10:2020For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. (Matthew 10:20)).
Such facts as these shed some light upon the higher part of man's complex nature, and show that it is subject to that comprehensive law enunciated by the apostle Paul, when he said, “Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness” (Rom. 6:1616Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6:16))?
INTO THE SWINE BUT NOT THE ABYSS
The demons who feared the time of future torment had their requests to prefer to Him whom they knew and addressed as the Son of the most high God. They acknowledged His supreme authority even as Satan did when he came before Jehovah in the matter of His servant Job (Job 1). Here they besought the Lord that He would not send them out of the country, and, as Luke states, that He would not command them to go into the deep, or the abyss (Luke 8:3131And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. (Luke 8:31)).
The abyss is the Scriptural term for the place of confinement of evil spirits. The word in the original Greek is translated “bottomless pit” in the Apocalypse (Rev. 9:1, 2, 111And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. 2And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. (Revelation 9:1‑2)
11And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. (Revelation 9:11)). From thence the “beast” will arise who will make war upon the two witnesses and overcome them (Rev. 11:7; 17:87And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. (Revelation 11:7)
8The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. (Revelation 17:8)). According to the same series of prophecies, Satan will be imprisoned in the abyss during the thousand years of glorious peace under the reign of Christ (Rev. 20:1-31And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 3And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. (Revelation 20:1‑3)).
Possibly the abyss is the place of constraint, mentioned by Jude, in which certain evil angels have been already placed: “And the angels which kept not their first [proper] estate but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 66And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. (Jude 6)).
There was at any rate an evident fear on the part of these evil spirits, lest they should be forthwith condemned to confinement in the abyss, and thus be prevented “from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”
They admitted that Jesus had authority to eject them, for, as Matthew reports, they said, “If thou cast us out” (Matt. 8:3131So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. (Matthew 8:31)); and their desire was to enter the unclean swine, as if to exhibit and gratify their love of destruction. As Satan disguised himself as the serpent for subtlety (Gen. 3), and, to deceive the unwary, now transforms himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:1414And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)), also walking about as a roaring lion to devour the unresisting (1 Peter 5:88Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (1 Peter 5:8)), so here the unclean spirits sought permission to enter the herd of unclean swine. “Suffer us,” they said, thus owning, like Satan of old (Job 1), their impotence apart from the Supreme Will.
The Lord acceded to their request, and immediately they abandoned their human prey, and took possession of the herd of swine, wherein to display their destructive aims and thus to inspire men with a fear and dread, apart from which they have no power over them. Their maleficent propensities were at once exemplified; for the whole herd of animals was irresistibly impelled down the steep cliffs and perished in the sea. This destruction of property by Satanic influence acting through secondary causes is not without its parallel in Old Testament times. In the history of the calamities which came upon Job we are permitted to see that the sudden losses of his flocks and herds and children were attributable to the malice of Satan. To outward seeming the Sabeans captured the oxen and sheep; the Chaldeans carried away his camels; the fire from heaven burned up his sheep; the hurricane slew his sons and daughters; but all these casualties arose, as we learn from the inspired narrative, from the evil plottings of Satan which were permitted by Jehovah, who, however, overruled them all for the eventual and enhanced blessing of the patriarch.
In the instance at Gadara the fate of the swine forms a plain and unmistakable example of the tendencies and objects of Satan and his demons. The violent end of the beasts was but an analogy of the ultimate end of those who are under the direction and power of darkness. Only in the absence of that superior nature which man possesses in contrast with the brutes, destruction followed immediately after the entrance of the demons into the swine. They at once rushed to their death. In the case of man the end is similar though it may be reached more slowly. Whatever men may be deceived to think, the object of the evil one is to destroy, while that of the Holy One of God is to deliver and save.
The question of the loss incurred by the keepers of the swine, who were probably faithless Jews, is not discussed in the Gospels, neither is the question whether this loss came upon them by way of retribution for keeping the unclean animals contrary to the law of Moses. Indeed the “utility” argument, sometimes used as an objection that this destruction of animal life should be permitted by the gracious Savior, is irrelevant; since the wholesale loss of property has ever been of frequent occurrence through those inexplicable catastrophes which form such noticeable features in the inscrutable ways of divine Providence. Until we know the ultimate intention of Sovereign Wisdom, we are not in a position to understand nor to discuss the righteousness of such events, or of the miracle in question. Without knowing, faith is confident that all is working for good.
It may be added that another point concerning this and analogous cases is made clear by this incident. Demon-possession has a specific character. It is not, as some would allege, a form of disease nor the result of overpowering sinful propensities; the behavior of the animals when possessed proved the contrary. They were not carried away suddenly by some disease nor as suddenly filled by a swinish perversity to compass their own destruction. The truth was that the power of Satan was acting in a special manner to destroy them.
THE DELIVERED MAN
Those who witnessed the mad rush of the swine over the precipice spread the news in town and country, and numbers ("the whole city,” Matt.) flocked to Jesus to see the Author of this thing. They beheld not only the Prophet of Nazareth but the wild untamable man of the hill-tombs. In the latter they could not but observe the pacific change wrought by the Lord's word. They found him sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind. He now possessed that demeanor characteristic of the mental sobriety (σωφροσύνη) which is enjoined in the Epistles as a necessary element of Christian character (Rom. 12:33For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. (Romans 12:3); 1 Peter 4:77But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. (1 Peter 4:7); et al.). The inward influence of that hateful power for evil and self-destruction had been withdrawn. The man was now under the benign and gracious influence of the meek Man of sorrows whom demons fear and obey. The voice that had hushed the riotous elements the previous night had spoken peace to this troubled spirit. And he who had hitherto resisted all human efforts to curb his violence is seen to have succumbed to the word of the Master.
Thus the deliverance was complete; and this mental and physical emancipation is an illustration of the liberating effect which the gospel ever exercises upon the whole man who comes to the Savior. There is a spiritual liberty wherewith Christ makes men free. The Lord Jesus delivers the believer from the power of darkness (Col. 1:1313Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: (Colossians 1:13)), from the course of this age, from the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Eph. 2), bringing him from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:1818To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:18)).
[W. J. H.]
(To be continued)