In this chapter we have an actual blessed display of Christ's power, and an evidence that the quiet influence of Satan is as fatal as the violent power he may display, and deliverance rests not on that but Christ's exercising His power, for the Legion was delivered, and the body of the Gadarenes sent Christ away. So, I apprehend, we have the account of what is consequent upon Christ's coming over, as it were, to the other side of this dispensation-the deliverance of a Remnant. The ruin and destruction of the swine, the filthy ungodly, by the presence of Christ Himself, given up to Satan, and then the Remnant spared, not allowed to go with Jesus, but sent back to say what He had done for him. But as Jesus really left the Jewish people then, so it had its effect then indeed too, for the Remnant were delivered, saved, let them have been the worst of all, it matters not then, and judgment and ruin coming on the Jewish people, the delivered Remnant were sent into all the country (first addressed to their own house, the Jews) to declare what Jesus had done for them. The opposition of those delivered proved nothing. Satan may have the most actual power, short of destruction, over those whom God is going to deliver, and the Lord may permit it, that his delivering power may be manifested for man's help. There cannot be a more instructive moral lesson of the manner and effects of Christ's delivering power moreover than this-its application to an individual soul, from the divine power which has preserved him, from the first thing which the demons did with the whole herd, though man could do nothing of it, to his desire to be with Jesus, and the duty set upon him by Jesus, on his deliverance, is most deeply and fully instructive; and also its effect on the unbelieving world, not themselves the subjects of this deliverance- this, in the view of Satan's power and bondage.
In spite of the rejection of Christ through the disturbance he makes-which Satan makes and is allowed to make, for Christ does not yet bind him, though He may deliver from him, quod nota-they prayed to be let stay there, and they were, but they use this permission to raise prejudice against Christ, and this was not hindered. But, though sent away by the world as Jesus was, because it created disturbance, or Satan did by these swinish enemies, the patient Lord of all grace having delivered from Satan, again introduces the Church, as it were, as the instrument of ministry in the midst of the world out of which He has been compelled to depart, sending it as the witness of what He has done for it. He says "God," and Legion justly says "Jesus." Such is the place of the Church on Jesus' departure from the world-lose this, and it loses the sense of its obligation to Jesus, as we have before noticed. First sent to His house, the Jews, but going in zealous sense of Christ's benefits and glory, throughout the region, then sent (the Church's office), and that as delivered. It is a beautiful picture of this grace. No evidence of grace in answer, without grace changes the heart. Loss of swine is more than deliverance of Legion, and the presence of God, even in deliverance, is painful to them that know Him not. The whole is a most perfect and instructive picture of Christ's brief presence in the world, its operations, and effects, and what they will be. I apprehend too that these two passages give us a picture of the Church in its trials-the storm when Jesus seems asleep, but they are to know that in divine security He is in the ship with them; hence the security of the Church down here in Him, and that in its greatest difficulties, tossed on the sea, cast, a little remnant as it were, among the waves of the sea which it cannot control. Secondly, in its duties-not yet allowed to be with Jesus, but sent back to the Jew as primarily thence (and the world) as an actual consequence to testify what God has done for it, though the world may have already rejected Him that did it. Also, I apprehend him that had been possessed by Legion, and those in the ship to be the Jewish Remnant which became the Church, the nation being condemned. The other ships " with him " (verse 36) might note the place of the other Gentile assemblies engaged in the storm, and brought to rest by the calm, though no further mention of them is made here. I have already noticed the latter day application of the Legion, and abstractedly it would apply to the ship too. Christ secures the elect, separated Remnant, though apparently entirely out of the way and asleep. And so in the Psalms and Prophets the Lord is often called upon to awake. In both instances they come to Him, first in unbelief, then counting His presence only a torment, and begging the Lord not to torment them, and adjuring Him by God not to torment him.
And note, we have a fresh instance here of the "possessed by an unclean spirit," and how the Legion of spirits identified themselves so with the man, that he speaks as himself though it be them. If the reading be right we have: "he besought him that he would not send them away." It is called, though many are confessed to be there, and therefore his name, Legion. "And he said to him... because we are many "; " And they besought him, saying." It is deeply and solemnly instructive this, and shows the power and complete possession, where Satan has possession. They are his goods, not the saints, though the latter may be tempted, and delivered to him " that they may learn," etc., and their spirit be saved. But he is in the world, and his power, as we see in the Gadarenes, is just as great though it be quiet; so we see in the unhappy Jews. He may, as in Legion, terrify to make men think that is all and remain quiet in their supposed difference (and perhaps just that one be the delivered one, though with the only effect on the world, to cry " Jesus "), therefore to go away and prove themselves the same as the first, only more open confession in him to whom Jesus was, because it was not their deception but " torment me not but I know thee." Look at the Jews, unwilling to go into the judgment hall when they had been accusing the Son of God before Pilate, and the name and nominal righteousness of God just blasphemed before a notoriously bad heathen by such pretense; they had bought His blood, knowing really the sin, seeing too and hating Him, and ready even to kill Lazarus, that the proof might not exist. But they could not go into the un-defiling judgment hall to accuse Him. How horrible is the mind of man under this influence! So Judas-he was no Legion, no untamed madman, evil as he was before the Lord. " One of you is a devil," said the Lord.
-5. Satan's power is paramount to nature, though ordinarily he may act on it, and we may quietly act under him with a reason, or follow our evil bent. But Satan tempting is a very different thing from Satan's power. There is sin in the former, because we follow the bent that God condemns; but the latter is paramount to nature-not sin but misery. This may be seen a little in despair, when the inclination to sin may be quite gone, and the power of Satan, even if used as chastening, much more seen. So here, the natural causes of fear were lost upon the man. The energy in him was paramount to the feelings of the flesh, even in what was connected with the fall. He wandered amidst death and desolation night and day; I do not say he did not feel the death and desolation. He seems to have been miserable, " crying and cutting himself with stones." That may be, still there was the paramount power, yet restrained. Had Satan done the first thing uncontrolled, as he seemed to, and uncontrollable as he was by man-had he done the first thing he did with the swine when permitted, the poor maniac had never seen or met Jesus. But there was a hand that held him in spite of all his power, and the raging display of it. But measured power is more confessed subjection than doing nothing, though it may show power and evil; so Jannes and Jambres-none but God could control that-it was " the finger of God." But Jesus was the manifestation of this power, and they knew Him, and asked His permission. It was He that had restrained them before too the same power. How blessed is this! Though humbling to see where we are, yet what a sight to see where Jesus is, and where He has brought in power! "If God be for us, who against us? " Power manifested in and for us, and that, though with divine power, His own power, yet in circumstance in dependence. Yet our joy is to see it in Him, for evil is, and the permission of its full exhibition, and that absolutely restrained in its highest exercise, uncontrolled apparently, always restrained by the power that now in humiliation for us, and that, by its worst effects in us, absolutely casts it out. There are wonderful truths (of grace); but what is not wonderful in Jesus? But in this state of things, there is no pretension to fellowship with Jesus. It is really a safer, more healthy state of things than being blindly led by lusts, or tranquilly following the world, thinking the possession of pigs in quietness better than the presence of Jesus, though His gracious, powerful deliverance was manifested. Yet how much of this remains in our hearts! There is a despair like Judas, when Satan has possessed us by our lusts against Christ after knowledge of Him in the flesh-that is, of course, a different thing.
6. It does not appear that our Lord was ever in the country of the Gadarenes before.
12. No doubt this, their will, was under divine control, for the purpose of exhibiting the real agency of the evil spirits.
21. We have here, I apprehend, the ministry of Christ with the Jewish people (all His ministry on earth was with the Jewish people-He speaks to us from heaven, from an accomplished work, though there may be many analogous circumstances and identical principles, such as the sowing but here with the Jewish people), and here on two principles, saving from death, and revivifying when dead. He was by the seaside, as we have seen before, on the border of Gentile waters as an outcast from the Jewish earth, holding thus His place as not one of them (now) but come to them. But, having passed over again, the Jewish condition is fully before Him. The proposal of the ruler of the synagogue was to come and heal his son, and Jesus went to do it. So He came to Israel, not as dead though found so, though Christ might, and did, and had to speak in vivifying power, but as to be healed. The great multitude were with Him, and they followed Him. He was going to heal this sick little daughter. What He will do when He really comes is to raise dead Israel. He did come to heal her, but she was found dead. But in the way, while the multitude were about Him, while in the way, there was one- this poor woman-one who had spent all her substance on physicians, and was only worse, where there was the sense of evil and ruin, and the discovery that help from man was hopeless, where there was also faith in Jesus while He was in the way in the midst of the crowd which followed, and, in the exercise of personal faith touched though it were but His garment. Thus did she now; and this was the way of their safety-individual believers among the Jews-and virtue went out of Him The crowd were about Him, but one individual touched Him in the active exercise of faith. Here is the plain distinction as to means. They were saved from death; all was dying around them. The Jewish nation was now witnessed as a body of death. They might crowd around the Savior (even after the scribes, etc., had blasphemed Him) but there still was not what alone now was of avail-the personal exercise of faith (through grace) and consequent identification with the life and the power that was in Christ. But some did touch Him, and were made perfectly whole. And this, in principle therefore, would apply to the Gentiles, for it is one God who justifies the "circumcision on the principle of faith," and, therefore, the "uncircumcision by faith"-a principle which at once brings them in, as the Apostle argues in the Romans, or rather the Spirit of God. But, in fine, the Lord reaches the one He had set out to visit, and she is actually dead, but He knew the power of life in Himself, and therefore calls it only sleep, and knew it in His sense to be so. But there was the manifest power of death on her, as far as all man's power, or thought, or skill went, and the Lord raised her, saying, " Damsel, I say to thee, Arise," and straightway she stood up and walked. All this paragraph, however, is the instruction of faith in the Lord's intercourse with the Jewish people, though necessarily therefore bringing in the Gentiles " by faith."And the ruler of the synagogue presents to us the exercise of that spirit of faith which watches over the condition of the dear Remnant, which in fact constitutes and is identified in such a mind with the nation. And thus is there exercise of faith which first seeks restoration, recovery, and so life, "so that she may be healed, and may live."Jesus goes with this, and in the way the exercise of individual faith finds His power wasted, ruined, hopeless as to itself, but, through grace, in earnest. Then, this passed-this instructive lesson of the individual energy of hidden faith, ashamed of itself, of its condition, but soon brought out of it and manifested in blessing-it is discovered to this faith which sought Jesus for recovery, and among the Jews, this was answered to see if anything could be found in man for recovery, to act upon; there was nothing-it was dead, whatever thoughts of Jesus might have been in hope before. It was let know to this faith that hope of this sort was gone.
Note, Jesus is sometimes found of them that seek Him not, and so with the Gentiles, when those to whom He went as to recover are found past hope. It was an ill-arranged hope, not the faith of the centurion which was Gentile faith not found in Israel, who felt some right in Messiah, but had none for she was dead. Jairus says, "Come and lay thy hands upon her." This was desire indeed, but feeble because it expected something, as having some claim; he was a ruler of the synagogue. And such must for the centurion to bring Christ to heal his servant. Satan soon sends in, on this ground of unbelief, the sentence of hopelessness, " Why yet troublest thou the teacher? "All savored of Israel, and the •world, and its worldly state. How different the centurion! "Thy daughter is dead." Here the Lord steps in at once, and sustains the feeble but faithful faith of the poor ruler, "Fear not; only believe." Thus the need having once fixed on Jesus, raises the character of the faith higher. Jesus must come in, in resurrection or not at all now, but He ministers in grace against the machinations of the enemy suggesting it was too late. And then, for it was as yet no public testimony, one may almost say against, or at least closingly to the nation, but confirming the faith of those who leaned on Him, and who were to be witnesses, taking the three Apostles (who afterward seemed to be pillars) and putting the rest out, He raised her by His word, and taking care for her life, as well as giving it, commanded to give her meat. The calm exercise of saving power in the midst of, or shutting out this lamenting and hopeless unbelief. Thus will His power be shown in the resurrection of the Remnant of that people whom He in vain sought alive. It was pure power, without any help in her, yet ministered to and answered that Gentile faith which had loved her and sought her restoration to health (such we find in Lazarus, such we find, even such we find in Jesus Himself in His resurrection).
- 28-34. Nothing could be more beautifully touching than the artless simplicity and thorough confidence as to Him, and humility as to herself, of this poor woman, and the Lord's instant and necessary recognition of the least act of faith. Let the crowd be ever so great, His occupation ever so, to us, absorbing (for He was above all things) or the sorrowful pressure upon His spirit of the circumstances and state of them, He loved the Jewish people. He was alone, but He entered into all things.
- 36. What gracious haste to intercept the effect of the word from sinking the ruler's heart in unbelief. See chapter 9.