GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 4:35
35 Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” The demon threw him down in sight of all who were there and came out of him without harming him.
Luke describes the reaction of the demon in medical terms. First, he says that the demon “threw him down” (rhipto, ῥίπτω). Greek physicians used this word to describe convulsions and similar fits in patients (there are many cases in Hippocrates, Galen, and Aretaeus, especially when describing epilepsy and its convulsions). Second, Luke says that the demon came out of the man “without harming him.” Here, Dr. Luke uses the word blapto (βλάπτω), “to harm,” with was used by physicians as the opposite of the word opheleo (ὠϕελέω), “to benefit, to help.” Reporting not only the convulsion, but that the man was not harmed, is exactly the way a Greek-speaking physician would report an event.
We wondered in the previous verse whether we should listen to the words of a demon, even in Scripture. I proposed that since the Holy Spirit had recorded the words, we have nothing to fear from them, but that we should never trust words directly spoken by a demon. Jesus says it much better here with the way he treats the creature. He silences it. And more than that, he draws it out: “Come out of him!” Notice that Jesus separates the man from the demon possessing him, both physically and grammatically. He does not associate the poor man with the demon at all; he simply commands the demon and the demon can do nothing except obey. Pastor R.C.H. Lenski said: “This was a display of the omnipotent power of Jesus right in Satan’s own domain. The raising of the dead as well as this expulsion of demons by a single command exhibit Jesus’ power in the highest degree” (Luke, p. 267).
Even if a demon or the Devil himself should reveal something to a Christian, something that might seem good or even helpful, he is not to be trusted. The Devil never, ever, has man’s good in mind. He only wants to devour men’s souls. “Thus in the Gospel accounts,” Luther says, “Christ upbraids the devils who acknowledge that he is the Son of God and commands them to be silent. Men who are openly evil should be treated in the same manner if they have not repented; and we should believe evil from them rather than good, lest they deceive us by some appearance or pretext of piety and respectability” (LW 7:242, lecturing on Genesis 42:9-11).
Talking and even reading about demon-possession is frightening. Americans are used to the thrill of a scary movie, but this is no film or fiction. We’re not talking about Barnabas Collins. Demons and demon possession are as real as our human flesh, but we should remember that we have put our faith in Christ, the very Holy One of God who commands them and who drives them away. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Christ himself has and possesses your heart and your life, because you have faith in him. We belong to him because he bought us with his own blood on the cross. The gates of hell cannot overcome him, and through him we have a place forever in heaven.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota