GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 4:33
In this Gospel account there is an echo of yesterday’s terrible shooting in a Baptist Church in central Texas. We pray that God will bring comfort to the survivors with the true compassion of God our Savior.
33 In the synagogue there was a man who was possessed by a spirit, an unclean demon. He cried out with a loud voice,
We’re still in Capernaum during a church service where Jesus was preaching. Suddenly, there was a disturbance: a man there in the synagogue started shouting. Before we examine his words, we should explore three things. First, what’s a demon? Second, are there still demon possessions today? Third, why does Luke use the unusual expression, “a spirit, an unclean demon”?
What’s a demon?
A demon is not the Devil, but another fallen angel like the Devil. All of the angels who fell from God’s grace did so at the same time, shortly after the week of creation. We know that they didn’t fall during that week because on the seventh day, God saw that the whole of creation was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). What happened? We’re not exactly sure. In some way, they “did not keep their positions of authority, but abandoned their own home” (Jude 6). They sinned against God in some way. It may have been pride: “In the pride of your heart you say, ‘I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas’” (Ezekiel 28:2), or it may have been some other sin. But they were once God’s holy angels, and having sinned, they were expelled from heaven forever. They were cast “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). So hell was fashioned by God for them as their prison, and now, before their eternal sentence commences with their final judgment, they rage and fling themselves with mad fury against God’s people on earth (“He is filled with fury, because he knows his time is short,” Revelation 12:12).
Demons sometimes terrorize people by inhabiting them. This seems especially true if the person is without faith, or has a weak faith, but not always. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that a person who is possessed for a second time is a person without faith. Jesus explained: “When an evil 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.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes in and taken 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” (Luke 11:23-26).
Are there still demon possessions today?
How can we keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from demon possession? Is it a real condition that persists today? As a matter of fact, demonic possession seems to be on the rise in North America and throughout the world. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, reports that the number of Catholic exorcists (priests who have performed an exorcism) has risen from 12 to 50 in the past twelve years (2005-2017, an increase of more than 300%). In my ministry so far, the only exorcism I’ve been asked to perform was here in the city I serve now, just one year ago. Martin Luther encouraged his people—both lay people and pastors—to keep studying the word of God and to keep meditating on the Catechism:
“Read the Catechism daily,” Luther wrote. “(God) solemnly commands in Deuteronomy 6:6-8 that we should always meditate on his precepts, sitting, walking, standing, lying down, and rising. We should have them before our eyes and in our hands as a constant mark or sign. Clearly, he did not solemnly require and command this without a purpose. For he knows our danger and need, as well as the constant and furious assaults and temptations of devils. He wants to warn, equip, and preserve us against them, as with a good armor against their fiery darts, and with good medicine against their evil infection and temptation” (Preface to the Large Catechism). Stay in the word of God, and keep praying for God’s help and protection.
“A spirit, an unclean demon”
We also have a translation question: Why does Luke use the unusual expression, “a spirit, an unclean demon”? Normally, the Gospel writers just say that a person was demon-possessed, or mention a demon. But in this case, Luke combines the terms and adds the qualifier that the demon was “unclean.” The full phrase is not easy to render from Greek into precise English. More literally, it was “a spirit of an unclean demon” (pneuma daimoniou akathartou, πνεῦμα δαιμονίου ἀκαθάρτου).It may help us to notice that throughout the Bible, “unclean” is generally a moral or religious uncleanness, such as when someone comes into contact with blood, or a corpse, or an unclean animal. In Luke’s Gospel, “unclean” is only used of evil spirits. This makes sense when we remember that Luke’s audience was a Gentile, the Greek or Trojan Theophilus, who may also have been a physician. Theophilus would have had little or no contact with the Old Testament Scriptures yet, so Luke doesn’t worry about other forms of uncleanness. But a Gentile would understand about spirits and demons. The Oracle at Delphi, for example, was a girl supposedly possessed by the demon called the Pythia. Luke wanted Theophilus (and us) to understand that this spirit was not a good one, and being overwhelmed by it, to have one’s arms and legs and even one’s voice taken over was a terrible violation. The man, a Jew in the habit of going to the synagogue, had been taken over by this demon, who had either allowed him to proceed as usual to worship or had entered into him while he was there in the synagogue. But the words of Christ were too much for it. It had to screech, to scream, to shout out in protest. No one can stand before the Living God. And there is our comfort. No demon, not even the Devil, can withstand the gospel of Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus, spoken by someone with faith in Jesus for eternal life, will drive the demon away. You trust in Jesus to forgive your sins; the matter of the location of a demon is a trivial thing in comparison. Trust in Jesus for the sake of your eternal soul, and he will guard and protect that soul in every way, all your life, and into eternity.
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