GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 4:36-37
36 They were all amazed and began to say to one another, “What is this word? With authority and power he commands unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37 News about him spread to every place in the surrounding area.
The people of Capernaum came close to understanding who Jesus is, but they fell short. Their questions revolved around three concepts, but not the person of Jesus Christ. They wanted to know about the word (logos, λόγος), the authority (exousia, ἐξουσία), and the power (dynamis, δύναμις). But they didn’t ask about the man who had all of those things. They focused their attention on the details and not the source. Jesus’ authority over demons demonstrated his authority over everything, but the people of Capernaum failed to see what that meant.
Man cannot command demons to do anything—unless they do so by the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 16:18). Even then, it is not a magical formula, but the faith that connects us to Christ which matters. We see this played out in the story of the seven sons of Sceva, who tried to drive out a demon without faith, and got “such a beating (from the demon!) that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding” (Acts 19:13-16).
Angels also cannot drive out other demons, but struggle against them (Daniel 10:13) or rebuke them—but even this is in the name of Lord, and not through the power of the angel. Even the archangel Michael must invoke the name of the Lord (Jude 9). But not Jesus. Jesus commands, and the demons obey. This is a divine work, capable of being done only by the Lord God himself. Since Jesus has the authority of God, and since Jesus does the works only God can do, there is only one conclusion we can reach about Jesus: He is God.
Christians must resist the temptation to fall in with the people of Capernaum, trying to separate the words and works of Jesus from Jesus. This is what happens when people want to claim their redemption on their own. When someone wants to raise up a tradition, or good works (either one’s own or the works of another), or a decision made in one’s own heart, or some other satisfaction for sin apart from Christ and Christ alone, they have turned from Christ and removed Christ completely from their path to heaven. But Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
None of us is worthy of heaven. None of us is worthy of God’s grace. But that’s part of the meaning of “grace.” It is undeserved love; love we didn’t merit; love we never had coming. But God loved us anyway, and graciously sent his Son Jesus to show us who he is through his powerful miracles, to teach us with his powerful word, and to be victorious over sin, death, the grave, the Devil, and even over my own sinful flesh (and yours) to ransom us and redeem us.
Let this be the news you spread among the people you love and through the surrounding countryside, and in the streets of your city, and up and down the pews of your church. Jesus Christ is God, the only Savior from sin. Trust in him.
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