Luke 8:33 Commentary and Bible Study

Isn't that interesting? Why did the Lord do that? Why did the Lord cause these devils, these demons, these powers, to go into the swine so that they were destroyed? There are a number of reasons. What a picture it is of the destructive power of the forces of evil. What a picture it must have been to this man, why he was possessed by these powers, running among the tombs, cutting himself, throwing off his clothes, forsaking his home. But now he is healed, and the power that was in him is put into these 2000 swine and immediately they go mad. That would have left a permanent impression on the mind of that man of the depths of evil that he had been delivered from, and the power which had been cast out of him. But there's another point here. These Gadarene people were very probably Jews – though some debate this, and this was a Gentile area (see Hendriksen on Mark’s Gospel, page 198-199) – and Jews should not have been keeping these pigs. It was against the ceremonial law, against the Mosaic law for the Jews to keep these pigs. These people were a little bit off the beaten track. You had to either sail across to them or you had to work your way round Galilee by a pretty tortuous road. Nobody knew what they were up to. They were a little Gadarene family of Jews, quite a sizeable population, right out on a limb by themselves. The law said that the Jew was not supposed to eat pork. He wasn't supposed to keep it; he wasn't supposed to breed it, but these people didn't care about that, they were going to play double. So they had this great 2,000 herd of swine up on the hillside and it seems that what God did was this: when the Lord Jesus Christ cast out these demonic powers and sent them into the swine, what he was doing was putting his finger on the local community sin. These people were playing double with God. Although it doesn't apply now today, God had forbidden them to do that. It was part of their obedience to God that they observed these laws. They were also in their interests for hygiene reasons in those days, but primarily this was one of God's laws, and these people maintained their synagogue worship, and yet played double. They were hypocrites in other words, and what God was doing here was putting his finger on this glaring act of hypocrisy. The Saviour comes to their region; he lands and he deals with the worst person in the entire neighbourhood; he casts out the forces occupying him and he restores him and he converts him so that the man is whole and in his right mind. He might have blessed those other people too, but first of all he brings them under conviction. He demonstrates that he is the Saviour of the world. Nothing is concealed from him, he knows their duplicity, he knows their hypocrisy, and if they are going to turn to him it must be a complete and whole-hearted turn. It must be an honest and open repentance and to demonstrate that all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do, he exposes their doublemindedness. What is the result? Are they humbled? Do they come? Do they repent? Are they moved? Do they realise that they are hypocrites? Do they admit that if they repent before this man, they have got to do so openly and honestly? No. They come and they beseech him to go away. What a tragedy this is! He crosses the lake for one man. The others beseech him that he would go away.