Mark 1:23 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 1:23

Comments

Why does Mark select the healing of the demon-possessed man as the first attestation in his Gospel? Peter, the ultimate author of this Gospel, had been at Cana in Galilee; he had seen the turning of water into wine. He may have been among those who knew about the healing of the nobleman’s son, and he knew about other miracles too. Well, the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee wasn’t a healing miracle. Mark (or Peter) seems to prefer a public healing to begin his Gospel and the healing of the nobleman’s son was not observed by many people, so he selects this one first. Capernaum was a city of nominal worshippers, scrupulous in following their Jewish worship, but with no life in the soul. No doubt there were a minority of people who earnestly believed and followed after God, but mostly they were to be condemned as one of the three unrepentant cities that rejected the ministry of Christ. This man with an unclean spirit was demonised and the interesting thing is, ‘He cried out, saying, Let us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth. Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the holy one of God.’ There is no doubt that it was the demon that spoke, and he spoke of the destruction of demons, and yet in a way that the demon did not intend and the demonised man would never have grasped; he spoke for virtually everyone in that synagogue. This was to be the outcome for Capernaum. When they saw his healings and his miracles, they were to say, ‘He must be divine; he must be from God.’ In a way, they assented to him, but they never received him, and they never repented of their sin and accepted his message of the need for conversion. What a miracle to select as the first in this Gospel! It is the worst possible case. A person could be blind but this is even worse. A demon possessed man was barely human, impossible for the people to cure, and of course frightening and alarming. What was he doing in the synagogue? We would like to think, that if there was demon possession today, no possessed person would want to be in a Bible-believing church, because there would be too many calls for repentance. But in that synagogue in Capernaum there was evidently so little of true religion that that demon possessed man was not uncomfortable to be in that place. ‘Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?’ In this case, the word ‘we’ does not mean multiple demons occupied the man, but he speaks as one of that vast host of fallen angels, demons under Satan. The demon knew that Messiah was coming and would destroy them. He does not say it out of respect. He is only identifying the office of Christ. He hates holiness. Although the occupying demon recognised Christ, he rejected him, he feared him. The last thing he wanted was for the man he occupied to be converted.

Application

Here is this demonised man saying, ‘Have you come to destroy us demons? You keep to your sphere; we will keep to ours.’ ‘What have we to do with thee?’ We have nothing in common. Isn’t this how some of us think before we are converted? He utters a prayer against God. Go away; in effect, leave me alone. Who is saying that to God? You may happen to be in church, but in your own private life you are praying against any influence of God in your life. What a tragedy that is, dear friends. What an awful thing to push away the Saviour of the world. This is Christ’s world. He made everyone. He owns everyone by rights. We owe him our lives. If we fail to repent and seek him and find him, we will be eternally judged. We have no right to be here as rebels against God. People say, I don’t want to be changed, or become a Christian. I won’t talk deeply with that Christian again. They are trying to get away from any influence of the gospel on them.

Questions

It seems that in Bible times demons could occupy human beings, often without any desire on the part of those people; even children were demonised. The demons of darkness could to a considerable extent get into people, Gentiles as well as Jews. It was a terrible thing. In this case it seems that this man was deeply immoral and so abandoned in his life that he exposed himself to possession, but apparently some people were demonised who did not expose themselves to it, and there appears to have been quite a rise in this phenomenon just before the coming of Christ. The reason was that Christ would cast them out, and one of the great blessings and benefits to this fallen world since the time of Christ, is that there has been very little demon possession. What became almost common-place was eradicated. It was a sign. Nowadays there is not the same involuntary demon possession. It appears you can only become demonised, if you sell yourself out to it. Perhaps you would be up to your neck in occult practice.

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Introduction

Mark 1:23 Commentary and Bible Study