The Specific Perspective of the Detailed Stories⤒🔗

The gospels contain four stories about driving out demons that have been broadly developed. It is self-evident that these stories are very iconic for people who live in a later time. The stories relate the following episodes:

1. Driving out a demon who opposed Jesus in the synagogue in Capernaum (Mk 1:21ff; Lk 4:31ff).
2. Driving out a legion of demons in the land of the Gerasenes (Mk 5:1ff; Lk 8:26ff).
3. Driving out an unclean spirit from the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman (Mt 15:21ff; Mk 7:24ff).
4.  Healing the boy with an evil spirit after the transfiguration on the mountain (Mt 17:14ff; Mk 9:17ff; Lk 9:37ff).

However the Bible does not tell us these stories to give us a complete picture of the operation of demons. The first story is striking because it involves an aggressive evil spirit who wants to undermine Jesus’ authority. The man was not brought to Jesus to be healed, but instead attacks him. However, his attack is turned into a victory by Jesus. The second story takes place in heathen territory and is a sensational event in the course of which many pigs are drowned in the lake. At the same time the dangerous man becomes a preacher in the cities. This man did not come to be healed either, but was treated by Jesus on his own initiative. The third story involves a foreign woman and the essence of the story is that Christ gives the bread intended for the children also to the heathens. In a certain sense the driving out of the demon is just an incidental matter. The fourth story made a great impact on the memory of the disciples, because they could not drive out this evil spirit. Jesus did so by his sovereign act after he returned from the transfiguration. This was a difficult and obstinate case.

If we were to take these four stories as our point of departure to describe the work of demons, we would end up with a warped picture. Then we would have the impression that someone who has a demon acts aggressively, may display symptoms of epilepsy, and would be referred to today as mentally ill. However, we should turn the image round. It is self-evident that the casting out of this type of unclean spirit can become a story in and of itself. But in the context of the casting out of all demons, this type is not typical of the rest. That is clear from the following:

• The woman with a divining spirit in Philippi (Acts 16:16ff) was not aggressive or antisocial. She earned a lot of money for her masters. And people do not regard her as in need of healing, but rather as a person with a special talent.
• The woman who suffered for 18 years from a spirit of weakness and was bent over (Lk 13:10ff), does not fit the picture of ‘possession’.
•  The presence of a demon can also be evidence of deafness and muteness.
•  The Jews gave a false picture of Jesus by suggesting that he had a demon (Jn 8:48-49), or an unclean spirit (Mk 3:30), and that he drove out demons by Beelzebub (Mt 12:24). However, there was nothing in Jesus’ actions that made it possible to compare him, for example, to the demon-possessed man in Gadara, or to the boy possessed by an evil spirit. The people did not believe the slander either, not because Jesus displayed a normal human image, but because you cannot expect good things from a demon, such as opening the eyes of someone born blind (Jn 10:21). A ‘normal’ person such as Jesus could thus not become the subject of the slander that accused him of having an unclean spirit. Such a demon would then perform misleading signs that would make Jesus a heretic (a Samaritan, Jn 8:48) in the service of the devil.

We can therefore describe the working of demons in a broad way: demons are in the service of God’s opponent and take action against human beings. They can do so by employing people as instruments against God (apostates), or by tormenting them and, through them, their environment. We want to explore the latter in greater detail, by examining the relationship between illness and unclean spirits.

Illness and Demons←⤒🔗

There is probably a large gap between healing the sick and driving out demons for many Bible readers. For the modern person the healing arts and exorcism are two different domains that have no apparent connection. The danger is then that this view leads us to separate portions of what we read in the New Testament from each other that are actually closely connected and that are sometimes difficult to distinguish.

We cannot posit that healing the sick and driving out demons coincide in the New Testament. They are sometimes mentioned clearly and distinctly next to each other. As signs that will accompany those who believe, the Lord mentions driving out demons first and the healing of the sick by laying on of hands as the last in the list (Mk 16:17, 18). The two do not coincide. The same applies to the work of Philip in Samaria. Unclean spirits, crying out loudly, came out of many (Ac 8:7). Also many who were paralyzed and lame were healed and these people were not the same as those who had unclean spirits. Thus, the distinction between healing the sick and driving out unclean spirits is clear.

Still, this doesn’t mean that these two matters have nothing to do with each other. Often we find that they are closely connected, as if they were parts of the same package. Sometimes they even occur together.

Matthew 4:23 contains a general description of Jesus’ actions in this respect, namely, that he healed ‘every disease and affliction among the people’. In the more detailed description of disease and affliction in 4:24 are mentioned people ‘afflicted with various diseases and pains’, as well as ‘those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics’. The people that are possessed by a demon (v. 24) are regarded as a category of people who are healed of ‘disease and affliction’ (v. 23).

Besides people who are demon-possessed, this verse also mentions people who have seizures. Matthew uses this designation also in 17:15 (but it is not used elsewhere in the New Testament). However, in Matthew 17 it appears that the boy who had seizures is also regarded as the victim of a demon (17:18, 19). This teaches us that we cannot restrict the working of demons to people who are specifically identified as daimonizomenoi. That designation must therefore refer to a category of people that are dominated in a special or total manner by a demon.

Besides the demon-possessed and those suffering seizures, Matthew 4:24 also mentions paralytics. In Matthew 8:6 we read about a servant of a centurion who is paralyzed in a way that suggests the paralysis is caused by a demon. In the original Greek it says that the servant was cast down (beblètai). Thus, he is not someone who has been a paralytic and bedridden for years, but someone who was struck by paralysis. The centurion also assumes that the servant has been subjected to a power that can only leave the servant by command. He says that Jesus has only to speak the word and the servant will be healed. He knows how that works, for he also commands subordinates and says to one ‘Go’ and to another ‘Come’ (Mt 8:8-9). Although the word ‘demon’ does not appear in these verses, it seems clear that this paralysis is caused by a demon or spirit. Again it is apparent that the term used earlier, daimonizomenoi, refers to a special category and does not encompass all who are tormented by a demon, such as, for example, those who suffer seizures and paralytics. However, it is true also of these who are tormented especially, that their restoration falls under the rubric of healing of ‘disease and affliction’.

That there is a close connection between healing the sick and driving out demons is apparent also from Matthew 8:16-17. There we read first: ‘That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick’. And then Matthew summarizes it all by referring to a prophecy that promised that the Messiah would take all our illnesses on himself: ‘This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases”’. By quoting this prophecy that is now fulfilled, Matthew in effect places an acknowledgement around the driving out of spirits and the healing of seriously ill persons. There is a close connection, though there remains a distinction, in the texts in which the person who is demon-possessed is at the same time identified as having a condition that we would call ‘sickness’, or ‘disability’: a demon-possessed man who was mute (Mt 9:32), and a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute (Mt 12:22).

Luke 4:40-41 and Acts 5:16 and 19:12 are texts in which healing and driving out of demons are mentioned in one breath.

In conclusion we draw attention to a text in which the healing of the sick and the driving out of demons coincide. That is Luke 6:18. It speaks of a great crowd of people ‘who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases’. And Luke then continues ‘And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured’. It would be difficult to interpret this sentence in a restrictive sense, as if only those who were troubled by unclean spirits were helped. It can only mean that all sick people are identified here as people who are being troubled by unclean spirits. That doesn’t mean that all sick people are demon-possessed. Luke does not use the special word daimonizomenos (possessed by a demon). Instead, he uses a verb that expresses only that the burdens that weigh people down are the work of demons. There is a distinction between someone who is being hindered or troubled by unclean spirits and someone who is possessed by an unclean spirit. ¹ Not everyone who is troubled is a conquered fortress! But the language of Luke 6:18 does show us why healing and casting out of demons are so closely connected. In both cases the Lord interferes with the activity of the unclean spirits, although there is a difference between the removal of the torments and the restoration of those who were completely possessed. But even in the latter case there is again a difference between a hard possession and a possession that manifests itself in seizures, paralysis, deafness, and the like. Healing of the sick and driving out demons must be distinguished, but they cannot be separated from each other.