Even the Demons Obey Him (Mark 1: 21-28)
Even the Demons Obey Him
Mark 1:21-28
Introduction
Americans today are obsessed with demons. I mean that literally. 30% of Americans say that they consult astrology, tarot cards, or fortune tellers at least occasionally. Between 800k and 1.5 million people identify as Wiccan—up from 8000 in 1990. Much of this is driven by social media. Instagram and TikTok provide a fertile soil in which young people might be trained in Tarot reading, spellcasting, and manifestation practices. You can even find spells for sale on Etsy.
This interest has grown in proportion to both the destabilizing of culture and the decline of traditional religion. Even last week I met someone who described themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” The desire of most in the world today is spiritual anarchy, where everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Spirituality is something to experiment with, much like drugs (which are often involved in these practices). It is not something tied to the objective and hard realities of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, his word and his people.
What was once said about the discounting of the supernatural because of a belief in science or distractions from culture can no longer be said today. Both the culture and the church seem to be intensely interested in the demonic.
The Bible takes the existence of Satan and demons for granted. It does not argue for them but assumes them. 1 John 4:1 – “Beloved do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Ephesians 2:1-3 and 6:10f assumes the close involvement of demonic forces in the world today. Demons are nothing more than unclean spirits—evil angels who fell with Satan in his rebellion against God (Rev 12:14). Some of them are in prison (Jude 6) and will be released during the last days (Reb 9:13-19). Many of them still roam free on the earth (as evidenced by our passage and other NT passages). And their goal is the same as their leader: “steal, kill, and destroy.” They promote disunity in the church. They propagate false doctrine. In some cases, they can discourage and oppress. They tempt to sin.
While it is unwise to be preoccupied with such realities, and while we should not blame our problems and sins on demonic activity, we nonetheless must remember two things about the demonic realm: it exists, and it is under Jesus’ authority.
This is an important point for Mark, and for Peter who is the primary source for Mark’s material. In fact, Peter frequently mentioned demons in his letters. 1 Peter 3:19 says that Jesus was made alive in the spirit “in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared.” Just a few verses later (1 Peter 3:22) says that Jesus has gone into heaven, “and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.” 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world." 2 Peter 2:4 says, “God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.”
The war that God has been waging on Satan stretches back to the very beginning of the human story. Satan twisted the image of God in the garden, and God immediately cursed him by promising a coming offspring of the woman who would crush the head of the snake. That offspring, throughout the OT, is none other than the Messiah, who is none other than Jesus as Mark has been presenting him to us. Constantly the OT is promising that the coming Messiah would be one to crush his enemies under his feet. And now that the Messiah has arrived (1:1-13) and declared that his kingdom is at hand (1:14-15), he now establishes his authority as king by beginning to topple Satan’s kingdom. While Jesus enters the stage preaching, the first act that he performs to establish the authority of his teaching is to cast out a demon.
Jesus establishes his authority by casting out a demon. He comes teaching “as one who had authority” (v22), which they recognize: “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” The king of all things has come, and if he is the king of all things, he cannot allow opposing petty tyrants to remain in power. In fact, Jesus himself will make this point in Mark 3:22-27. The scribes accuse him of casting out demons by Satan (Beelzebul), but Jesus responds that is not possible. What they were seeing was not the dividing of Satan’s house, but the toppling of his kingdom, the binding of the strong man, the plundering of his house. So, let us unfold this story in three parts.
I. Part I: Jesus Teaches with Authority (1:21-22)
Jesus enters Capernaum with Peter, Andrew, James, and John in tow. A beautiful costal town on the northwest of the Sea of Galilee. It was a busy and thriving town, with a large highway running through it leading the Mediterranean costal towns in the west and Damascus in the east. About 100 Roman soldiers would have been stationed there. It was rich in trade, particularly the fish that came from the sea, as well as farms, orchards, vineyards. It was prosperous, judging by Peter’s possession of a house and Zebedee having hired servants. In many ways, it would have been the picture of a peaceful, idyllic, coastal town.
Jesus coming into Capernaum was not just a convenient start. It was the tangible beginning to his conquest of the land. It is his base of operations for his ransacking of Galilee. It is the home base of the king.
The principle building in Capernaum would have been the synagogue. Archaeological remains still stand in the town today. It would have been made of large white chiseled limestone blocks, highlighted in stark contrast to the general brown or black of the other houses. It was the center of the town, the center of life, ornately decorated, the place of the gathering of the Jews every Sabbath to hear Moses read and taught.
Jesus, being by this time an established and known preacher, went to synagogue on Sabbath just like any Jew would have done. It was customary to ask traveling teachers or Rabbis to give a word of instruction of exhortation to the people. Jeus, having the reputation he did, naturally would have been asked. And so Jesus, our text says “entered the synagogue and was teaching.”
Such teaching had never been heard before. In fact, Jesus’ teaching was so powerful, so full of force, so filled with ethos and pathos and logos that “they were astonished at his teaching.” Literally overwhelmed. So astonished you can’t handle it. “Blown away” in our parlance. And the reason was that he came not in the typical teaching style they were used to, but in the line of the prophets of the OT.
Jesus spoke with an authority that came directly from God, an authority that was not dependent on the long traditions of teachers that the scribes so loved. We know something of this. We’ve all listened to preachers or teachers who do nothing but traffic in commentaries, quoting this and that theologian, all to gain an air of authority, erudition, distinction in his own knowledge. But that is not the kind of authority that a prophet bore. The prophet comes with a declaration of fact: “This is what God says. It is not my opinion. I’m not here to taut what hundreds of others have said. I speak for God.” While it isn’t necessarily what Mark is saying about Jesus, this is how we try to teach here. When I speak to you, I want to speak as on in accordance with what Paul says, “Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you” (Titus 2:15).
Jesus’ teaching had authority. While the scribes dealt with trivial matters like tithing mint and dill and cumin, Jesus dealt with weighty matters of the conscience, the heart, the law, justice, heaven, and hell. The scribes gave evasive reasoning in order to hoodwink their followers and preserve their prestige, but Jesus taught the truth. The scribes had no love for their hearers, but Jesus’ heart was full of compassion. The scribes rambled on and on but Jesus got to the point. The scribes relied on men for their clout, but Jesus was the living word of God.
Jesus’ authority comes to us by his word. To encounter the word of Jesus is to encounter the authority of Jesus. His hearers were encountering the very presence of Yahweh God, who speaks his words and galaxies leap into existence. They were witnessing the establishing of God’s Kingdom in Jesus teaching. And so also we witness the same thing in the reading and preaching of God’s word.
II. Part II: Jesus Vindicates His Authority (1:23-26)
The authority of Jesus’ teaching is vindicated by his authority over demons. We all intrinsically understand that someone’s authority is dependent on their character. We want to know if someone is qualified to speak to something, if they have sufficient background knowledge, if they are morally upstanding. The authority of someone’s word hangs on who they are. And Jesus demonstrates who he is.
In the middle of his sermon, a man begins to shriek. We know nothing about this man except for the fact that he had an “unclean spirit,” Mark’s favorite term for a demon. He was possessed by a demon, and the demon was now crying out through him. He came underneath the teaching of Jesus and immediately sensed that it was in danger and so he cries out with a loud voice. And he says three things.
1. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” – There were many named Jesus in that day and so Nazareth denominated him specifically. But the idea here is, “Get away from me! Go away! I don’t want you here! Leave me alone!” The word of God was an assault on the kingdom of Satan.
2. “Have you come to destroy us?” This is likely an exclamation more than a question (“You have come to destroy us!”) It is full of fear and understanding of what the Messiah had come to do, to destroy Satan and his kingdom and undo all that he had worked.
3. “I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” This last statement is likely the most important. Why does he say this in the middle of the sermon? There could be a number of explanations. The demon could have been attempting to degrade Jesus’ reputation among the people by associating Jesus with demons. It could have been trying to take authority over Jesus, as naming comes with authority. It could have been trying to distract from the teaching of Jesus by making a scene. We don’t know specifically. What we do know is that the demon knows who Jesus is.
This has two significances. The first is in what the demon calls Jesus: “The Holy One of God.” If you haven’t listened to my sermon on Psalm 16, you should and that’s because we talked about this at length. Long story short, the Holy One of (or, from) God was the Messiah, the Son of David. The demon here is recognizing the true identity of Jesus—he is the Messiah, the Son of God.
In fact, this becomes more interesting when you start looking into demonic possession in the OT. The funny thing is, there isn’t a lot about it. The only place where you really see it is when Saul is possessed by a demon and David comes to play the harp and calm him down. And now, you have the Son of David, the Holy One, not merely calming down a demon possessed man, but freeing him completely from the bonds of the Devil.
But this is the second significance: the people do not know this yet. In an ironic way, Jesus has come to his people, and yet the one ones who recognize him for who he is are demons. More on this to come.
You can imagine the kind of disturbance this would have caused. Imagine if someone stood up in the middle of a sermon here and started ranting and raving and screaming. There would be stunned silence, fear, uncertainty. A few people probably started looking around for the Romans.
But Jesus casts out the demon with a simple word. No incantation. No spellcasting. No impressive displays of incense or rituals or hours of repetition and questioning. Just a simple word: “Be quiet. Come out of him.” And the spirit obeys. Convulsing him and coming out of him with a great cry—much like a toddler throwing a final tantrum before obeying—the demon leaves. Mark even uses the exact same language to describe him leaving as Jesus commanded him.
Not only does this again underscore the amazing authority of Jesus’ word, but it also shows us that the authority of the message hangs on the authority of the man. Jesus word is authoritative because he is who he is. He is the Holy One, and therefore demons must submit to Christ’s authority. He has come as the king of his kingdom and will not tolerate competing claims to his throne. He has come to “Tread all the powers of darkness down / and win the well-fought day.”
III. Part III: Capernaum Recognizes His Authority (1:27–27)
Capernaum recognizes the authority of Jesus and his fame begins to spread.
They were “amazed.” You can imagine the pin-drop silence in the room after the demon possessed man stropped shrieking. Jesus sits before the whole gathered body, having just demonstrated his astounding authority in a single word over a being that terrorized this man. Then the murmur begins. People begin talking to each other. And there is one single question that is being asked in a hundred different ways: “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
They immediately recognized that Jesus was unique. He was different. His teaching was mind blowing. His authority came from God directly. He was markedly different than anyone they had ever heard before. And now he has commanded a demon with a simple word to come out of a man whom they no doubt knew for a long time, and the demon obeyed! Again, you can imagine the feeling of coming to grips with this new thing. Never before had this been seen. Nobody quite knew how to reckon with it.
They were confronted with the authority of Jesus, their King. Naturally, Jesus’ fame spread throughout the region. He became immediately popular. Fabulously popular.
Yet, from this point we see the beginning of a strange tension. On the one hand, Jesus becomes more and more well known. He has to hide in the wilderness to escape the crush of the crowd. He is teaching from the boat so all can actually hear him. He is trapped in a house and nobody can even get to the door there are so many people. All the whole, nobody seems to know who he is. In fact, they just heard who he was! The demon possessed man just cried out: “You are the Holy One of God!” Yet the crowd does not make the same acknowledgement. Perhaps, at this point in the story, we shouldn’t expect more than that. Yet, it is nothing less than surprising that the crowds to not respond with a similar confession. Nobody seems to know who Jesus is. In just a few verses, in 1:37, Peter says to Jesus, “Everyone is searching for you.” The real question is, does anyone seem to find him? The unfolding story will tell us.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to end with some points of application. We ought not to walk away from these gospel stories with the sense that they are irrelevant, that they are merely meant to present us with facts about Jesus, doctrines we are to agree with, an intriguing anecdote from history. In this story, the authoritative Jesus confronts not just his original hearers, but us, now, today. Jesus has authority—and that authority confronts you this morning. He still today is the one who teaches with authority, not as the scribes. He still has the power to command obedience from his enemies. And so the great and central question it poses to us is this: How will you respond to Jesus authority? There are three different ways to respond to Jesus’ authority.
First, we can respond with a demonic kind of submission. Demons submit to Jesus. Submission to Jesus in itself does not save. In fact, James tells us about this. James 2:19 says, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” Demons believe true things about Jesus! Yet when they believe it, they shudder in terror because they hate what they know.
The great danger in constant exhorting to obedience is that it begins to instill a belief that if we simply gut it out and do the thing that we have obeyed Jesus—that we have born the fruit of saving faith. Not so. The demons hear. The demons know Jesus. The demons confess Jesus as the Holy One of God. The demons obey the commandments of Jesus. But naturally the demons are not saved. How much like the demons are you? Do you have a demonic kind of faith? Faith that does duties but does not delight? Faith that responds without relish, that believes and shudders, that knows yet hates?
Second, we can respond with an amazed, yet spectacle-oriented faith, like Capernaum did. The synagogue that day recognized the authority of Jesus. “A new teaching with authority! He commands even unclean spirits, and they obey him.” They saw the amazing miracle, they heard the loud cry of the demon, they saw the convulsions as the demons left. Yet their response is not to confess him as the Holy One of God also. Rather, it was to be drawn to the spectacle. And the irony is that their hearts were hardened even in their amazement! To be amazed by truth is not in itself saving! To be drawn to the spectacle that can unfold in Christianity is no proof that you know who Jesus is. One wonders if the crowds are even listening to what the demon is saying: “You are the Holy One of God!” Where is their corresponding confession? Nowhere.
And how many come to church for the same reasons. They come for the spectacle. The music, the healing, the gibberish tongue-speaking, the powerful preacher, the energy of a thriving community, the excitement of a movement beginning. But they do not come for Jesus. How many come to church every week where Jesus’ authoritative word is read and preached and sung and confessed and yet still can only bring themselves to say, “What is this? A new teaching that has authority.” Just something new. Just something unheard of. Many languish on their path to destruction while sitting in church amazed by the authority of the word of God. And Jesus is clearly proclaimed to them each week! And still they do not hear. “Pay attention to what you hear.”
Third, we can respond with true, saving faith. As Peter, Andrew, James, and John, we can heed the call to follow him, to be covered in his dust, to gladly submit ourselves to the authority of his word, to follow him in gladhearted obedience. Those who respond to the gospel message with repentance and faith will submit to his Lordship. Many people want forgiveness without obedience. They want the benefit without the sacrifice. They want the joy without the pain. They want the blessing without the cross. But Jesus does not call us to that. He calls us to true saving faith. A faith which trusts in him only, and then humbly says, “You are the Holy One of God. You are my master. You command my life, my soul, my all.”