And there met him, when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gergesenes, two possessed by demons, coming out of the tombs, exceeding dangerous, so that no one was able to pass by that way.
The storm is over, and the boat lands on the far shore. There a road stands closed, held by two men no one could restrain.
The place has more than one name. Old Greek manuscripts spell it three different ways.
These are also called GERGESENES and GERASENES in the different Greek manuscripts. The Sea of Galilee had various names, and so did the people who lived around it, depending on which nearby district they belonged to. The Gadarenes lived on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. There the Lord cured the two demon-possessed men, though Mark and Luke mention only one.
That eastern shore was not foreign soil. It belonged to the land God had given Israel — which makes what was living there all the more striking.
Gadara was a portion of the Jewish, or set-apart, earth. It lay inside the land where the eyes of the God of heaven and earth rested all year long (Deuteronomy 11:12). But the unclean had long since entered that land and defiled it. By this time we find them there in herds, along with the full display of the enemy's unchecked strength. Legion and the swine were in Gadara, to tell us what the place of Jehovah's choice had now become. It was the very palace of the strong man, but the Son of God now enters as the stronger.
Mark and Luke describe one man in detail. Matthew names two here, and elsewhere he names two blind men.
Two blind men are named there: a fact well suited to the writer inspired to testify of Jehovah-Messiah to the Jewish people. For the law had a well-established rule that they should look for at least two witnesses. So Matthew mentions the two demon-possessed men in the last event of Matthew 8. For Mark and Luke it was enough to dwell on the more striking of the two.
Where they lived is part of the horror. They came out of the burial caves — living men camped among the dead.
They come to the other side of the sea, only to find the enemy's power running wild there. Two men possessed by demons, coming out of the tombs, block the way against all comers. Matthew does not go into detail here, as Mark and Luke do. His aim is to show the Lord's power at work in these various deliverances… These living men dwelling among the dead were a dreadful horror, and their insane fury made men shrink back. Both details throw into contrast what happens when the Lord appears: those who held them captive give up their prey completely.
One of the two carried a name that told how many demons held him.
These two men were far indeed from the Messiah, for they were among the tombs, possessed with demons — just the picture of the most desperate power of Satan in the world. One of them, as we are told elsewhere, went by the name of Legion, because many demons had entered into him. You could not have worse than this.
What failed then still fails now, and the failure is not for lack of trying.
This malignant power of Satan is beyond man's power to subdue. People had often bound one of these men with shackles and chains, but "no one had the strength to subdue him." All Acts of Parliament and all the societies of men will fail to tame him. Only One can.
Read in order, the chapter builds. This is the third power the Lord meets in a row.
When He arrives at the other side, two demon-possessed men meet Him. Mark speaks only of one man, and supplies many more details. Matthew cares less about the details of these men's condition than about the Lord's authority over demons. Still, he confirms how fierce they were, so fierce that men could not pass that way. The Lord has shown His authority over the flesh in verses 18 to 22, and His authority over the world in verses 23 to 27. Now He shows no less authority over Satan's power.
The scene also looks forward, tying these two men to Israel's future.
I have no doubt that our writer gives the casting out of the demons as a witness of Christ's power to deliver the Jewish remnant. That is why the Holy Spirit names the two men here, and only here. On the other hand, the possessed herd of swine seems to picture something else. It stands for the destruction of the unclean mass of Israel in the last days.
- Place — The far shore was Israel's own God-given land. Yet the ground of God's choice had become the strong man's palace.
- Prey — Two living men camped among the dead, so fierce that the road was closed: the enemy's power running wild.
- Powerlessness — Men tried chains, and the chains broke. No law and no society can tame this power. Only One can.
- Proof — Matthew names two because the law required two witnesses. His interest is the Lord's authority: over the flesh, over the world, and now over Satan.
- Preview — The two men delivered picture a remnant saved. The herd destroyed pictures an unclean mass judged when the stronger One acts in full.
And behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Son of God? hast thou come here before the time to torment us?
Two men under the power of demons meet Jesus as He comes ashore, and they greet Him with a title most people around Him refused to give Him. Their cry raises two questions: how do enemies of God know exactly who He is, and what is "the time" they fear?
The enemies of Christ get His identity right, while men are still arguing about it.
Men, blinded by Satan, may dispute His right; they do not. It is striking that they give Him at once the title that men deny Him, Son of God, and recognise Him as their future Judge. But they plead that the day of judgment has not come — can He have come to torment them before the time?
The phrase assumes a calendar. They are not asking whether judgment will fall, but whether it has arrived early.
Every knee will certainly bow to Him: the godly, the earthly, and the powers of darkness. Angels, rulers, powers — all will acknowledge Him when He appears. This was exactly the witness the devil gave to His power when He came on earth: "Have you come here to torment us before the time?" So there is clearly a time set apart, and they know it — a time when full judgment falls on them.
Another writer says what that set time will bring.
They begged Him not to command them to depart into the abyss, because their sure doom was in front of their eyes. They knew that when He reigns He will cast them there, and they dreaded it even now.
Two men speak, but the confession is not theirs. The words carry a despair that belongs to someone else.
Terrible words indeed — the confession of hopeless despair. No future to think about but one of torment — what a wicked creature rightly deserves. But who spoke those words? The demoniacs. Whose words, though, were they really speaking? Those of the demons.
Was this just mental illness described in old language? The herd of pigs answers that.
It is pointless here, as everywhere, to confuse possession by demons with insanity or disease. Insanity or disease might also be present, or neither of them, and the possession by evil spirits still be real. The reality was plain. The effect on the pigs made the fact undeniable, and left no excuse for calling it a physical or mental disorder.
Their creed is flawless. It saves nobody.
"The demons believe and shudder." Sadly, that is more than we can say of man in his hardness. Man's believing does not make a thing true, nor does his unbelief make it false. "The demons believe." "What have you to do with us, O Son of God?" ... There is no Saviour for demons. "It is not angels that He helps" (Heb. 2:16). A perfect man, and perfectly a man, He passed the angels by.
Knowing about a person is not the same as knowing the person.
Some people only believe things about Christ. Their mind bows to the truth that such a Person existed. They agree that He was divine. They admit that He died to save sinners on a cross of shame. But they have no personal link with Him. For all their knowledge, they are only on a level with the demons and with those who have believed too late. The one difference is this: the great gulf is not yet fixed for them.
Fear is how these spirits hold people. In front of Christ, they have nothing left.
If man, to whom the Lord had come in grace, did not know Him, the demons knew their Judge in the Person of the Son of God. Demons possessed the man. The fear they have of torment at the judgment of the last day now attaches, in his mind, to the immediate presence of the Lord: "Have you come here to torment us before the time?" Wicked spirits act on men through dread of their power; they have none unless men fear them. But only faith can take that fear from a man... They have to acknowledge this power, and they appeal to it. There is no idea of resistance.
- Knowledge, confessed. The demons name Jesus "Son of God" — the very title men around Him denied — and own Him as their coming Judge.
- Knowledge of a date. "Before the time" shows they know a fixed day of judgment is still ahead. They beg only that it not start early.
- Knowledge borrowed. The words come from two men's mouths, but they belong to the demons. The drowned herd proved possession, not illness.
- Knowledge without a Saviour. They believe and shudder, but there is no Saviour for demons. He passed the angels by.
- Knowledge is not faith. Facts about Christ with no personal link to Him put a person on a level with demons. The one difference: for the living, the door is still open.
Now there was, a great way off from them, a herd of many swine feeding;
A herd of pigs feeding at some distance looks like background detail. Its size, its owners and its end say something about the land, about the enemy at work in it, and about the people who lived there.
Under the law of Israel the pig was an unclean animal. So the herd itself showed that something had gone wrong.
The demons knew Him, and also knew that they had no power to resist His word. So they asked permission to enter the herd of unclean swine. That herd would never have been there if Israel had been walking according to the law. As far as the record goes, Jesus spoke only one word — "Go!" The men were set free and the swine destroyed.
Commentators differ over who owned the herd.
We are not told whether the Gadarenes were Jews or Gentiles. They were the ones who lost their swine when the demons entered the animals.
Another writer turns to the town's history, and to what the Lord let happen to the animals.
According to the law Jews had no right to be keeping swine (Lev. 11:7), and the Lord allowed the results as a pointed lesson to them. The demons had no proper control of the swine. The animals were clearly terrified. They rushed headlong down a steep cliff into the lake and drowned. The historian Josephus calls Gadara a Greek city. That is, it was made up of Jews who had taken on Greek ways and so ignored Jewish orthodoxy. Even so, the Lord did not spare the swine.
The spirits had to ask before they could enter the herd. What they were matched what they asked for.
They even had to ask permission to enter the swine feeding not far away. Under the law the swine were unclean animals, and they ought not to have been there. The spirits were unclean too. So there was an affinity between them and the swine, and it proved fatal for the animals. The demons had led the man toward self-destruction, using the sharp stones. With the swine the impulse was immediate and complete.
What happened to the herd was public. It answers a question people still raise: were these men simply ill?
They begged to enter a great herd of swine feeding on the mountain side, and the Lord gave them leave. The swine, about two thousand, received the unclean spirits. At once they rushed down the steep slope and drowned in the sea. For all who believe Scripture it was a witness of two things: the Lord's delivering power, and Satan's destructive energy. It is pointless, here as everywhere, to confuse possession by demons with madness or disease... The effect on the swine made that fact plain beyond denial.
The herd is also a measure. One writer follows this scene down, step by step, to its lowest point.
Think of swine in Immanuel's land... But lower still: in the land of God's choice two men are possessed by as many demons as could enter two thousand swine. And deeper still — nothing goes beyond this — men will keep their swine and their demons rather than the Saviour of sinners, the Son of God.
When the herd was gone, the local people had to weigh two men against two thousand animals. Their answer exposed them.
Two men had been delivered from the grip of Satan, but at the cost of two thousand swine. Were two souls worth two thousand swine? In their pitiful blindness, they decided they were not. If this was to be the result of the presence of the Son of God, they would rather have Satan for a neighbour.
- The herd misplaced. Unclean animals grazed where the law said they should not be. Israel was already out of step with God.
- The herd claimed. The spirits had to ask permission. They asked for the pigs, because unclean spirits and unclean animals matched.
- The herd measured. Two men held enough demons to fill two thousand swine. One word from Christ sent them out.
- The herd proved. Its rush into the sea made possession plain to see. This was not madness or illness.
- The herd weighed. The neighbours valued the animals above two rescued men. They would sooner keep Satan as a neighbour than the Son of God.
and the demons besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, send us away into the herd of swine.
Two men held by demons meet Jesus at the edge of the Gadarene country. The spirits inside them do not fight — they negotiate. Their short plea shows what they know about Christ, what they fear, and what they want next.
The demons open by conceding the outcome. Their own wording admits both His right to expel them and their inability to move a step on their own.
They admitted that Jesus had authority to eject them, for, as Matthew reports, they said, "If you cast us out" (Matt. 8:31); and their desire was to enter the unclean swine, as if to exhibit and gratify their love of destruction. The unclean spirits sought permission to enter the herd of unclean pigs. "Allow us," they said, admitting, like Satan of old (Job 1), that they had no power apart from the Supreme Will.
The request is driven by fear. Two verses earlier they had asked whether He had come to torment them "before the time," and that dread shapes what they now ask for instead.
However mighty a spirit is, and especially when demons come in such numbers and with such tyrannical force of evil, they have none of the boldness of unbelief. They believe and shudder (James 2:19). So they begged Him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Their certain doom was before their eyes. They knew that when He reigns they will be cast there, and they dreaded it even now. "Have you come here to torment us before the time?" is the cry in Matthew's Gospel.
They do not ask for freedom; they ask for somewhere to go. Their craving for a body, and what they do once inside one, is the lesson.
The only thing the devil can do is to take man downwards. The pigs rushed down. Until a man is converted, every step from his birth has been downward and hellward. We only begin to go upward when we know Jesus as our Saviour and Lord... There are many things in Scripture to show that demons have a longing to inhabit something, man or beast. This shows us an object lesson — the devil is a destroyer.
Under the law of Moses pigs were unclean, so the herd should not have been there at all. Two kinds of uncleanness meet here, and the two outcomes could not be further apart.
The Lord had told the demons to come out, and they knew they could not resist. They were in the presence of Omnipotence, and they had to do as they were told. They had even to ask permission to enter the pigs feeding not far away. The pigs, being unclean animals according to the law, ought not to have been there. The spirits were unclean too, so there was an affinity between them and the pigs. That affinity was fatal for the animals. The demons had led the man toward self-destruction with the sharp stones. With the pigs the impulse was immediate and complete. The man was delivered: the pigs were destroyed.
People have objected to the loss of the herd. One answer is that the Owner of everything is not on trial.
Everything below and on high belongs to the Lord. He does not need man's apology to justify what He permits. He needs no apology for sickness and death, plague and famine, storm and earthquake, which He uses in His providence in this fallen world. And there is not one of these afflictions that He does not turn to purposes of grace for those who hear His word.
Matthew alone records two men here. One writer takes the scene as a picture of what lies ahead for Israel — deliverance for some, destruction for the rest.
But the day had not yet come for Satan to lose his title over the world. So far this was only the proof that the power to do it was there. The full use of that power waited for another day. I have no doubt that our Evangelist gives the casting out of the demons as a witness of Christ's power to deliver the Jewish remnant. That is why the Holy Spirit, here only, names the two men. On the other hand, the herd of pigs held by the demons seems to represent the destruction of the unclean mass of Israel in the latter day.
- Permission. "If you cast us out" concedes the case. They ask instead of act, because they have no power apart from the Supreme Will.
- Dread. They believe and shudder. Dread of the abyss, and of torment before the time, shapes what they ask for.
- Appetite. They crave a body to inhabit, man or beast — and the moment they have one, the direction is downward.
- Destruction. Unclean spirits found their match in unclean animals. Christ freed the man; the demons destroyed the herd. That contrast is the whole demonstration.
- Ownership. The Lord needs no apology from man for what He permits, and He turns every such affliction to purposes of grace for those who hear His word.