What is a spirit of infirmity?

The ruler had freedom to express himself. Now the Lord speaks again: "Ye hypocrites," so we should read — for a class was addressed and not that ruler only, who was but the mouthpiece of others — "Ye hypocrites: doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham" (therefore of the privileged race), "whom Satan has bound, lo, these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this bond on the Sabbath-day?" (13:15-16). How preposterous to urge the sanctity of the day against delivering a human creature from Satanic power, when that sanctity was not infringed upon in their eyes by caring for the wants of their animals! Was it wrong to do the latter? By no means. Then à fortiori, it could not be so to do the former. Their practice, where their own temporal interests were concerned, showed the unreality of the ruler's objection, and the groundlessness of his indignation. How easily, and how effectually, did the Lord refute the hypocrites! The effect is noticed. "All His adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him." That ruler gained nothing by his move. The people rejoiced, whilst that ruler's hypocrisy, and that of all who supported him, was unmasked, in a way the most illiterate could understand. A moral question that ruler tried to raise in order to condemn the Lord before all. A very old device, which here signally failed. There was a moral question, and it came out, into the light of day, as rank hypocrisy was unmasked, and those convicted of it were put to shame. Works of mercy they owned could be lawfully done on that day. Was that woman not better than an ox or an ass? Was the devil to afflict a poor creature because it was the Sabbath? "Satan has bound," it should be remarked, the Lord said. Yet it was a spirit of infirmity from which she suffered. A demon had possessed her, not the devil, for demons are an order of beings distinct from him who fell. We read not that they fell. But we have it here on the highest authority that they are under Satan's directions, for what they do is said to be done by him.

Sickness is the shadow and precursor of death" Sick unto death" (Isa. 38:1) and it is a witness to the solemn truth of man's separation from the Source of life — "alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18). The alienation is moral; the physical death is the governmental infliction. Sickness is thus connected with Satan's power in a moral rather than a physical way.

The subject of demon possession is too large to be entered upon fully. It must suffice to notice the moral effect this possession had. The man in the synagogue at Capernaum had an unclean spirit (Mark 1:23). Another man had a dumb spirit. Frequently the power of these demons was exerted in leading their victims to injure or even to destroy themselves. The "daughter of Abraham" who had "a spirit of infirmity" (Luke 13:11-16) and thus bound by Satan, was undoubtedly more than sick in the ordinary sense. As the power of the enemy made some dumb, it bound her down. It is difficult to define the relation between our own spirit and the body; it must be more so in the case of demon power. But the power seems to be exerted through the mind. This is evident in the case of the demoniac boy (Matt. 17:15) who was "lunatic and sore vexed" with a demon.

The Crooked made Straight. — But was there any hope of a change in them? An incident, which took place in the synagogue on a Sabbath-day, made it abundantly evident that there was none. A woman, bowed with a spirit of infirmity, was present. For eighteen years had that poor creature been unable to straighten herself. Demoniacal power (for it was a spirit of infirmity) thus tyrannised over her, and men were powerless to prevent it. Who that had not a heart of stone but would pity her, and rejoice over her liberation? But nothing acts with more hardening power than zeal for traditional teaching. The Lord on this occasion saw her, and called her, and said to her, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God." God got glory in the synagogue that day, and that from a poor and once heavily afflicted creature, in whose person was illustrated both the power of a demon and the greater and beneficent power of God.

The Lord had spoken. The woman, too, had spoken. Now the ruler of the synagogue opened his mouth. From the Lord had come the welcome announcement of her deliverance. From her lips poured forth a tribute of praise to God. To God she gave the glory not to her Deliverer. Had it been to the latter, one could better have understood the anger of the ruler, arising, as it might in that case have been supposed, from ignorance about the Person of the Lord. Glorifying God, however, who could object to? Who, too, could find fault with that which produced it? Now the ruler spoke, for he could not remain a silent witness of what had gone on. The woman was healed. She was made straight. None could doubt it. What, then, was the ruler's desire? To give a hearty amen to the healed one's thanksgiving? Nothing of the kind. He addressed the people, not God, and that with indignation. "There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath-day" (Luke 13:14). The man was angry because the Lord had healed her on the Sabbath-day. An indignant synagogue ruler in the presence of the God of grace, the God of Israel! Indignant, and why? Because a poor, afflicted creature was made straight on the Sabbath-day. Had she asked for it? Not a word of that is there in the narrative. The Lord saw her, and spoke to her, as He had on a former occasion to the man with a withered hand (6:8).

103 Luke 4:33. — "Spirit of unclean demon", cf. Luke 6:18; Luke 11:24, "unclean spirit." Lightfoot (Horae Hebr., on Luke 13:11, "spirit of infirmity") records a distinction made between spirits causing disease and "evil spirits," occupied with sorcery and accordingly called "unclean." Probably Luke's "unclean" was adapted to Gentile thought, for that recognized a distinction between good and bad "demons." Zech. 13:2 and Rev. 16:13 f. show the connection of unclean spirits with false prophets.

We have only to read the first six verses to discover that, when he began this Psalm, Asaph was extraordinarily occupied with himself. He details his miserable experience. He analyzes his miserable feelings. He looks back with longing to the brighter experiences of earlier days. He speaks of, "My trouble . … my sore … my soul … my spirit … mine eyes … my song in the night [which he used to sing] … mine own heart." It is all himself. In the Gospel of Luke we read of a woman who had a spirit of infirmity and as a consequence was "bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself." In her case the spirit of infirmity affected her body and bent her double so that she could look no higher than herself. The spirit of infirmity that had laid hold on Asaph had affected his mind in similar fashion. He was bowed in upon himself.

Now this poor woman is a striking type of souls in your condition. She was evidently a child of God, and not an unconverted sinner, for the Lord speaks of her as a daughter of Abraham. There is a spiritual significance in those words, as we may learn from Galatians 3:7, "They who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham." This woman was a daughter of faith, for she walked in the steps of that faith which Abraham had, who was the father of the faithful. They are truly his children who follow in his footsteps spiritually, in other words, those who are believers. This woman was one of them, and the astonishing fact is that for eighteen long years she had been bound by Satan. From this we learn the power that Satan may have over one who is really a true child of God. In her case it was a physical infirmity. She was bent double, and so bent that she could see nothing but herself. You might perhaps go a long way before you find a Christian so wholly occupied with himself as to be unable to see anything else. Most of us have our bright times, when we seem to get away from ourselves. Then something happens, and we get again into the old rut.

Now the Lord Jesus was equal to this terrible case. The affliction which this woman had is spoken of as a spirit of infirmity, and the spiritual affliction of which I am speaking may be so described. Those who suffer from it seem to live always in the shade. They feel morally bowed down, and are occupied with themselves. They say, "I am such a failing creature and is it not right to be conscientious and to scrutinize my motives and my behaviour?" Yes, but it is not right to allow this to become a continuous process.

Also the Spirit helps our infirmities. This word helps us to see that a clear distinction exists between infirmities and sins, for the Spirit never helps our sins. Infirmity is weakness and limitation, both mental and physical, and therefore if unassisted we may very easily fall victims, ensnared by sin. The help of the Spirit is that we may be strengthened and delivered.

There is great care in this Gospel to show the connection of Satan with men, just as we have seen the privilege of the believer in the possession of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God is the power of communion for the new man, for those who are born of God. So Satan is pleased to fill with the power of the demon the old nature of man, in certain cases where God permits him; and the Lord shows the link between the demon and the sickness, weakness, or other malady of body or mind, as we find here in the case of the dumb man: "And he was casting out a demon, and it was dumb; and it came to pass, the demon having gone out, the dumb [man] spoke. And the crowds wondered." It is evident from this that what produced the lack of speech was not physical infirmity, but the demon that dwelt in the man. Directly the demon left he that had been dumb spoke. What the Lord was occupied with here below was in giving a specimen of that which will characterise the world to come. The powers that He exercised, as others afterwards in virtue of His name, were "the powers of the world [or age] to come," as they are called in Heb. 6:5. The millennial age will thus afford a full display of the defeat of Satan, to the glory of God, and this in and by man. The Lord's curing of bodily diseases, and casting out of demons, was a partial exhibition of what will be public and universal in that day.

Although the Lord showed the impending fate of the Jews because of their uselessly cumbering the ground, He did not the less teach in their synagogues on the Sabbath day. It was still the term of patience; and further, grace was in no way hindered from acting individually. "And lo, [there was] a woman, having a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent together, and wholly356 unable to lift her head up." She did not seek the gracious power of Jesus, but when He saw her, "he called to [her], and said to her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity." Not satisfied with this, He laid His hands upon her. There was far more grace in acting thus than in simply curing her by a word. He could have done the one as easily as the other. ["There was"]: so AE, etc., 1, 69, Syrrcu pesch sin; but Edd. omit, as ℵBL, etc., 33 Old Lat. Memph.

But grace, though it tenderly stoops to the wretched, does not accommodate itself to the obstinate unbelief of men, more particularly of men who make a show of their religion but who have nothing real in the sight of God. Christ cured her on the Sabbath and in face of the congregation, knowing it would provoke the enmity of the ruler of the synagogue. There is no use in striving to keep fair terms with men who profess to be friends, but are really the enemies, of God. "And immediately she was made straight and glorified God.357 But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day." Now had he for a moment reflected, he would have seen the folly and wickedness of his affectedly pious indignation; he would have seen that he was fighting against God. But passion in religious matters never reflects; and, being wholly apart from true faith, it is apt to be governed by present interests. So this man, little suspecting that he was carrying on war with God to his own eternal ruin, turns to the people with the words, There are six days in which [people] ought to work; in these therefore come and be healed and not on the sabbath day." Vain and wicked man, that presumed to lay down the law to God! He was far from keeping the law himself, yet ventured to give law to Him who was not more truly man than God. God is not to work on His own Sabbath day! But as the Lord told the Jews in the Gospel of John, it is a folly to suppose that God, in the presence of such a world, of man and Israel as they are, is keeping the Sabbath. Morally speaking, He could not do so. His love would not permit Him to rest when the earth and human kind are full of sin, wickedness, and misery. Accordingly grace led both the Father and the Son to work for poor guilty man: "My Father works hitherto and I work." (John 5:17.) The Jews might be keeping their Sabbaths in pride; but God was working for man! Alas! the world has as little sense of the holiness as of the love of God; and so the Lord here answers the ruler with stern rebuke: "Hypocrite,† doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the manger and leading [it] away, water [it]?" He does not take His text from the Father, as in the Gospel of John, but from men's own acknowledged ways, what even natural conscience feels to be right, what no legalism can blot out from the heart of man. Luke is the great moralist of the Gospels. It would be cruel towards the poor brute to withhold its necessary provender or drink because of the Sabbath day; and if it would be a mistake of God's mind so to treat one's ox or ass to keep it from what is necessary to its refreshment in natural life, how much more was it not worthy of God to relieve in grace a victim of Satan's power! "And this [woman] who is a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound, lo [these] eighteen years, ought she not to be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?" He puts it on the double ground of relationship to Abraham, God's friend, and of subjection to the insulting power of the enemy. A daughter of Abraham, she ought surely to have in their eyes an additional claim, and no less because Satan had bound her for so long a time.358 It was plain therefore that the ruler, under the pretence of high respect for God's institutions, was in truth a satellite of Satan. If true-hearted, he would have rejoiced at the expulsion of that spirit of infirmity by which the woman had been so long bound. The people felt the truth of what Jesus said as well as the grace of His deed. "And as he said these things, all who were opposed to him were ashamed, and all the crowd rejoiced at all the glorious things which were being done by him." Even the open opposers, if not won, were ashamed; but all the people rejoiced, for they at least had a sense of their need and were more free to acknowledge what was good and true. There may not have been power, and there is not without faith, to receive the truth in the love of it (for the heart is alienated from God); but they hailed with joy the Divine power that rescued the miserable. Where there is Divinely given faith, I doubt that the first action of the Spirit of God is joy. The entrance of the Word gives light, and discovers what is within of sin, and guilt, and ruin. But, even without being converted, people who have no particular animosity against the truth presented in Christ and who feel the value of light nowhere else to be seen, may well rejoice. They are not broken down in the sense of their own evil, they are not brought to God, but they rejoice in what is come to men, owning the evident and excellent hand of God, and feeling the difference between Christ, however little seen, and the parchment divinity of the ruler of a synagogue. "All the crowd rejoiced at all the glorious things which were being done by him." "These": so D, etc., Latt. Syrr.; but Edd. adopt "them," according to ℵABL, 1, 69. †"Hypocrites": so most Edd.

The healing of the daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound for eighteen years, is reported only by Luke. Attention has been called to the significance of the number 18. Upon 18 fell the tower of Siloam and the woman, who was bound for 18 years. "The number 18, which is 3 x 6 (six the number of man) speaks of evil manifested in its highest uprise"--Numerical Bible. Satan had manifested his dreadful power over this daughter of Abraham but the Son of Man, who came to seek and to save that which is lost, has the power to deliver her. She was made straight and glorified God. The expression "daughter of Abraham" signifies that she was a believer. Satan was permitted to afflict her body; it was the same with Job. See also 1 Corinthians 5:5.