Lange Commentary - Mark 1:21 - 1:28

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Lange Commentary - Mark 1:21 - 1:28


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

2. The Word of Authority, which delivers the Demoniacs and attracts the People. Mar_1:21-28

(Parallel: Luk_4:31-37)

21And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the Sabbath-day he enteredinto the synagogue, and taught. 22And they were astonished at his doctrine: for hetaught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes. 23And there was in their24synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and lie cried out, Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? Iknow thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. 25And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Holdthy peace, and come out of him. 26And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and criedwith a loud voice, he came out of him. 27And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. 28And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The Evangelist, in harmony with his main point of view, proceeds at once to the act by which the Lord approved Himself the conqueror of the demons.

Mar_1:22. As one that had authority.—See on Mat_7:29.

Mar_1:23. With an unclean spirit, ἐí ðíåýìáôé ἀêáèÜñôῳ —He was in the unclean spirit; that is, in his power, under his influence. Concerning the demoniac possession, see on Mat_4:24.

Mar_1:24. Art thou come to destroy us?—The demoniac consciousness still predominant on the part of the demon. Hence, “to destroy us!” Bengel: “Communem inter se causam habent dœmonia.” The word involves also, 1. a testimony of the decided opposition between the demon empire and Christ; 2. a testimony of the perfect supremacy of Christ; 3. and a testimony of the beginning of the subversion of the satanic dominion.—To destroy us.—Meyer: By dismissing them to Hades. But even in Hades, Christ does not leave their empire to the demons. Thus it was by the destruction of their empire generally Certainly it was by dismissing them to the Gehenna of torment (according to which, the expression in Matt. (Mar_8:29), the Hades of torment, is to be explained).—I know Thee who Thou art.—The demoniac consciousness in its involuntary presentiment. See Act_16:16. It feels already the influence of Jesus, who would draw it from the side of the demon to His side. The word is ambiguous, so far as it belongs to the demon and to the man.—The Holy One of God.—In the emphatic sense, and thus, according to Joh_6:69, Rev_3:7 (comp. Joh_10:36), the concealed designation of the Messiah. (“So Origen:” Meyer.) As the typical Old Testament anointed ones represented the Messiah, so the typical saints, priests, prophets, and kings (Psalms 16) represented the Holy One êáé ’ ἐîï÷Þí . The unclean spirit, however, describes Him by that opposite to himself which torments him, when he terms Him the Holy One of God.

Mar_1:25. Hold thy peace.—This refers to the outcry of the demon. The Messiahship of Jesus was not to be prematurely spread abroad, least of all by demons. The kingdom of God and the invisible world scorns such precursors and coöperators. It bears testimony to itself by overcoming all these. Only after the decisive victory are such testimonies supplementarily, and in their own significance, admissible; then, when no intermingling is any longer possible.

Mar_1:26. Torn him.—The decisive paroxysm with which the healing was declared; at the same time, a phenomenon exhibiting the knavish, spiteful, and degraded nature of the demons (Mar_9:26; Luk_9:42).

Mar_1:27. Questioned among themselves.—The spirits are awake. They do not first ask the priests and Rabbis, but proceed to independent suppositions and conclusions.—New Doctrine.—From the appearance of a new power of delivering, they infer the appearance of a new revelation; for revelation and deliverance, miracle and prophecy, always to the Israelites were reciprocal in their influence. For various constructions and interpretations of this passage, see Meyer in loc.

Mar_1:28. Throughout all, the region round about Galilee.—That is, through all Galilee, and beyond into the neighboring districts everywhere.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The first miracle recorded by Matthew is the healing of the leper by a touch; for one main point of view with him was the opposition of Christ to the hierarchical theocracy and their ordinances. The first miracle which John records is the changing of water into wine; for his main point of view is the glorification of the old and darkened world into a world of spirit. The first miracle which Luke and Mark relate is this casting out of demons in the synagogue at Capernaum. But the points of view of the two latter in this matter are as different and characteristic as their respective Gospels. Luke, in harmony with his predominant object (the divine humanity of Christ), has in view preëminently the healed man. The demon threw him down, and departed from him, without hurting him at all. To Mark, on the other hand, the supremacy of Christ over the kingdom of the demons is the grand object, even as it declares and approves His doctrine to be a new one. Hence he makes it emphatic, that Christ commanded even the unclean spirits, and that they obeyed Him. This point of view runs through his whole Gospel, down to its concluding words.

2. To Mark belong the chief records of Christ’s victory over the devils, while in the other Evangelists there is only a general reference to them. In John we do not find deliverances of this sort; on the other hand, he gives prominence to moral possession (Joh_6:70; Joh_8:44; Joh_13:27),—an idea which is found approximately among the other Evangelists as sevenfold possession. Further, here we must mark the relation of Christ and His kingdom to Satan and his kingdom, according to the New Testament teaching. Dogmatics must, more rigorously than heretofore, distinguish between the devil and this kind of demons, as well as between the children of the devil and these bound ones of Satan.

3. The synagogue cannot hinder a demoniac from entering it, nor that Satan should in it declare the victory of the kingdom of order and light. Christ cleanses the synagogue.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Christ the Saviour of the synagogue and of the Church.—The adherence of Christ to the sanctuary of His people, legal and yet free.—By the perfect sanctification of the Sabbath and the synagogue, our Lord established the Sunday and the Church.—How the Child of the synagogue became the Prince of the Church.—Sabbath and synagogue; or, the holy time and the holy place in their symbolical meaning: 1. They signify rest from the toil of sin, and the temple; 2. the Christian Sunday and the Church; 3. the heavenly feast and the heavenly Church.—The demoniac in the synagogue; or, the daring incursion of Satan into the legitimate Church of God to be restrained only by the word of Christ.—How Christ always victoriously confronts the satanic power which insinuates itself into the Church.—Heavenly and hellish powers meet in the Church.—The healing of the possessed in the synagogue a decisive token of the redeeming empire of Christ: 1. Of His victory over the kingdom of Satan; 2. of His saving mercy to the wretched; 3. of His miraculous sealing of the Gospel; 4. of His awakening conquest of the world.—The consciousness of Christ a healing power for the consciousness disturbed by Satan.—The spiritually disturbed consciousness a figure of the curse of sin: 1. In its destruction and contradictions; 2. in its restraint; 3. in its despair; 4. but also in its dim feeling of its misery and of the coming of its Saviour.—The characteristics of the wicked: 1. Knowledge without love; 2. hatred to the Lord, and withal flattering acknowledgment; 3. pride even to madness, and yet impotent fear and flight. Or, 1. Darkness in its lie; 2. murder in its hatred; 3. death in its rending.—Christ immovably opposed to the flattery and hypocrisy, as well as to the threatening and pride, of Satan.—The antithesis of heaven and hell in the conflict of Christ with the demon: 1. Peace of soul and passion (the devil assaults first); 2. collectedness and distraction; 3. the spirit of mercy and the spirit of torment; 4. dignity and degradation; 5. victory and prostration.—Christ scorns the testimony of the demons, and obtains the praise of the people.—The glory of Christ, that He came into the world to destroy the works of the devil, 1Jn_3:8.

Starke:—The public service of God not to be neglected, Heb_10:25.—Unclean spirits are found even in the Church, Jam_2:19.—Christ will have no testimony from the spirit of lies.—Osiander:—If the devil must give way, yet he rages fearfully: he must, however, give place to the Holy Spirit.—Gossner:—The devil knew Him as the Holy One of God, but not as the Saviour.—Braune:—The possessed trembles before Him who is his Deliverer.

Footnotes:

Mar_1:24.— Åá is wanting, it is true, in B., D., and others; but it is as accordant with Mark as with Luke (Mar_4:34).

Mar_1:27 .—Lachmann, following B., L., Ä ., &c.: ôß ἐóôé ôïῦôï ; äéäá÷Þ êáéíÞ . êáô ’, &c. Tischendorf connects äéäá÷ç êáéíὴ êáô ’ ἐæïõóßáí . Lachmann’s is better. [Meyer accounts for the Received Text, by a comparison with Luk_4:36.—Ed.]

Mar_1:28— Êáὶ ἐîῆëèåí : “And the fame,” &c.