Several times in the writings of Mark and Luke, demonic spirits proclaim Jesus as “The Holy One of God,” “Son of God,” or “Son of the Most High God.” In addition, Paul and his companions are announced as “slaves of the Most High God.” But instead of allowing these testimonials to the truth to be spread, Jesus and His followers somewhat surprisingly rebuke the spirits and tell them to be quiet. Since many of these occasions appear in Mark's Gospel and those places where Luke has obviously relied on Mark's account, let us first look at those passages.
Actually, in the case of Mark's Gospel, the situation is even more complicated by the fact that there is an underlying motif generally labeled as the “messianic secret.” Thus, in addition to those times when demons are commanded not to speak of Jesus' identity, He also tells various recipients of miracles not to spread around what has been done to them (Mark 1:44; 5:43; 7:36;8:26) and enjoins his apostles to secrecy regarding some of Jesus' pronouncements (Mark 8:30; 9:9). As Bauckham understates the situation, “The motive for this so-called messianic secret is debated.” So here are some proposed reasons for the demons to be treated in such a manner:
1. The only rationale for these commands that I had ever heard until recently was that the time was not yet right for Jesus to reveal who he was. The potential danger from that happening was two-fold: (a) it could prematurely arouse the opposition to Jesus' ministry and (b) was likely to inflame the messianic expectations of the crowd. And one or both of these somewhat related motives is still preferred by many scholars.
Bauckham speaks to both these related reasons: “The fact that Jesus' command to the demoniac from Decapolis, a Gentile, is quite the opposite – to spread the news of his deliverance [see Mark 5:7] – suggests that the secret relates to Jesus' Jewish context. It may be due to his desire to define his role for himself rather than have some ready-made notion of the Messiah imposed on him. It may also be that Jesus knows his exercise of divine authority is going to arouse opposition that will threaten his life (so already in Mk 3:8) and wishes to avoid this until the right moment comes.”
2. To these two motives for Jesus' actions, Marcus adds another traditional possibility, a “psychological” one, namely that Jesus simply “was humble and modest.” H. Anderson appears to endorse this view when he says that “through the 'secret' in Mark all manifestation of divine power in Jesus is subordinated to the lowliness and self-negation of his way to the cross...It does not compel everyone's recognition and assent, for the presence of God is hidden in it. It therefore always requires faith to be at risk and discipleship to be a costly venture.” Although I agree with much of that statement, that explanation hardly holds water since the very settings in which Jesus commands the demons to be quiet are those which show his overwhelming power in the most obvious way.
3. Another explanation which most evangelicals would rightly reject is that offered by W. Wrede. Marcus characterizes it as the “insight that the secrecy motif primarily reflects early Christian theology rather than the practice of the historical Jesus” and that it was inserted into the somewhat historical tradition in order to explain how Jesus could still be confronted with opposition from the religious authorities when both divine and demonic forces had clearly proclaimed him as the Son of God.”
Wrede's theory has found acceptance in many religiously liberal circles, but it also has its critics. For example, H. Anderson points out, “All in all Wrede's comprehensive theory of Mark's theological intention is to be judged too narrow and too rigid.”
In addition, Mann says, “The 'secrecy' motif is too strongly entrenched in the narrative to be dismissed lightly...We would suggest that the theme was indeed imposed, but by Jesus himself. The silence had to do with messiahship, but not on the political grounds of possible identification with political militancy...he appears to have imposed silence in order to preserve his sense of vocation intact. For the time being, his actions must be their own authentication, and the whole matter of messiahship must await the seal and vindication of God, however these might come.” In that manner, Mann rejects explanations 1a and 3, hints at his agreement with #2, and introduces another possibility yet to be mentioned (see Explanation #5).
4. W. Lane also rejects Wrede's thesis and says that it “is untenable, for the injunction [to secrecy] is an integral element in the account.” However, he offers an additional reason for Jesus' actions. “Jesus' silencing of the demon was an aspect of a conflict which has cosmic dimensions – the sustained encounter of the Son of God with Satan...To have allowed the defensive utterance of the demon to go unrebuked would have been to compromise the purpose for which Jesus came into the world, to confront Satan and strip him of his power.”
Continuing this cosmic battle theme, Marshall states (regarding Luke 4:31-44): “Perhaps the demoniacs hoped to overpower Jesus by using His name – this was a common ancient superstition – but Jesus peremptorily ordered the demon to be silent and leave the man.”
5. One additional argument is offered by Bell, but I am not quite sure exactly what he is driving at. Perhaps you can make better sense of his words than my own feeble attempt below. He says, “The so-called messianic secret...is not that the demons know Jesus' true identity as the Messiah and are commanded to be silent about this; rather, in view of the fact that Jesus is a suffering Messiah and redemption comes through his death, their knowledge must be one of ignorance. Therefore, the command that the demons be silent is for the protection of human beings.”
Is Bell perhaps expressing the possibility of the demons somehow realizing that Jesus' redemptive death will actually defeat the forces of evil and then communicating this secret to Satan himself who would work to see that Jesus did not die a martyr's death?? This sounds too unlikely to be correct, and so I must conclude that I still do not comprehend what Bell is communicating.
6. In moving over to Luke's writings (Luke 4:41; Acts 16:16-18), we have no trace of an overarching “messianic secret” theme, and therefore most commentators have felt free to suggest yet one more motive for the silencing of evil spirits, one which could also be at work in the examples cited by Mark. This explanation has been variously expressed by scholars, but it boils down to understandable irritation at truthful statements regarding Christ and his chosen evangelists being expressed by evil spirits.
Short: “Although the demons discerned the nature of Jesus' person, Jesus deemed it unfitting that this should be announced by such minions of Satan.”
Geldenhuys: “He wanted no proclamation of His Messiahship through them, the spirits of hell, with whom He has nothing in common.”
Marshall adds that “Jesus did not wish his Messiahship to be [made] known by demoniacs. He did not wish the truth about himself to be made known by [means of] the opposition; men must recognize the finger of God in a more positive way.”
J.A.Martin: “The reason for Jesus' rebuke was that He did not come to earth so that demons could acknowledge Him as the Christ, that is, the Messiah. Instead, He came to be acknowledged by people.”
Craddock says that the reason “could be that Jesus would not tolerate confessions from evil spirits. That Luke saw good confessions from questionable sources as a problem is evident in subsequent stories.” Thus, Craddock states regarding Acts 16:16-18, “Paul exorcised the spirit, not because the slave girl's words were wrong, but because the messenger did not fit the message.” Further comments regarding this encounter between Paul and the possessed slave girl follow:
Bruce states, “The missionaries...did not appreciate her 'unsolicited testimonials'...”
Stott asks, “But why should a demon engage in evangelism? Perhaps the ulterior motive was to discredit the gospel by associating it in people's minds with the occult...[Paul was] dismayed by this inappropriate and unwelcome kind of publicity.”
Ellis says that Paul acted in such a way “possibly because demonic utterance was considered unholy...”
One could say that Paul simply cured the slave girl of her spirit-possession out of concern for her, but Neil says, “Paul's motive in exorcising the evil spirit is attributed more to irritation than compassion.”
Ogilve: “He knew the difference between the Holy Spirit's gift of prophecy and the demonic possession which resulted in fortune-telling. He could easily have accepted the affirmation of Satan to enable the work of Christ, but as an essentialist he would have none of it!”
To a small extent I can relate to this final motive. We had a man who used to attend our Sunday school class. He generally sat quietly in the pews with his family not talking or even raising his head up. But at one point he apparently stopped taking his medication and for several weeks in a row totally disrupted our class by constantly interrupting the teacher despite several strong hints being given to him to quit doing so. And then it was my turn to substitute for our regular teacher.
This man at first stayed quiet during my attempt to convey one of my “new insights” into the text of the day. In the middle of the class, he suddenly became very agitated and burst out with statements such as “That's right!,” “Listen to him!,” “Wow!,” “I never thought about it that way before,” etc. I tried to resume my lesson, but noticed that he was waving his hand in the air wanting to say even more. I had to resort to a technique I had learned in a class on effective speaking: purposely look in another direction and pretend that you don't see him. My concern was exactly that expressed by the last group of commentators above – I did not want my words to be associated in any way with a person whose reliability was by then obviously being questioned by the rest of the audience.
As to what happened to that man, he did come up to me after class still wildly excited, wanting to know much more about my approach. I said that I could best explain it by sending him some material by e-mail. I took down his information and sent him something he could look over. But I got no return and after that week, we never saw him in the class again. I am not at all suggesting that this man was possessed by an evil spirit, but it was certainly one of those times when I wished I had been given the gift of healing to relieve him of his probable bipolar condition.
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