Luke 11:20-26

After having by this new argumentum ad hominem refuted the supposition of His adversaries, Jesus gives the true explanation of His cures by contrasting the picture of one of those expulsions which He works (Luke 11:20-22) with that of a cure performed by the exorcists (Luke 11:23-26).

Vers. 20-22. “ But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. 21. When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. 22. But when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. ” Luke 11:20 draws the conclusion (δέ, now; ἄρα, then) from the preceding arguments, and forms the transition to the two following scenes. In this declaration there is betrayed intense indignation: “Let them take heed! The kingdom of God, for which they are waiting, is already there without their suspecting it; and it is upon it that their blasphemies fall. They imagine that it will come with noise and tumult; and it has come more quickly than they thought, and far otherwise it has reached them (ἔφθασεν). The construction ἐφ᾿ ὑμᾶς, upon you, has a threatening sense. Since they set themselves in array against it, it is an enemy which has surprised them, and which will crush them. The term finger of God is admirably in keeping with the context: the arm is the natural seat and emblem of strength; and the finger, the smallest part of the arm, is the symbol of the ease with which this power acts. Jesus means, “As for me, I have only to lift my finger to make the devils leave their prey.” These victories, so easily won, prove that henceforth Satan has found his conqueror, and that now God begins really to reign. This word, full of majesty, unveils to His adversaries the grandeur of the work which is going forward, and what tragic results are involved in the hostile attitude which they are taking towards it. Instead of by the finger of God, Matthew says by the Spirit of God; and Weizsäcker, always in favour of the hypothesis of a common document, supposes that Luke has designedly replaced it by another, because it seemed to put Jesus in dependence on the Holy Spirit. What may a man not prove with such criticism? Is it not simpler, with Bleek, to regard the figurative term of Luke as the original form in the saying of Jesus, which has been replaced by the abstract but radically equivalent expression of Matthew?

Mark omits the two Luke 11:19-20. Why would he have done so, if he had had before his eyes the same document as the others?

Vers. 21 and 22 serve to illustrate the thought of Luke 11:20: the citadel of Satan is plundered; the fact proves that Satan is vanquished, and that the kingdom of God is come. A strong and well-armed warrior watches at the gate of his fortress. So long as he is in this position (ὅταν), all is tranquil (ἐν εἰρήνη) in his fastness; his captives remain chained, and his booty (σκῦλα) is secure. The warrior is Satan (the art. ὁ alludes to a single and definite personality); his castle is the world, which up till now has been his confirmed property. His armour consists of those powerful means of influence which he wields. His booty is, first of all, according to the context, those possessed ones, the palpable monuments of his sway over humanity; and in a wider sense, that humanity itself, which with mirth or groans bears the chains of sin. But a warrior superior in strength has appeared on the world's stage; and from that moment all is changed. ᾿Επάν, from the time that, denotes the abrupt and decisive character of this succession to power, in opposition to ὅταν, as long as, which suited the period of security. This stronger man is Jesus (the art. ὁ also alludes to His definite personality). He alone can really plunder the citadel of the prince of this world. Why? Because He alone began by conquering him in single combat. This victory in a personal engagement was the preliminary condition of His taking possession of the earth. It cannot be doubted that, as Keim and Weizsäcker acknowledge, Jesus is here thinking of the scene of His temptation. That spiritual triumph is the foundation laid for the establishment of the kingdom of God on the earth, and for the destruction of that of Satan. As soon as a man can tell the prince of this world to his face, “Thou hast nothing in me” (John 14:30), the stronger man, the vanquisher of the strong man, is come; and the plundering of his house begins. This plundering consists, first of all, of the healings of the possessed wrought by Jesus. Thus is explained the ease with which He performs those acts by which He rescues those unhappy ones from malignant powers, and restores them to God, to themselves, and to human society. All the figures of this scene are evidently borrowed from Isaiah 49:24-25, where Jehovah Himself fills the part of liberator, which Jesus here ascribes to Himself.

Vers. 23-26. “ He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. 24. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. 25. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. 26. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. ”

The relation between Luke 11:23 and the verses which precede and follow has been thought so obscure by De Wette and Bleek, that they give up the attempt to explain it. In itself the figure is clear. It is that of a troop which has been dispersed by a victorious enemy, and which its captain seeks to rally, after having put the enemy to flight; but false allies hinder rather than promote the rallying. Is it so difficult to understand the connection of this figure with the context? The dispersed army denotes humanity, which Satan has conquered; the chief who rallies it is Jesus; the seeming allies, who have the appearance of fighting for the same cause as He does, but who in reality scatter abroad with Satan, are the exorcists. Not having conquered for themselves the chief of the kingdom of darkness, it is only in appearance that they can drive out his underlings; in reality, they serve no end by those alleged exploits, except to strengthen the previous state of things, and to keep up the reign of the ancient master of the world. Such is the object which the following illustration goes to prove. By the thrice-repeated ἐμοῦ, me, of Luke 11:23, there is brought into relief the decisive importance of the part which Jesus plays in the history of humanity; He is the impersonation of the kingdom of God; His appearance is the advent of a new power. The words σκορπίζειν, to disperse, and συνάγειν, to gather together, are found united in the same sense as here, John 10:13-16.

The two following verses serve to illustrate the saying of Luke 11:23, as Luke 11:21-22 illustrated the declaration of Luke 11:20. They are a sort of apologue poetically describing a cure wrought by the means which the exorcists employ, and the end of which is to show, that to combat Satan apart from Christ, his sole conqueror, is to work for him and against God; comp. the opposite case, Luke 9:49-50. The exorcist has plied his art; the impure spirit has let go his prey, quitted his dwelling, which for the time has become intolerable to him. But two things are wanting to the cure to make it real and durable. First of all, the enemy has not been conquered, bound; he has only been expelled, and he is free to take his course of the world, perhaps to return. Jesus, on the other hand, sent the malignant spirits to their prison, the abyss whence they could no longer come forth till the judgment (Luke 8:31; Luke 4:34). Then the house vacated is not occupied by a new tenant, who can bar the entrance of it against the old one. Jesus, on the contrary, does not content Himself with expelling the demon; He brings back the soul to its God; He replaces the unclean spirit by the Holy Spirit. As a relapse after a cure of this sort is impossible, so is it probable and imminent in the former case. Every line of the picture in which Jesus represents this state of things is charged with irony. The spirit driven out walks through dry places. This strange expression was probably borrowed from the formulas of exorcism. The spirit was relegated to the desert, the presumed abode of evil spirits (Tob 8:3; Bar 4:35). The reference was the same in the symbolical sending of the goat into the wilderness for Azazel, the prince of the devils.

But the malignant spirit, after roaming for a time, begins to regret the loss of his old abode; would it not be well, he asks himself, to return to it? He is so sure that he needs only to will it, that he exclaims with sarcastic gaiety: I will return unto my house. At bottom he knows very well that he has not ceased to be the proprietor of it; a proprietor is only dispossessed in so far as he is replaced. First he determines to reconnoitre. Having come, he finds that the house is disposable (σχολάζοντα, Matt.). He finds what is better still: the exorcist has worked with so much success, that the house has recovered a most agreeable air of propriety, order, and comfort since his departure. Far, therefore, from being closed against the malignant spirit, it is only better prepared to receive him. Jesus means thereby to describe the restoration of the physical and mental powers conferred by the half cures which He is stigmatizing. Anew there is a famous work of destruction to be accomplished

Satan cares for no other but this time it is not to be done by halves. And therefore there is need for reinforcement. Besides, it is a festival; there is need of friends. The evil spirit goes off to seek a number of companions sufficient to finish the work which had been interrupted. These do not require a second bidding, and the merry crew throw themselves into their dwelling. This time, we may be sure, nothing will be wanting to the physical, intellectual, and moral destruction of the possessed. Such was the state in which Jesus had found the Gergesene demoniac (Luke 8:29), and probably also Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2). This explains in those two cases the words Legion (Luke 8:30) and seven devils (Luke 8:2), which are both symbolical expressions for a desperate state resulting from one or more relapses.

Nothing is clearer than this context, or more striking than this scene, in which it is impossible for us to distinguish fully between what belongs to the idea and what to the figure. Thus has Jesus succeeded in retorting upon the exorcists, so highly extolled by His adversaries, the reproach of being auxiliaries of Satan, which they had dared to cast on Him. Need we wonder at the enthusiasm which this discourse excited in the multitude, and at the exclamation of the woman, in which this feeling of admiration finds utterance?

3 d. Luke 11:27-28. The Incident. “ And it came to pass, as He spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto Him, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked. 28. But He said, Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. ” Perhaps, like Mary Magdalene, this woman had herself experienced the two kinds of healing which Jesus had been contrasting. In any case, living in a society where scenes of the kind were passing frequently, she had not felt the same difficulty in apprehending the figures as we, to whom they are so strange.

Jesus in His answer neither denies nor affirms the blessedness of her who gave Him birth. All depends on this, if she shall take rank in the class of those whom alone He declares to be blessed. The true reading appears to be μενοῦνγε, μενοῦν. “There is undoubtedly a blessedness;” γε (the restricting particle as always): “ at least for those who...”

Does not this short account bear in itself the seal of its historical reality? It is altogether peculiar to Luke, and suffices to demonstrate the originality of the source from which this whole piece was derived. For this incident could not possibly stand as a narrative by itself; it must have formed part of the account of the entire scene.

The allegorical tableau, Luke 11:24 et seq., is set by Matthew in an altogether different place, and so as to give it a quite different application (Luke 12:43 et seq.). The words with which it closes, “ Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation,” prove that it is applied in that Gospel to the Jewish people taken collectively. The old form of possession was the spirit of idolatry; that of the present, seven times worse, is the Rabbinical pride, the pharisaic formalism and hypocrisy, which have dominion over the nation in the midst of its monotheistic zeal. The stroke which will fall upon it will be seven times more terrible than that with which it was visited when it was led into captivity in Jeremiah's day. This application is certainly grand and felicitous. But it forces us entirely to separate this scene, Luke 11:24-26, as the first Gospel does, from the preceding, Luke 11:21-22, which in Matthew as well as in Luke can only refer to the healing of cases of possession; and yet those two scenes are indisputably the pendants of one another. Gess understands the application of this word in Matthew to the Jewish people in a wholly different sense. The first cure, according to him, was the enthusiastic impulse of the people in favour of Jesus in the beginning of His Galilean ministry; the relapse referred to the coldness which had followed, and which had obliged Jesus to teach in parables. But nowhere does Jesus make so marked an allusion to that crisis, to which probably the conscience of the people was not awakened. Would it not be better in this case to apply the first cure to the powerful effect produced by John the Baptist? “Ye were willing for a season,” says Jesus Himself, “to rejoice in his light” (John 5:35). Anyhow, what leads Matthew to convert the second scene into a national apologue, instead of leaving it with its demonological and individual application, is his insertion, immediately before, of the saying which relates to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, a saying which in Mark also follows the scene of the combat between the strong man and the stronger man. When, after so grave an utterance, Matthew returns to the scene (omitted by Mark) of the spirit recovering possession of his abandoned dwelling, he must necessarily give it a different bearing from that which it has in Luke. The superiority of Luke's account cannot appear doubtful to the reader who has caught the admirable connection of this discourse, and the striking meaning of all the figures which Jesus uses to compose those two scenes. As to the true position of the saying about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the question will be discussed chap. 12