Mark 5:6-10 A Demon-Possessed Man Healed
(Matt. 8:28–9:1; Luke 8:26–39)
Mark 5:6-10 (NKJV) When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him. 7 And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.”
8 For He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!” 9 Then He asked him, “What is your name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” 10 Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country.
V6 “When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him.” Demons, evidently, do not possess a spirit body. They are a naked spirit, so they desire possession. Some argue they can materialize in different forms (Revelation 9:3-11 and perhaps Genesis 3:1) while others understand that they can only possess. In Jude 1:9, there arose an argument over the body of Moses. The purpose, it seems, is to possess Moses’s body, pretending to be Moses, with the purpose of deceiving. I believe they can materialize based on experience and testimony of others. Whether they can or cannot is not important. What is important is that they are there to control, do evil, and attempt to frustrate the grace, mission, plans, and wishes of God (Job 1:6-12, Zechariah 3:1-2, and 1 Thessalonians 2:18). The worst possession is twofold: 1) Judas Iscariot (22:3) and 2) the antiChrist (Revelation 13:1-10).
V7 “And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.” What have I to do with you is better understood literally as “what to me and to you.” This is understood as what do we have in common?
Wuest Word Studies: “What have I to do with thee? The literal Greek is, “What with reference to me and with reference to you?” The classification is dative of reference. Supplying the verb of being here, which is often left out and to be supplied by the reader, we have, “What is there with reference to me and with reference to you?” That is, “What is there in common between me and you?”
This unclean spirit knew who Jesus was, namely the Son of the Most High God. This does not mean that there are other gods (other than idols which are not gods), but that there is only one being who is Supreme. The spirit through the man is in great fear.
Why did this man/spirit kneel before Jesus? It was not for worship but recognition of who He is and His authority. See Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11, and Philippians 2:10.
Wilbur Pickering adds: “Now really, a demon appealing to God! Since he had recognized, correctly, that Jesus was ‘Son of the Most High God’, he was appealing to Him through His Father—pretty shrewd! (I assume that he had been informed that the attempt to destroy Jesus with the storm had failed.)”
Finally, unclean spirits, demons, can feel pain, torment, and suffering; thus, the fear he had. The Lake of Fire was created for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41).
V8 “For He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!” The authority of Jesus. Do we recognize Jesus’s authority?
V9 “Then He asked him, “What is your name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” Jesus knew but wanted this demon to tell Jesus his name. All demons have names.
Wilbur Pickering writes: “A full Roman legion was 6,000 men, but many legions had only half that many. On the basis of verse 13, one wonders if there could have been 2,000 demons. This being the only recorded instance where Jesus asked a demon’s name, I wonder why He did. Since He presumably already knew, I take it that He did it so we would have a record of demonic infestation. I see no basis here for needing to know a demon’s name before you can cast it out.”
V10 “Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country.” The word country would be better understood as region. Demons evidently are assigned certain areas for their evil work. Compare Daniel 10:1-21.
We learn:
- Some of the evil demons do.
- Demons recognize the superiority of Jesus.
Questions:
- Do we recognize Jesus’s authority?
- Do we turn to Jesus for help?