The gospel text for Sunday, June 9 is Mark 3:20-35, but I’d like to extend that to include 3:13-19, which describes the calling and the commissioning of the twelve (to preach and to cast out demons).
That’s because there’s lots of demon/spirit language: “cast out demons” (v. 15), “out of his mind” (v. 21), “possessed by Beelzebul” (v. 22), “How can Satan cast out Satan?” (v. 23), “Satan… risen up… divided” (v. 26), “bind the strong man” (v. 27), “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” (v. 29), “he has an unclean spirit” (v. 30).
Before you read about demons in Mark
Mark doesn’t say enough about demons for us to construct a coherent demonology from his gospel.
That thesis comes from Peter Gross, and I agree with it. Mark has plenty to say about demons, but he assumes significant prior knowledge.
What Mark calls “demons” in some places and “unclean spirits” in others are two names, with different clusters of allusive associations, for the same spiritual entities.
In Against Heresies, Irenaeus roasts the heretics for (groundlessly) positing that different words in the Bible must refer to different spiritual entities, and then constructing weird, complex systems based on this. If you’re curious, read Book I, Ch. 1.
Here’s an example of casual term-switching in the story about the Syrophoencian Woman (7:24-30): “A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet… And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter” (vv. 25-26).
In Mark, as in the rest of the NT, demons (and spirits) don’t “possess” people. Demons “demonize” people, and people either “have” demons or are “with” demons.
The infamous word “possess” was introduced in the KJV and (further) popularized in exorcist films. The New Testament language is both inverse and more plain. At Mark 3:22, which the ESV renders, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” the phrase is literally, “He has (echei) Beelzebul.” Echei, from echo, simply means “he has.”
This language recurs at 5:15. The ESV: They “saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion.” Demon-possessed is an interpretive translation of the word, daimonizomenon (1:32; 5:15, 16, 18), more straightforwardly rendered “demonized.” (The) Scholars (I’ve read) prefer the term “demonized” to describe people who have demons. The latter part of the sentence is clearer: “the one who had had (eschēkota, from echo) the legion.”
Again in 7:15, the little daughter “had (eichen, from echo) an unclean spirit.” And, finally, 9:17, “my son… has (echonta, from echo) a mute spirit.”
Those who have been filled with the Spirit can’t “have” demons, but they can still be “demonized.”
This isn’t a claim developed in Mark, but it’s important ground-clearing for Christians reading Mark and seeking to understand the significance of its depiction of demons.
Here is a quick dogmatic answer: Those whom the Holy Spirit has entered cannot then be (re-)entered by a demon.
Here is a fuller answer, written by longtime Moody Church pastor, Dr. Erwin Lutzer.
Observations about demons in Mark
I am not constructing a demonology from Mark, but I do want to pay attention to patterns in Mark’s depiction of demons in order to better understand what they are, what they do, how Jesus and the disciples interact with them, and how they relate to us.
Mark 1:21-28
The man “with” the unclean spirit has defiled sacred space and sacred time: he is in the synagogue on the Sabbath. The demon assumes Jesus has come to “destroy” them. Jesus “rebukes” him, saying “Be silent,” and “come out.” The demon “convulses” the man, “cries out” and “comes out.” The crowd identifies this as “command” and “obedience.”
Mark 1:32-34
The people the ESV describes as being “oppressed” by demons are simply “being demonized” (daimonizomenon). The word here isn’t the descriptive “rebuke” but the categorical “cast out” (ekballō). Jesus does not allow them to speak.
Mark 3:7-12
There is no mention of “having” or of “demonization.” The unclean spirits, who are not described as being connected with people, see Jesus “fell down” and “cried out.” Interesting. He “strictly ordered” them not to make him known.
Mark 3:13-30
When it comes time to commission the disciples, they are commissioned to do two things: to preach and to have (echein) power to cast out (ekballein) demons.
Jesus, per the scribes, “has Beelzebul.” They explain that it is “by the ruler of the demons” that Jesus “casts out (ekballei) demons.”
“Binding” the strong man and “plundering” his house is interesting. The demonized man (5:3, 4) was not able to be “bound,” and then both John (6:17) and Jesus (15:1) are bound. But this is often (rightly, I think) taken as a nod to the Exodus and the plundering (Exod. 12:36) the house of Egypt. Jesus is describing himself as the strong man who binds Satan and plunders his house.
Mark 5:1-20
This story picks up that (binding the strong man) theme. “Bind” is used in 5:3, 4. “Strong” in v. 4. The man is “with” (v. 2) an “unclean spirit” who “demonizes” him (vv. 15, 16, 18).
He also “fell down” and “cried.” Instead of asking not to be destroyed (cf. 1:21-28), the demon asks not to be “tormented” (5:7). Jesus’s command, is “Come out” (cf. 1:21-28). As they negotiate their relocation, the words “come out” (5:13) and “enter” (5:12, 13) recur.
Mark 6:7-13
Rather than commission his disciples to “have” authority to “cast out” “demons” (cf. 3:13-20), he “gave” them authority “over” “unclean spirits” (6:7). A summary sentence, they “cast out many demons” (v. 13) reverts to the language of 3:13-20.
Mark 7:24-30
The Syrophoenecian Woman’s daughter “had an unclean spirit,” and the woman begs Jesus to “cast the demon out” of her daughter. Jesus informs her that “the demon has left” her daughter. The child is found lying in bed and the demon “gone.”
Mark 9:14-29
Again, it’s a concerned parent. This time, a father of a boy. The boy “has a spirit,” and this one “makes him mute.” By the father’s report, it “seizes” him, “throws him down,” and makes him “foam,” “grind his teeth,” and “become rigid.” The disciples are not able to cast it out.
Upon seeing Jesus, the spirit “convulsed” the boy, and the boy “fell” on the ground, “rolled about,” and “foamed.” Upon cross-examination, the father says this has been happening “from childhood… often casting him into fire and into water, to destroy him.”
Jesus “rebukes” the unclean spirit, names it not only a “mute” spirit but also a “deaf” one, and commands it to “come out” and to “never enter” him again.
In their debrief, the disciples ask why they could not “cast it out,” and Jesus switches the language, saying that it cannot “come out” by anything but prayer. The ESV changes this to the causative “be driven out,” but the verb is just exelthein, which is from exerchomai, “to come.”
Mark 9:38-41
Someone who doesn’t follow Jesus is “casting out demons” in his name (v. 38). Jesus encourages this, which coheres with his view that a kingdom divided is coming to an end. All casting out of demons is good.
Mark 16:9-20
Mary Magdelene is described as having had “seven demons” “cast out” from her. People who believe will “cast out demons” as a sign.
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There is much to observe here, and much more to investigate further. But some very broad patterns are worth noting:
Jesus’s response to demons can be described, technically and effectively, as “casting out”; rhetorically, as “rebuking”; and dialogically, as saying, “come out” and “be silent.”
Discussion of demons is spatial: They “enter” and “come out.”
Demons harass children.
Jesus, and his disciples, are described as having authority or power, by speaking sternly, and by permitting or not permitting certain activities.
Casting out demons is a “sign,” (16:17) broadly, of “authority” and “belief;” and, more specifically, of the “coming to an end” of Satan’s kingdom (3:26). That’s why it doesn’t matter who does it (9:38-41).
Observations about “casting out” (ekballō) in Mark
At 3:15, Jesus commissions the twelve apostles to have authority to “cast out” (ekballein, from ekballō) demons. Ekballō is ballō, which is the verb meaning “throw,” plus the prefix, ek-, for out or away from—so, literally, throw out.
This language pervades Mark, as Jesus “casts out” demons (1:34, 39; 16:9) and people discuss his casting out demons (3:22, 23; 7:26; 9:18); the disciples “cast out” demons (3:15; 6:13; discussion in 9:28, 38; 16:17).
But there are several other instances of Jesus casting out, being cast out, and recommending casting out. Here are those passages:
Mark 1:40-45
After healing a leper, Jesus speaks sternly to him, sending him away (exebalen, v. 43), by which he means, “say nothing to anyone,” and then giving him a particular spatial direction: “Go, show yourself to the priest…” Like the demons (cf. 1:21-28; 32-34), the man began to “talk freely” (v. 45), preventing Jesus from entering towns and consigning him to “desolate places” (v. 45).
The leper isn’t demonic, but his well-intentioned indiscretion ends up resembling their activity.
Mark 5:35-43
A girl is reported dead (v. 35), but Jesus claims the child is “not dead but sleeping” (v. 39). The “commotion” of people “laughed at (lit., “against”) him” (v. 40). But Jesus “put them out” (ekbalōn, v. 40) before going into the house and raising the girl.
Is Jesus casting out hysterical people who laughing against his proclamation about his authority over death not somehow related to his casting out demons?
Mark 9:42-50
Again, a passage about “casting out” begins with a discussion of children (cf. 5:21-43; 7:24-30; 9:14-29): “Whoever causes one of these little ones… to sin…” (5:42). His advice is to “cut off” the “hand” and “foot” which cause sin (vv. 43, 45). And, better to “tear out” (ekbale, from ekballō) the eye than to be “thrown into” (blēthēnai, from ballō) hell (v. 47).
Mark 11:15-19
Jesus “entered” (v. 15) the temple, and began to “drive out” (ekballein, v. 15) the sellers and the buyers. The sacred-spatial introductory verb, “entered,” followed by the activity of driving out desacralizing, demonic activity. Further, there are activities he “would not permit” (v. 16) and, as the demons assumed Jesus would “destroy” them (cf. 1:24), the chief priests and scribes seek to “destroy” him (11:18).
This story resembles the scene in Mark 5:35-43, wherein Jesus casts another group of people engaging in demonic activity out of a building as he enters it. I really think there’s something here.
Mark 12:1-12
This is the parable of the tenants. Just after Jesus casts buyers and sellers out of the temple, and the chief priests and scribes seek to destroy him, Jesus tells a parable about tenants of a vineyard who conspire to “kill” the heir in order to possess (hm) his inheritance. They “take” him and “kill” him and “throw him out” (exebalon) of the vineyard (v. 8).
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So, to be fair, ekballō is just a verb, and it’s not a technical term, so we don’t need to see exorcism and demons every time we see it. But at 5:35-43 and 11:15-19, when Jesus casts demonically behaving people out of domestic and sacred spaces as he enters them, I think we’re not wrong to read these scenes as part of the ministry of casting out demons.
Sometimes, especially in sacred spaces and places involving the vulnerable lives of children, you need to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Toward reading (and preaching) Mark 3:13-30
Here is a wooden translation of the passage, plus some comments about what it might look like to preach it:
Then [Jesus] goes up onto the mountain
and he calls to himself those he wanted
and they went to him
and he appointed twelve
whom he called also apostles (apostolous)
so that they may be with him
and so that he may send (apostellē) them out to preach
and to have power to cast out (ekballein) demons
After “and he appointed twelve” there is a parenthetical description of them before he repeats the phrase again at the beginning of the next section.
Before following up the name “apostles” with the description of “sent ones,” he emphasizes that he called them not first to send them but that they may be “with” him. “Be with,” and then send to preach and to have casting power.
Given that the mass (missio) is, etymologically, a dismissal toward our shared commission, I think that it would be appropriate to focus on understanding that the apostles, and that we, are to be given the authority to cast out demons.
And, given that we’re going to be in Mark for the remainder of ordinary time (six months?), I’m in favor of a deep dive into the notion of “casting out demons.”
and he appointed the twelve
and he added (epethēken) the name (onoma) to Simon, “Peter”
and James the son of Zebedee
and John the brother of James,
to them he added (epethēken) the names (onomata) Boanerges
that is sons of thunder
and Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew
and Matthew and Thomas
and James the son of Alphaeus
and Thaddaeus and Simon the Zealot
and Judas Iscariot who also betrayed him.
He “adds names” to a couple of the apostles. I like “adds” because (a) the narrator always calls him “Simon” before 3:13-30 and always calls him “Peter” after 3:13-30; and (b) the one time Jesus addresses him by name, he calls him “Simon” (14:37). I do not understand the significance of this detail.
I don’t imagine I’ll preach this.
Then he comes into a house
and the crowd gathers together again
so that they were not able even to eat bread
then those-who’d-heard (about things, and were) with him
went out to take hold of (kratēsai) him
for they said he is put-out-of-place (ex-istēmi)
The pair of words makes sense. Take hold of, or seize, is what you would do to someone out of place. These seem like neutral terms. Jesus seizes the hands of the sick (e.g. 5:41; 9:27), and accusers seize John (6:17). “Out of place” is a judgment call.
Now the scribes having come down from Jerusalem
said that he has Beelzebul
and that by the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons
This is a two-part charge that explains Jesus’s apparently being out of place. Not only does Jesus have a demon, he has the ruler of demons. And that is the power by which he casts out (and, purportedly, commissions other caster-outers).
Their mistake is to call good ministry evil, and that’s a danger for us, too. If we understand what Jesus says next, and rightly perceive the ways in which Satan’s kingdom is being brought to an end, we can not only tolerate the casting out of demons (e.g. 9:38-41), but benefit from it, appreciate it, and participate in it ourselves.
Then having called them to him
in parables he spoke to them:
How can Satan cast out Satan?
And if a kingdom against itself is divided,
cannot (dunatai, present) remain existing, that kingdom
and if a house against itself is divided
will not be able (dunēsetai, future) that house to remain existing
Structurally, the parable begins with a rhetorical question.
Then, in a-b-b’-a’ parallelism, the next two lines describe a kingdom. Building on and intensifying this, the next two lines describe houses using nearly the same vocabulary, changing only the verb tense. Why? I don’t know.
But, better for a sermon, this may be part of the content of the apostles’ preaching (cf. 3:14). It’s at least Mark’s: He shows the demonic powers being divided amongst themselves.
I’ll note, too, that this parable can be read in two ways:
Hypothetically, as Jesus describing what the scribes think is going on with his ministry;
Really, and ironically, as what is happening as the demons actually do rise up, divided, in a kingdom that is coming to an end.
I don’t think we need to read this in only one way or the other, but that the parable can be read as sounding simultaneously on both registers.
And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided
He cannot continue to exist but he has (echei) an end
But not can no one into the house of the strong man enter
his property (ta skeuē) to plunder
if not first he binds the strong man.
Then his house he will plunder.
“Risen up” suggests an upswell of demonic activity. Satan is rising up, but only in order to end.
Property (ta skeuē) is curious, because that’s the term used to describe the merchandise being bought and sold in the temple (11:15-19). Hm.
Truly I say to you that
all the sins will be forgiven of the sons of men
even the blasphemies whatever they blaspheme
but what ever one will blaspheme against the Holy Spirit
he does not have forgiveness in eternity
but is found-guilty of eternal sin
because they said he has (echei) an unclean spirit.
If you want an explanation of this passage, in the context of Mark, David Mathis has a nice one. I want to make sure we don’t abstract these verses (vv. 28-29) from their narrative context. Here are my thoughts today:
The scribes have just said, “He has (echei) Beelzebul” (v. 22). That’s why Jesus points out the eternal, unforgiven guilt of those who say, “He has (echei) an unclean spirit” (v. 30). He’s saying the scribes are guilty.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is different than blasphemy against Jesus. Jesus can take your criticism and your ugly words. He wants to show the power the Father has given for him and slowly change your mind.
Here’s the challenge of Mark’s gospel: “Dear reader, read the entire story of Jesus’s casting out of demons, and decide for yourselves whether these powerful works are works of darkness or works of God. If the former, you, like the scribes cannot be unbound—from sin and Satan. But you will laugh when Jesus says he can raise children from the dead. And you will sell in the temple. And you will cast the son out of the vineyard. If the latter, Jesus will forgive all your sins, all your blasphemies, and all the ugly things you said while you were still figuring out what was going on in life before you saw Jesus for who he is.”
I agree with all of what you have written about demons in the Gospel of Mark. Plus the teaching makes sense of my experience of ministering to people as well. It is often an expression of genuine relief when people find out that what is attacking them is not entirely of their own making.