God’s Word for You
Mark 5:11-13 Demons and pigs
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, September 24, 2022
11 Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and the spirits begged him, saying, “Send us into the pigs so that we can enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. The unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
According to the Mishna or oral law, the Jews were forbidden from raising pigs, although this was not forbidden by the law of Moses. Only eating pigs or using them as offerings was forbidden (Leviticus 11:7). Mules and donkeys were also forbidden food (Deuteronomy 14:4-7) and yet were raised and used by Jews as useful beasts of burden. Solomon, too, had twelve thousand horses in his stables (1 Kings 4:26), and the other kings of the Jews used horses. Horses and mules were also part of the property brought back from the Babylonian captivity (Ezra 2:66; Nehemiah 7:68). Finally, Jesus borrowed donkeys from friends in Bethany when he rode them into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:7). If it was not unlawful for the Lord Jesus to ride a donkey or for Solomon and the other kings to stable and use horses for their armies, then raising swine was also not, of itself, a violation of the Law of Moses. It was not breaking the law to touch a pig any more than it was breaking the law to touch a horse or a donkey. However, horses are useful animals for pulling carts and other things. What use would a pig be apart from food? And there is the problem: they were forbidden as food. Therefore, unless the local Jews were raising the pigs for the Gentiles, they were raising them for their own food. In fact, Jesus giving permission to the demons to enter (and destroy) the pigs, verifies this and can only be seen as a judgment on the owners.
As for the demons, in their insane fear of Christ’s judgment on them, their terror was such that they begged to be permitted to possess something else rather than be sent to a place. The only place Jesus would have sent them to was the place of their judgment, which is hell (1 Peter 3:19). Until Judgment Day, God permits the evil spirits to roam the earth (Job 1:7; Matthew 8:29,31). They are “the secret sinister power that holds the heathen in abject idolatry and superstition (1 Corinthians 10:20; Acts 28:18)” (Koehler, A Summary of Christian Doctrine p. 46), and they are the driving force behind the wickedness of the world. But to beg the Son of God not to punish them shows their foolishness and their unreasoning reason.
Jesus’ response? Very well! If you want to try to disappear into unclean animals and punish these sinning Jews who should not be raising and eating them in the first place, then go ahead! Try to escape into the swine!
And they did. The whole, entire hoard of demons, the Legion, left the man and entered the two thousand pigs. What happened to the man we will see next (tomorrow); what happened to the pigs is described in a single phrase: they “rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.” What did the demons have now? Nothing at all. The poor creatures they tried to possess went mad and destroyed themselves rather than host the unclean spirits.
Perhaps if one demon, or even many, had entered into a single boar or sow, the creature would have remained calm in the middle of the group, and gone slowly mad over time. But a modern pop culture saying is: “A person is smart; people are dumb,” and animals in a herd, flock, school or pod are bound to go mad when there is no leader, no bellwether to guide by smell or habit. So the “legions of horrid hell” drove the whole herd wild, and down they went into the water, baptizing, as it were, the land itself, washing the demons out and cleansing the region. And the demons? Where else had they to go, but what the Lord himself describes: “When an evil spirit goes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest, and does not find it” (Matthew 12:43).
There is no hope for the demons. There is no hope for the devil. But angels and people are different creations. Man does not become an angel in death; his spirit awaits the resurrection (Ecclesiastes 12:7; John 11:24). All of us who trust in Jesus will have Jesus’ works and perfection on our account when we are judged, and so we will pass with God’s own permission and delight into Paradise. Keep trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and know that you have a place with him forever. You who seek rest in Christ will find it in Christ, and in Christ alone.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.