Luke 4:33

‘And in the synagogue there was a man, who had a spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice,'

In the synagogue at Capernaum where He was preaching there was a man who had an unclean spirit (or ‘demon'. This word would make clear to Gentiles what an ‘evil spirit' was) within him. The fact that it is ‘unclean' emphasises that it has no approach to God. It is excluded by its condition. This was a spiritual power of evil which had taken possession of him. Probably in some way he had been disobeying the Law, which was quite clear on such matters, and messing around with the occult, and had thus become possessed. Christians should always avoid the occult.

At certain times this evil spirit spoke through him, for he had possessed his body so that he could live through him. Such spirits did not make their presence too obvious as they wanted to allay people's suspicions. But when this one was faced with Jesus Christ it either could not, or did not want to, keep quiet. The very act of Jesus in entering the synagogue would have alerted the evil spirit, and it was afraid because it recognised Him, and cried through the man's mouth with a loud voice. It wanted to know what Jesus proposed to do.

‘Spirit of an unclean demon.' Only here. Being the first instance Luke wants all to be clear about what these evil spirits are, whatever expressions they use. He does, however, use daimonion twenty three times, and ‘unclean spirit' five times, linking daimonion and unclean once. Matthew has diamonion ten times and ‘unclean spirit' twice. Mark has daimonion thirteen times and unclean spirit eleven times. They are thus interchangeable.