Matthew 8:34

Matthew 8:34. The whole city, the great mass of the inhabitants from city and country, as it appears from the other accounts.

They besought him that he would depart from their borders. The people were heathen, and as such were more affected by the loss of property and the fear of further damage than by the blessing wrought on the possessed man. Our Lord never came back but the healed men remained. The one spoken of by Mark and Luke wished to follow Jesus, but was bidden to publish the story of his cure among his friends. With what result we do not know, but doubtless he thus prepared the way for the gospel, which was afterwards preached everywhere. The possessed received Him more readily than the Gadarenes. Christ healed madmen where calculating selfishness drove Him away.

This miracle alone tells of a transfer of demoniacal possession and of its effect upon other creatures than man.

Remarks. (1.) This occurrence shows that demoniacal possession was not identical with any bodily disease. (2.) It also opposes the view that while the influence was indeed demoniacal, bodily possession was merely a popular notion; the persons possessed identify mg themselves in their own minds with the demons. The plain language of the narrative is against such a theory, which moreover explains nothing. The main trouble is the admission, not of bodily possession, but of spiritual influence of any kind. (3.) The most natural and tenable position is: that in the time of Christ persons were, actually and bodily, possessed by personal evil spirits. The New Testament accounts show, even by their grammatical peculiarities, the existence of a ‘double will and double consciousness' (Alford) in the demoniac. Sometimes the spirit speaks, sometimes the poor demoniac himself. That sensual sin prepared the way for possession has often been supposed, and is not improbable. Such things may occur again, but ‘discerning of the spirits ‘was a special gift in the early church, which will doubtless return should occasion require.