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ALLIANCE OR CONQUEST?

Mark 3:22–7

The experts in the law from Jerusalem came down. They said, ‘He has Beelzebul on his side.’ They said, ‘It is by the ruler of the demons that he casts out the demons.’ Jesus called them and spoke to them by way of analogy. ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan had risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand – he is finished. No one can go into the house of a strong man and plunder his gear unless he first binds the strong man – then he will plunder his house.’

THE orthodox officials never questioned Jesus’ power to exorcise demons. They did not need to, for exorcism was a common phenomenon at that time. What they did say was that Jesus’ power was due to the fact that he was in league with the king of the demons, that, as one commentator puts it, ‘it was by the great demon he cast out the little demons’. People have always believed in ‘black magic’, and that is what they claimed Jesus was practising.

Jesus had no difficulty in exploding that argument. The essence of exorcism has always been that the exorcist calls on some stronger power to drive out the weaker demon. So Jesus says: ‘Just think! If there is internal dissension in a kingdom, that kingdom cannot last. If there are quarrels in a house, that house will not endure long. If Satan is actually making war with his own demons then he is finished as an effective power, because civil war has begun in the kingdom of Satan.’ ‘Put it another way,’ Jesus said. ‘Suppose you want to rob a strong man. You have no hope of doing so until you have got the strong man under subjection. Once you have got him tied up you can plunder his goods – but not until then.’ The defeat of the demons did not show that Jesus was in alliance with Satan; it showed that Satan’s defences had been breached. A stronger name had arrived; the conquest of Satan had begun. Two things emerge here.