A Demon in the Synagogue | On Clean and Unclean Spirits | Coffee & Commentary

Mark 1:21-28

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We’re starting a new segment here at Theological Letters. Coffee & Commentary will offer a glimpse inside my personal study journal, where I record reflections on sacred Scripture. Each week, I'll share a few verses along with the notes I’ve scribbled down.

This isn't polished commentary or formal exegesis. These are simply informal observations, questions, and reflections that emerge during my daily study. I share these in the hope that someone somewhere might benefit.

So, grab your coffee and pull up a chair as we study together.

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²¹ Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. ²² And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. ²³ Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, ²⁴ saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” ²⁵ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” ²⁶ And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him. ²⁷ Then they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” ²⁸ And immediately His fame spread throughout all the region around Galilee. (Mark 1:21-8, NKJV)

• Mark 1:21-3

  • Christ taught as one having authority. The term indicates that he taught out of or from his own substance (ἐξουσίαν), a term quite close to the term for free choice — more literally rendered from the substance of self or self substance (αὐτεξούσιος), by which is meant the power to determine for oneself what he becomes. Thus, the mode of teaching here described, which struck Christ’s hearers as so unique, was teaching void of deference to other teachers of the Law. His words did not defer to other rabbis or authorities but came from his own being. And though these first hearers may have marveled, there is nothing surprising to the one who knows Christ’s true identity that He who is Wisdom would pour forth wisdom from his own being, not drawing from another, or that He who is the Word, would speak to them the word from his very substance.

  • Christ’s ministry begins with a revelation to the Jews first. Hence, his authoritative teaching — and the demonstration of that authority in the demoniac incident to follow (see also 1:26) — occurs here first. The pattern is then repeated in Mark 1:39. Even in the healing of the leper (1:40-5), we see the same: Christ sends the one healed to make an offering in accord with the prescriptions of Moses as a testimony to them — that is, to those who would receive the offering (1:44).

  • Notice that the demon is not “in the synagogue” but “in the synagogue of them” or “their synagogue.” The specificity seems a subtle attribution to the religion practiced by those who failed to recognize Christ, associated with the Scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites — that is, the unbelieving Jews who preferred their appearance of piety and their religious pageantry to Christ. These preferred the shadows of things to come (the Law) over the substance that cast these shadows (Christ).

  • Notice also that Christ is here healing on the Sabbath (1:21) in his first public act of ministry, an affront to the appearance of religion that would run afoul of the Pharisees later.

  • Noteworthy is the language used to describe the wickedness of the demon: The language is privative — it is “not-clean” (ἀκαθάρτῳ). Here, we see the Christian understanding of evil, advocated from its inception: Much like the way blindness does not add something to the eye but deprives it of a good, so it is with evil generally. The view was utterly contrary to pagan theories, which presumed either two principles — spirit is good while matter is evil — or two deities — a god of good and a god of evil at constant war. The Christian view, by contrast, maintains that all God has made is originally good, and evil is a shadow phenomenon, arising as a privation or corruption or twisting of this original goodness.

  • Equally noteworthy is the term negated — not-clean. For the Old Testament ceremonial Law was aimed at purification, or cleanness. Yet, in their synagogue sat one with an unclean spirit. And here, we see an odd aspect of the story that likely escapes our gaze, given the story’s familiarity: The synagogue is an exceedingly strange place to encounter a demoniac. After all, the synagogue was a place for teachings, practices, and peoples devoted to “cleanness”; yet, here, in their midst, sits an unclean spirit. The peculiar fact is likely another subtle nod to the prior point, namely, the indictment of religious practices that had no real power to make one clean. The demoniac was apparently comfortable in the midst of their synagogue until Christ appeared, and only then did it manifest its contempt for God, only to be cast out.

  • The point is only further punctuated by the change in terminology after Christ casts out the unclean spirit. Following this purification, Mark refers to “the synagogue” (1:29) no longer “their synagogue.” The shift is subtle but no doubt nods to a corruption in their midst that Christ came to dispel, offering to them true cleanness rather than the mere appearance of cleanness.

  • Notice how significant the demonic is in the Gospel of Mark. Christ’s identity is pronounced by God and confirmed by the Holy Spirit by tearing open the heavens — a possible reference to a clearing away of the powers of the air (see prior post). Christ is immediately cast into the Wilderness to be tempted by Satan. And now, his ministry commences with a proof of his power via his authority over the demons, and this pattern does not wane in the gospel but persists.

• Mark 1:24

  • “What to us and to you?” the demon asks. Notice that the demon speaks in the plural, but not as in the case of Legion, for he (singular) cries out when expelled. The demon is but one, but he speaks in the plural about the demonic powers generally, of whom he is a representative. Christ’s ministry is here marked by a question about us and them — the enemy lines that run through the center of the cosmos between the demonic and the holy, the clean and the unclean, with a single question about his aim. The demon’s presumption about Christ reflects the only aim it understands, hate and destruction: Have you come to destroy us? The demon, being a thing of darkness and venom, cannot grasp the mission of Christ as one impelled by the purest Goodness and Love — a mission of condescension and self-sacrifice for the good of another. The demon sees Christ through its own warped eyes, not understanding the Good and the Love of its Maker.

• Mark 1:25

  • Here, we see the consistency of the biblical language: The demon is a spirit, not a soul. For the latter is the life-force of an animated body, while the former is intelligent by nature. Hence, angels, whether holy or fallen, are spirits, never souls — and God, too, is spirit, according to Christ’s words recorded in John (4:24). In the case of man, however, the biblical language uses both terms, since his soul is the animating force of an animal body, and yet, being an image of his divine Archetype, bears intelligence or mind — what John of Damascus calls its purest part — and is thus also a spirit.

• Mark 1:26

  • See note on 1:23 above about the uncleanness of the demon.

• Mark 1:27

  • The description of Christ’s teaching by the people reflects the above note on the authority of this teaching — it being produced from his own being. For their talk of “new” teaching is not “new” (νέος) in a chronological sense of more recent but new in the sense of fresh (καιvῆ), a term of quality more so than chronology. Here, Christ, the Wisdom of God, brings forth from his own being fresh wisdom.

  • Before the exorcism, Christ offered only the appearance of teaching with authority — He speaks as [ὡς] (or like or in the manner of) one having authority. But this authority or power is demonstrated in his power to command unclean spirits. The unclean spirit’s obedience, both in its silence and departure, became to the people the visible proof that Christ did not merely pose as one with authority but in fact is one with authority.

• Mark 1:28

  • The spreading of his fame in all directions reflects two recurring themes in the gospel as it persists. The first is precisely this: Christ’s ministry is to the four corners of the earth, as its furtherance would later be entrusted to his Apostles.

  • The second theme becomes evident in later stories. Like in the story of the leper, Christ instructs the leper to tell no one. And yet, the leper’s healing testifies for itself, causing his fame to spread. So it is here: Christ’s fame spreads because of the demonstration of his authority, this demonstration being the primary herald of his coming.