Luke 4:31–44
31 And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, 32 and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. 33 And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Ha!1 What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. 36 And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37 And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.
38 And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. 39 And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them.
40 Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. 41 And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.
42 And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, 43 but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” 44 And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.2
1 Or Leave us alone 2 Some manuscripts Galilee
Section Overview
This section offers a snapshot of Jesus’ ministry, a day in his life, by which the authority of his message is manifested. In the first narrative we see the authority of Jesus’ teaching as he casts out a demon in the synagogue, so that Jesus’ fame is trumpeted in the region (4:31–37). Jesus’ authority continues to be demonstrated in the next narrative, as he rebukes a fever seizing Peter’s mother-in-law so that she is liberated to serve him (vv. 38–39). A summary statement follows of how Jesus, as the sun is setting, heals the sick and casts out demons (vv. 40–41). The people pursue Jesus as he seeks solitude; he does not let others control his agenda but informs them of the divine necessity to proclaim the good news elsewhere, and thus he preaches in synagogues all through Judea (vv. 42–44).
Section Outline
III. Jesus Proclaims Salvation in Galilee by the Power of the Spirit (4:14–9:50)
A. Proclaiming the Good News in Galilee (4:14–5:16) . . .
2. A Message with Authority (4:31–44)
Response
Words are important, but words without actions can be hollow. Jesus shows both the authority of his teaching and his kindness by casting out demons and healing disease. Both sickness and demonic conditions are due to sin in the world, but it does not necessarily follow that they can be traced to personal sin, as if there were a one-to-one correspondence between sin and demon possession or illness. “The possession is treated as evil and not as sinful. Jesus does not offer the victims forgiveness, as if they were in some way at fault for being demonized.” Jesus’ exorcisms point to the new creation, to the coming of the kingdom, in which there will be no more derangement or disease, where all will be whole and complete. The demons know who Jesus is, identifying him as the Son of God, but they are not saved because they do not embrace him as the Son of God gladly but rather express fear and revulsion. Saving faith, as I have often heard John Piper say, is “being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus.” One other truth shines forth in this text: the good news of the kingdom is not to be bottled up for a particular ethnic group or social class or race. It is for all people everywhere, and Jesus has a divine compulsion to spread the good news. We must have that same urgency to tell all we meet the good news.
Or Leave us alone
Some manuscripts Galilee
4:31–32 Jesus arrives in Capernaum (cf. 4:23; 7:1; 10:15), a town of about six hundred to fifteen hundred people and the “main fishing village of the area.” On the Sabbath, as he did in Nazareth, he teaches the people (cf. 13:10). Luke feels no need to fill in what is taught since he provides the content elsewhere. What strikes the people is the authority with which Jesus teaches (cf. 2:48; 5:24; 9:1, 43; 10:19; cf. Matt. 7:28–29). He teaches with a confidence, a freshness, a simplicity, and a directness that captures the hearts and minds of those listening.
4:33–34 Jesus’ teaching is interrupted in the synagogue by a man with an unclean spirit, a demon. The word “unclean” signifies that the demon is evil. Demons are beings that transcend human beings but are lower than God; they afflict human beings and cause havoc in a variety of ways (cf. Luke 4:41; 8:28). In this case the man with the demonic spirit yells out in the midst of the meeting, which naturally catches everyone’s attention. The demon yells something like “Hey” and asks about the relationship between demons and Jesus (cf. 1 Kings 17:18; John 2:4), implying there is no common ground, that they have no relationship with one another. Still, he knows who Jesus is, identifying him as the “Holy One of God” (cf. James 2:19; John 6:69), and thus he fears that Jesus has come to destroy them all. And the demon is right: Jesus has come to destroy them, though the pathway to victory will be incomprehensible to demons.
4:35–37 Jesus’ authority over the demon is immediately clear. He rebukes the demon, commanding it to shut up and to depart from the man. The word of Jesus is effective, and he does not engage in long incantations, unlike other exorcists. The demon throws the man down, but he departs from the man without doing him any lasting harm (cf. Luke 9:39, 42). The amazement that comes from seeing what is humanly inexplicable grips the observers (cf. 5:9). They get the point: here is a teaching that is authoritative and powerful, since demons are expelled with a word of command. The news about Jesus spreads in the region like wildfire, and we can imagine the same happening today if those who are troubled were freed from their afflictions.
4:38–39 Jesus next encounters Simon Peter’s mother-in-law after he leaves the synagogue and goes to Peter’s house in Capernaum. Peter’s mother-in-law is gripped with a burning fever, which is a punishment for sin according to Leviticus 26:16; Deuteronomy 28:22—though it is not clear here that her disease is traced to sin. The disciples speak to Jesus about her. Just as Jesus rebuked the demon (Luke 4:35), he also rebukes the disease, and her fever is gone immediately. Her healing is so complete that she rises and serves the disciples. Those changed by Jesus give their lives to service (cf. 8:3).
4:40–41 These verses summarize Jesus’ ministry of healings and exorcisms at the end of that same Sabbath. Jesus’ ministry begins when the sun was setting, since the people must wait for the Sabbath to end, and it finishes late Saturday night. We see that all those suffering from sickness are brought to Jesus. Jesus shows his compassion and love by laying his hands on each one individually and healing them (cf. 13:13). We have an anticipation here of the new creation, in which there will be no sickness (cf. Rev. 21:4; 22:2). At the same time, many demons are expelled at his command. The demons earlier identified Jesus as the “Holy One of God” (Luke 4:34) and here identify him as the “Son of God.” When the demons speak, with knowledge superior to humans’, they are saying that Jesus shares the same identity and nature as God (1:35; 3:38; 4:3, 9; 22:70). The title “Son of God” also signifies that Jesus is the Christ (2 Sam. 7:14; Ps. 2:7), and the text could be read so that “Son of God” and “Christ” would be equivalent here, with no suggestion of Jesus’ deity. But when we consider the entirety of Luke’s Gospel, we see clear indications that Jesus shares God’s nature, and thus we should read both Davidic sonship and Jesus’ divinity into the reference to his sonship.
The people present would be able to understand what is said in terms of messiahship, though they are not able to grasp initially that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Jesus does not allow the demons to confess him as the Christ. This might seem like a contradiction, since they have acknowledged him as God’s Son, but the point is that they are prevented from continuing to speak as if they were the authoritative sources of revelation.
4:42–44 With the dawning of a new day and in the middle of his growing popularity, Jesus goes to a solitary place, presumably to pray, though with Luke’s emphasis on prayer it is surprising he does not say such, especially when we find a reference to prayer in Mark 1:35. In any case, Jesus will not be controlled by the whims or desires of the crowds. The people naturally desire to keep him near and to restrain any intention on his part to leave. But Jesus’ ministry is set by God’s plan, and so he “must” (Gk. dei) proclaim the “good news of the kingdom of God” in other places as well. Indeed, Jesus has been “sent” by God to proclaim the kingdom.
We see here the first use of “kingdom” since Luke 1:33, with the whole phrase “kingdom of God” occurring for the first time in Luke’s Gospel. The kingdom of God is a major theme in Luke, with the phrase occurring thirty-two times (e.g., 6:20; 7:28; 8:1, 10; 9:2, 11, 27, 60, 62; 10:9, 11; 11:20; 13:18, 20; 17:20; 18:16, 17, 24, 25, 29; 22:16, 18; 23:51). Luke also uses the word “kingdom” on eight other occasions to refer to the kingdom of God or Jesus (11:2; 12:31, 32; 19:12, 15; 22:29, 30; 23:42). The kingdom has to do with God’s rule over his people in particular places, and eventually to Christ’s rule over the entire universe. The OT writers, especially the prophets, look forward to the coming kingdom (e.g., Isa. 9:7; 32:1; Jer. 23:5; 33:21; Dan. 2:44; 7:14, 18, 22, 27; Obad. 21; Mic. 4:7; Zeph. 3:15). The kingdom will come when the king, the Messiah, arrives. We know from the pseudepigraphal Psalms of Solomon (esp. chs. 17–18), written around 50 BC, that this hope was still alive at Jesus’ time.
The kingdom fulfills God’s covenant promises with his people, and the salvation and redemption of Israel—the new exodus—is another way of speaking of the coming of the kingdom. In fact, in Isaiah return from exile represents good news (Isa. 40:9; 52:7), and such a return indicates that “Your God reigns” (Isa. 52:7). We find the notion of God’s rule in Isaiah 40 as well. After the declaration of good news (Isa. 40:9), we are told that “the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him” (Isa. 40:10). We see here as well that the miracles and exorcisms of Jesus signify the presence of the kingdom (cf. Luke 11:20). The kingdom has come in Jesus’ person, and he is invading and conquering the space of the enemy, restoring human beings under his gracious lordship.
We should also note that Jesus’ being sent implies his preexistence, as Simon Gathercole has shown in his important study; God did not send merely wisdom or a word but his Son. Since Jesus is on divine mission, he preaches in the synagogues of Judea. Judea may refer to a wide area and include Galilee if Luke is using the term generally.