Q: In Matthew 8:32, Jesus completes an exorcism by ordering some demons out of a man, and into a herd of swine. The whole herd of swine proceed run violently down the steep place at Gergesa into the sea, and perish in the water. Those poor pigs! It was unfair of Jesus to allow the demons to take possession of the pigs. Couldnt Jesus, as the omnipotent God Incarnate, have simply made the demons go away, without involving the herd of pigs? This just seems unkind to the pigs.
A: First, Jesus was not omnipotent during His ministry. (Nor was He omniscient; right here in this story, he asks a question -- What is your name?. We can't tell for sure if Jesus even intended for the pigs to be drowned after the demons entered them, even though, as I am about to explained, this ended up having a net benefit for the ex-demoniacs involved.) Second, do you think this herd of pigs was going to live forever or something? Third, the loss of the pigs served the purpose of communicating to the townspeople who had not witnessed the exorcism that the man was indeed no longer inhabited by demons. I invite you to take a minute or two to read all three Gospel-accounts to get the full background before I go a bit further into this third point.
(To see the story in Matthew, Mark, and Luke side-by-side (in the New American Standard Bible) see
www.frontline-apologetics..._vii31.htm .)
When a wolf has been killing sheep, and then suddenly the killings stop, has the wolf gone away, or has it merely stopped behaving aggressively for a while? One way to tell is to track down the wolf, and kill it, and show people its carcass (and, for extra force, perhaps, the sheep-remains in its digestive system). Similarly, when a group of demons has taken possession of a man, and caused him to harm himself and to intimidate and severely annoy, if not frighten, his neighbors, and then the man settles down and acts lucid, have the demons gone away, or merely changed their behavior? The carcass-presentation solution isnt so easy in this case since demons dont have tangible bodies to show to people.
But the people on the scene do end up having, in this story, the next-best thing: animal-hosts which, after briefly being demon-possessed, die. When the local witnesses of the exorcism told the rest of the people what had happened, the Maybe the demons are still within the man, and theyre just well-behaved at the moment attitude toward him was not an option. The chain of events would be obvious: the demons had left the man and entered the pigs. Without the pigs in the equation, the townspeoples default assumption would have been that the man was only temporarily calm, but not necessarily cleansed. /With/ the pigs in the equation, though, combined with the testimony of the eyewitnesses, the only explanation for the dead pigs was a truly de-demonized man.
Such a visible demonstration of the exorcism's effects would be helpful not only to convince the townspeople, but it may have had a secondary effect upon those in the Decapolis to whom the ex-demoniac told the story of his deliverance. The Decapolis was culturally mixed, and a lot of Gentiles lived there, as well as Jews. The man's account of Jesus driving out a "Legion" into the sea emphasized how Jesus' power, like His kingdom, was spiritual rather than military/political. While some people -- namely, the Zealots -- wanted to drive Roman legions of soldiers into the Mediterranean Sea, Jesus' deliverance was, while similarly powerful, an altogether different quantity. The ex-demoniac's testimony, dead pigs and all, probably made an excellent counter-point to the Zealots (sort of like, "You want to drive out human legions, but what you really need is someone who can drive out spiritual legions. Well, I've met such a fellow...").
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: First, Jesus was not omnipotent during His ministry. (Nor was He omniscient; right here in this story, he asks a question -- What is your name?. We can't tell for sure if Jesus even intended for the pigs to be drowned after the demons entered them, even though, as I am about to explained, this ended up having a net benefit for the ex-demoniacs involved.) Second, do you think this herd of pigs was going to live forever or something? Third, the loss of the pigs served the purpose of communicating to the townspeople who had not witnessed the exorcism that the man was indeed no longer inhabited by demons. I invite you to take a minute or two to read all three Gospel-accounts to get the full background before I go a bit further into this third point.
(To see the story in Matthew, Mark, and Luke side-by-side (in the New American Standard Bible) see
www.frontline-apologetics..._vii31.htm .)
When a wolf has been killing sheep, and then suddenly the killings stop, has the wolf gone away, or has it merely stopped behaving aggressively for a while? One way to tell is to track down the wolf, and kill it, and show people its carcass (and, for extra force, perhaps, the sheep-remains in its digestive system). Similarly, when a group of demons has taken possession of a man, and caused him to harm himself and to intimidate and severely annoy, if not frighten, his neighbors, and then the man settles down and acts lucid, have the demons gone away, or merely changed their behavior? The carcass-presentation solution isnt so easy in this case since demons dont have tangible bodies to show to people.
But the people on the scene do end up having, in this story, the next-best thing: animal-hosts which, after briefly being demon-possessed, die. When the local witnesses of the exorcism told the rest of the people what had happened, the Maybe the demons are still within the man, and theyre just well-behaved at the moment attitude toward him was not an option. The chain of events would be obvious: the demons had left the man and entered the pigs. Without the pigs in the equation, the townspeoples default assumption would have been that the man was only temporarily calm, but not necessarily cleansed. /With/ the pigs in the equation, though, combined with the testimony of the eyewitnesses, the only explanation for the dead pigs was a truly de-demonized man.
Such a visible demonstration of the exorcism's effects would be helpful not only to convince the townspeople, but it may have had a secondary effect upon those in the Decapolis to whom the ex-demoniac told the story of his deliverance. The Decapolis was culturally mixed, and a lot of Gentiles lived there, as well as Jews. The man's account of Jesus driving out a "Legion" into the sea emphasized how Jesus' power, like His kingdom, was spiritual rather than military/political. While some people -- namely, the Zealots -- wanted to drive Roman legions of soldiers into the Mediterranean Sea, Jesus' deliverance was, while similarly powerful, an altogether different quantity. The ex-demoniac's testimony, dead pigs and all, probably made an excellent counter-point to the Zealots (sort of like, "You want to drive out human legions, but what you really need is someone who can drive out spiritual legions. Well, I've met such a fellow...").
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
And think about it different way - it could've been worse if you consider how the fact that no one lives forever would've worked if Waterrock had been Muslim.
