This fact of possession is very obscure and strange. I doubt whether
we can understand it. But I cannot see how we can bring it down to the
level of mere disease without involving Jesus Christ in the charge of
consciously aiding in upholding what, if it be not an awful truth, is
one of the grimmest, ghastliest superstitions that ever terrified men.
In all ways He gives in His adhesion to the fact of demoniacal
possession. He speaks to the demons, and _of_ them, rebukes them,
holds conversations with them, charges them to be silent. He
distinguishes between possession and diseases. 'Heal the sick, cleanse
the lepers, raise the dead'--these commands bring together forms of
sickness running its course; why should He separate from them His next
command and endowment, 'cast out devils,' unless because He regarded
demoniacal possession as separate from sickness in any form? He sees
in His casting of them out the triumph over the personal power of
evil. 'I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.' But while the
fact seems to be established, the thing is only known to us by its
signs. These were madness, melancholy, sometimes dumbness, sometimes
fits and convulsions; the man was dominated by an alien power; there
was a strange, awful double consciousness; 'We are many,' 'My name is
Legion.' There was absolute control by this alien power, which like
some parasitical worm had rooted itself within the poor wretch, and
there lived upon his blood and life juices--only that it lived in the
spirit, dominated the will, and controlled the nature.
Probably there had always been the yielding to the impulse to sin of
some sort, or at any rate the man had opened the door for the devil to
come in.
This woman had been in the deepest depths of this awful abyss. 'Seven'
is the numerical symbol of completeness, so she had been utterly
devil-ridden. And she had once been a little child in some Galilean
home, and parents had seen her budding beauty and early, gentle,
womanly ways. And now, think of the havoc! the distorted face, the
foul words, the blasphemous thoughts!
And is this worse than our sinful case? Are not the devils that
possess us as real and powerful?