19: First Healings in the Galilee
And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ha! 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.” 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.
Luke 4:31–35
After his initial rejection at Nazareth, Jesus moves to the Galilean countryside and begins ministering there.
We often like to take the phrase: “his word had authority” to mean something about Jesus’ teaching style, but it is more likely to mean something about casting a demon out through his command. While Rabbis claimed to be able to cast out demons, they did so through a long and practiced ritual.
Demons would not start an argument with a Rabbi in this way—nor would a Rabbi essentially tell the demon in question, “Shut up.” Rabbis would also not cast out such a demon on the Sabbath day. Jesus is showing his power in many different ways through these miracles.
One interesting aspect of this is Jesus commanding the demons to remain quiet—
Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!”
Luke 4:35–35
This command is repeated in Luke 4:41—
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.
Why would Jesus rebuke the demon, telling him to be quiet? There are two Jewish ideas of Christ:
- Messiah ben David will be a military leader, rescuing Israel from physical oppression
- Messiah ben Joseph will be a spiritual leader, rescuing Israel from their sins and rebellion
The demon is essentially calling out Jesus as both the military and spiritual leader—but Jesus specifically left the military portion of his calling out of his first appearance. Note the words Jesus left out while reading Isaiah 61:1–2—
…and the day of vengeance of our God
to comfort all who mourn
The demon is speaking of precisely what Jesus has said is not to occur yet, the “day of the vengeance of our God,” when God would come to destroy the demons. Jesus is focusing this moment on the incarnation rather than the return.
There is a real danger in taking these two events as interchangeable. First, if the Jews associated Jesus with Messiah ben David during the incarnation, they would attempt to make him king and place him at the head of an army to drive the Romans out of Israel.
In fact, we see attempts to make Jesus king. Peter using the sword and Judas betraying Jesus are two of the better-known instances where an Apostle attempted to oppose Jesus directly to the Romans. Jesus always damps down the expectations, placing his Kingship later, after his return, rather than “now,” during his incarnation because this would not fit Jesus’ purpose in coming as the Lamb of the World.
Much later in the Gospels, we see Jewish leaders upset over Jesus performing these kinds of miracles on a Sabbath day, and yet—
And he was teaching them on the Sabbath…
Luke 4:31
Luke specifically points out Jesus cast out demons and healed Peter’s mother-in-law on the Sabbath. Why were the Jewish leaders silent in this case, and not just a few passages later when Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath?
First, Jesus performed these miracles in the “backwater” of Galilee. This is not where the Jewish leaders would expect any sort of serious Messianic figure or Rabbinical leader to come from, so Galilee is a bit of a “blind spot.”
Second, Jesus is not someone they are watching yet. He has performed a few miracles, but they are not enough to arouse much more than curiosity. The Jewish leadership is probably still focused on the fallout from John the Baptist, as well as several other claimants to the Messianic throne, so their attention is just not drawn in Jesus’ direction yet.
Third, Peter’s mother-in-law’s healing happens in a private home. This is not something many people would have witnessed, so the news of this second miracle would not have spread quickly.
By the time we get to Luke 6, however, Jesus’ fame has spread to Jerusalem, and the Jewish leaders are specifically looking for reasons to support or reject him. Performing a miracle in Jerusalem, in front of crowds who are looking to the Pharisees for leadership, on the Sabbath is an entirely different matter than casting out some demons—demons told to “shut up” so they don’t reveal Jesus’ identity—in some “backwater town” among the “country folk” than right up the Pharisee’s faces.
Performing miracles on the Sabbath in Jerusalem is bound to raise the specter of Messiah ben David regardless of how much Jesus soft-pedals the act or how strongly he tries to dampen such speculation.
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, 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.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
Luke 4:42–44
Did Jesus stay in Judea, or did he return to the Galilee? The Living Bible, NIV, NASB, NED, and many others read the underlying Greek in just this way, even though the parallel passage in Matthew 4:23 says otherwise—
And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.
Matthew 4:23
Before jumping to the conclusion there is a contradiction in the text, we need to look at a more straightforward explanation. Wilbur Pickering[1] provides a possible solution—
- 94% of the available Greek manuscripts say: “της Γαλιλαιας,” which means: “in the synagogues,” presumably of Galilee
- The remaining 6% have the word “Ιουδαιας,” which means: “in Judea”
Translators often choose the harder reading because it is deemed more reliable, arguing scribes would never correct an easier reading (or shorter word) to a harder one (or longer word). Given the parallels and the flow of the text, however, it makes more sense to assume that 94% of manuscripts are correct, Matthew and Mark are correct, and Jesus returned to Galilee to preach there.
[1] Wilbur N. Pickering, “What Difference Does IT Make? The Greek Text We Accept Makes a Big Difference,” Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society 25, no. 48–49 (2012).