JESUS
SPEAKS WITH AUTHORITY
21And they went
into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was
teaching. 22And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one
who had authority, and not as the scribes.
23And
immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he
cried out,
24“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.”
25But Jesus
rebuked him, saying,
“BE SILENT AND
COME OUT OF HIM!”
26And the
unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of
him.
27And they were
all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A
new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they
obey him.”
28And at once
his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
MARK
1:21-28
COMMENTARY
This event took
place after our Lord returned from Judea to Galilee, after John the Baptist’s
arrest (Mt 4:12) and after He was expelled from Nazareth (Lk 4:16, 31).
He assisted to
the synagogue to worship God and to preach his Message to the Jews, but Jesus
preached in a different manner that the people never heard before. He preached of
his own authority, as Son of God.
Very much like
it happens today, a religious teacher remitted himself to the Scriptures, and
also to the Talmud, or Traditions, in a similar way Christian leaders do today.
Its God’s inspired Scriptures and the traditional interpretations what gave
support to whatever they taught, and without it, their preaching was empty
speech, without godly warrant.
Jesus spoke
differently. Jesus used the Scriptures to proof his ministry (Lk 4:21; 24:27;
Jn 5:39); but He also interpreted the Scriptures Himself, without referring to
the Elder’s interpretation or any other human authority above Himself.
He explained the
Scriptures, like if He had written them, proclaiming correct interpretations
(Lk 11:42), different views (Mt 12:3-7), and even abrogating some of them (Mt
19:7-9), all on his own authority. With this, Lord Jesus was also revealing his
condition of being the Messiah, the Son of God, and even God Himself (Mk 2:7).
Immediately
after, a demoniac reacted to our Lord’s presence by panicking and complaining,
he proclaimed to know Jesus. He called Him the ‘Holy One of God’, meaning the promised
Messiah.
Demons did not
know of the divinity of Jesus.
Satan knew the
Second Person of the Trinity (Gn 1:26-27; 3:22) but he did not know the Logos
was Jesus of Nazareth.
He ignored his
virginal conception, and that is why Satan tempted Jesus with worshipping him
(Mt 4:9) and decided to kill Him (Lk 22:53). He thought Jesus could fall into
satanism, and that by killing Him, he would defeat Him. He thought he could
make the Messiah fail. He ignored he was speaking to GOD.
Immediately,
Lord Jesus told the demon to shut up and without any magical formula or prayer,
He ordered the demons to leave the man, and immediately he left the man, not
being able to resists Jesus’s authority (v.26).
The Jews were
amazed, for the manner in which our Lord spoke, and how He had power even over
demons.
They had finally
met the promised Messiah.
Omar Flores.
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