Thursday, August 15, 2024

Torsten Löfstedt on the Lack of Exorcisms and Demon Possessions in the Gospel of John

  

The exorcism of the world

 

A striking difference between John and the Synoptics is that John’s Gospel does not include any reference to exorcisms. Satan is not associated with demons at all here. The author of this Gospel must have known about Jesus’s reputation as an exorcist. Why does he not mention a single exorcism? We have noted that there are many other things that the Synoptics mention that John fails to mention. He may have felt that Jesus’ exorcisms were so well known they need not be mentioned again. But this is not entirely convincing—John repeats other miracles found in the Synoptics, such as Jesus walking on the sea (John 6:16-21; cf. Mark 6:45-52). Why did he include this account, but not make a single reference to exorcisms? It has been suggested that exorcisms had become an embarrassment. When focus was put on Jesus’ exorcisms, people began to pose awkward questions and to associate Jesus too closely with demons or with the wrong kind of exorcists. Yet even though no exorcisms are described, Jesus himself is still accused of being possessed in John (7:20; 8:48; 10:20), so John was presumably not too worried about this charge.

 

The best explanation for the lack of exorcisms in John is that they would detract from the main point he was trying to make. John has carefully decided what material to include in his account. As he explains toward the end of his work, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (20:30-31 NRSV). He refers to the various miracles that Jesus wrought as signs, and they are all intended to encourage faith on the part of the reader. Exorcisms are not the best of signs; Jesus was by no means unique in casting out demons (although he may have been more effective than the other exorcisms), and exorcisms were liable to be misinterpreted, as being carried out by the power of a high ranking demon or the devil himself. Exorcisms distract from John’s central point: his point is that all people are under Satan’s realm, not just the demoniacs. John’s story is about how Jesus frees mankind from the devil rather than on how he frees individual demoniacs from demons.

 

Although he does not tell of any exorcisms, John still uses exorcistic imagery. Jesus says that when he is lifted up from the earth, that is to say when he is crucified and exalted, the ruler of this world is thrown out (12:31-33). The same verb εκβαλλω is used in the Synoptic Gospels in connection with casting our demons (e.g., Mark 1:34). Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension occasion the ultimate exorcism that the synoptic exorcisms foreshadowed. John refers to the devil as the ruler of the world, suggesting that he controlled the people of the world. The situation is analogous to how demons in other Gospels are portrayed as controlling people and speaking through them. But while possessed persons were thought not to be in their right mind and were not held accountable for their actions, the people of the world had contributed to their state of bondage. In John’s understanding, Satan has power over people because of their sins. Those who sin are slaves to sin (John 8:34) and are children of the devil (8:44), who is the ultimate source of sin (1 John 3:8). In discussing Mark’s Gospel, I noted that Forsyth compared that Gospel with the Old Testament histories. He argued that “the general direction of the Markan gospel . . . is away from the standard story of a war with external enemies and instead toward a more personal and inward struggle.” (Forsyth, Old Enemy, 291) The tendency Forsyth described in Mark is taken a step further in John. The enemy that must be fought in John’s account is one that has been internalized by humanity. It is not enough to expel demons from people; their hearts have to be healed (John 12:36-40), and that can only be done when Satan’s reign over them is broken. (Torsten Löfstedt, The Devil, Demons, Judas, and “the Jews”: Opponents of Christ in the Gospels [Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2021], 329-31)

 

 

 

 

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