-Luke 4:40-41
While the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with
various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on each one of them,
He was healing them. Demons also were coming out of many, shouting, "You
are the Son of God!" But rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak,
because they knew Him to be the Christ.
Luke is very precise in his depiction of this episode. He makes a
distinction between the people that Jesus healed (αὐτούς) and the demons which
he verbally rebuked (αὐτὰ). The crowds are masculine in Greek while the demons
are neuter. This avoids any possibility of confusing the object of Jesus’
rebukes. He was clearly addressing the demons who spoke to him, not the victims
of the demonizing. (Dustin Smith, “An Inquiry Into the Identity and Meaning of
the Devil and Demons,” Journal of Biblical Unitarianism 1, no. 1 [Spring
2014]: 57)
