1 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Ger′asenes. 2 And when he had come out of the boat, there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 who lived among the tombs; and no one could bind him any more, even with a chain; 4 for he had often been bound with fetters and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the fetters he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out, and bruising himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped him; 7 and crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” 10 And he begged him eagerly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; 12 and they begged him, “Send us to the swine, let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea. 14 The herdsmen fled, and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 And they came to Jesus, and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16 And those who had seen it told what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine. 17 And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their neighborhood. 18 And as he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 But he refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decap′olis how much Jesus had done for him; and all men marveled. There's a lot to be learned from this passage of scripture about what demons might be and how they should be dealt with, if it is analysed carefully. Multiple demons (as it turns out), are called AN unclean spirit, (singular) so we are not dealing with real physical entities which possess an identity and personality of their own, like every human being has. Corporately, the various manifestations of disorder in this human being in the 'Country of the Ger′asenes', is referred to by Mark as AN unclean spirit. It is spirit, and therefore not incarnate, it has no physical existence of it's own. From this we can deduce that 'demons' are incapable of interacting within or impinging upon the reality of this present existence except through the medium of a physically created entity, such as you, me or pigs etc. The Ger′asene demoniac was probably suffering from what we would now call 'multiple personality disorder'. The fact that he lived among the tombs is indicative of the possibility that his human personality had suffered a kind of death, having been subsumed by false personalities which were not his own. The man's spirit though had not been completely 'taken over' because Mark says 'When HE saw Jesus from afar he ran and worshipped him'. Demons do not characteristically 'worship' the Son of God. It was the MAN himself who saw Jesus as offering the possibility of release from his predicament. However the man's WILL was quickly usurped by the unclean spirit which finished the man's sentence for him with the words “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” Here we have the manifestation of the multiple personalities after Jesus having confronted it directly. (For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”). Notice Jesus treats it as singular again not multiple. Jesus then asks, (I presume he was asking the MAN's name to ascertain whether the spirit had complied with the command to leave him). It hadn't, at that point because it still replies instead of the man, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” And he begged him eagerly not to send them out of the country. Still needing a physical host for their existence in our present reality they beg to continue their existence in the herd of swine. The swine sensibly don't like this experience and immediately destroy themselves rather than continue to endure the experience that the unfortunate Ger′asene Man had been perennially going through amid the tombs. So! Anyone engaging on a ministry of deliverance, (for that is what Jesus was doing for the Ger′asene demoniac), must very clearly be sufficiently skilled in this work to be able to define and support the spirit of the human being they are ministering TO and also clearly define and command the spirit or spirits that are oppressing the human being who is undergoing deliverance from them or it, WITHOUT confusing the two indivual spirits. On the one hand human, on the other unclean, both periodically manifesting themselves. This is not a ministry for ignorant amateurs to be engaged in. Hence the rules I recently posted on this kind of ministry, issued by the Church of England. It is a ministry in which enthusiastic but uninformed and inexperienced believers can easily do far more harm than good, mostly to others but also to themselves.
Thanks Tiffy. Your response is excellent. I've been in deliverance ministry for years. It takes spiritual maturity and experience to be involved in this kind of warfare. It can be messy. Spiritual warfare always is.