It's always struck me as rather odd that the demons in the gospels declare that Jesus is the Son of God. Just some references for you - Mark 1: 23-24 / Mark 5: 6-7. Isn't it somewhat against the grain to lend credence to someone you logically should be discrediting? Surely, if even the demons are declaring Him to be the Son of the Most High God, this man is worth paying attention to.
It has been conventionally proposed that the demons are helpless when they encounter Jesus. As they are beings who can see through this fuzzy physical shell that we call reality, they recognise Jesus immediately for who He is and they respond by declaring His Sonship in fear and compulsion. Jesus, wanting nothing to do with unclean spirits, drives them away, that His ministry would not be tainted by their demonic testimony.
What follows may be but idle speculation, but perhaps someone could advise me of its veracity and plausibility. I suppose that when the rebellious forces of Satan noticed that the Son had descended to earth in the form of a man, they would have been highly suspicious and perplexed by the unexpected play from heaven. This is evident from the questions that they confront Jesus with:
And they cried out, saying, 'What business do we have with each other, Son of God?
Have You come to torment us before the time?'
- Matthew 8: 29
They don't really know why He has come, the divine salvation plan was hidden from them. They know their time of judgement will eventually fall, but they also seem to know that this was not yet the right time for that final judgement. I gather that there must have been an attitude of puzzlement and curiousity. There was an increase in demonic activity around the time of Jesus; perhaps all these spirits were all watching anxiously, wondering why the Creator of the universe was in a fragile human body and sanding away at wood in Nazareth.
Now, they would certainly have noticed Jesus' baptism, and perhaps after this, they took extra note of Jesus' activity, with Him having emerged from a hiding of sorts. It certainly seems the case as the father of lies himself came to tempt Jesus after that incident. I'm sure the darkened light-bringer must have been wringing his wits to figure out what the Light of the World was up to. This time of temptation must have been an opportunity for the enemy to probe and figure out how he could derail the divine directive.
One thing that would have been very apparent would be Jesus' reluctance to declare Himself publicly. In the temptation on the temple, Jesus resisted what would effectively have won the allegiance of the people by claiming the promises of God. He didn't want to demonstrate Himself as the Son of God openly, but countered Satan's challenges to 'prove' Himself with reservation and steadfast resolution to obey God. Thus it could have been revealed to Satan that Jesus was resisting a glorious unveiling that would overwhelm the people into rapturous submission.
If my train of thought was accurate, Satan could have communicated this information to the rest of his unholy hierarchy and instructed them to toy with it a little more. In this fashion, the demons' declarations would be a rather more sophisticated attempt to undermine the success of Jesus' first coming. I think we get traces of this when Jesus is more well known as a miracle worker than as the Messiah. The crowds have their own expectations of Jesus that are not in line with God's purposes.
Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force,
withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
- John 6: 15
The exhortations from the demons would have added to that detrimental revolutionary impulse. They might not have known the whole plan, but they knew enough of it to latch on to whatever they did suspect and aim for those characteristics. Of course, at the end, the Lord prevailed with the amazing resurrection of Christ.
Then again, perhaps, as my father remarked, that coordinated attack in this mode might be giving the enemy forces too much credit. I don't really know, part of me is wary of underestimating the fallen morning star. If you've got any ideas, let me know what you think.
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