Daily Devotional

For weeks Matthew has let one question hang in the air: what sort of man is this? Nobody in the boat answered it. The answer finally comes from the last place you would expect, the mouths of demons on a graveyard road. “O Son of God.” No one else in Matthew has called Jesus that yet, and the disciples will not say it themselves until chapter 14 (Matthew 14:33). One of the strangest features of the Gospels is that some of the highest confessions of who Jesus is come from his enemies.

They are not being helpful. Their first words, “What have you to do with us?” are literally “What to us and to you?” It is a way of saying, “We have nothing in common. Leave us alone.” In the ancient world, people believed that knowing someone’s true name gave you power over them; commentators such as Craig Keener document how exorcists and magicians tried to discover and wield names. The demons may have been using his name as a weapon. It did not work. Jesus cannot be controlled by those who know his name.

Then they ask whether he has come to torment them “before the time.” They know how their story ends. Jesus will later speak of “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41), and Revelation says the devil rages “because he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:12). What surprised them was the Judge arriving early. In Jesus, the kingdom of God had broken into this world ahead of its final fullness (Matthew 12:28). The King had come to reclaim his territory.

And here is the sobering part. The demons do not plead for mercy; they plead for delay. Not “forgive us,” only “not yet.” How often do we do the same? We know where sin leads, and we pray, in effect, “Lord, not yet. Give me a little longer.” James says that even the demons believe and shudder (James 2:19). The demons are proof that you can have perfect theology and still not be safe.