Worse than Before

Matthew 12:33-37

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)

[Jesus’] point was not to describe what normally happens when some is exorcized. If this is what tends to happen after exorcisms, it would be better not to do them in the first place. He was using the danger of “repossession” to make a sharp comment, at the end of the long discussion of where he got his power from, about the danger that his countrymen were facing. They had had all kinds of reforms, but unless the “house” got a new “inhabitant,” the demons they had expelled would return (154).

A. Orendorff

A number of Jesus’ parables and teachings center on the very real and unsettling danger of starting well but finishing poorly. The parable of the Sower, which follows immediately on the heels of this short illustration, serves to demonstrate this very point (Matt. 13). Many people start out well. In this case, a demon has “gone out of a person”; exorcized, expelled. From all outward appearances, the person now set free cleans house. Their life, as Jesus says, is “put in order.” They are restored, made right, rebuilt. Yet one tragic flaw remains. They are “empty.” No new inhabitant has taken up residence and so, when the same demon returns, this time with a group of his friends, the person’s condition, despite their progress, completely degenerates and quickly becomes “worse than” it was before.

There is great danger in relying on the progress we have made in life as protection from old (as well as new) demons. Our hope must rest not in our accomplishments but in Jesus Himself who not only expels our demons but takes up residence in their place. As John wrote, “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 Jn. 4:4).