Triumphant Life Church

By Apostle Isidore Agoha

The demons and the man possessed at Capernaum were not the only individuals affected by Jesus’ authority. The synagogue audience was also greatly impacted by this whole incident. Their response could be summed up in one word: amazement. This amazement elicited a common question among the audience: "What is this?" This was a reference to the dramatic, supernatural, life-changing result produced by the ministry of Jesus within minutes. The people offered an inspires explanation when they described it as a "new doctrine" - Mark 1:27.

Shortly before the encounter between Jesus and the demons inside the man at the synagogue, people had observed that Jesus was teaching as one with authority. His teaching was certainly on a different level from that of their regular scribes. Likewise, His approach to demonology and the quality of the result was completely strange. By their own testimony of a "new teaching with authority", these synagogue goers seem to imply that nobody, beginning with the ministry of the patriarchs through the prophets, judges, kings, priests and other Old Testament saints, ever dealt with demons the way the Lord Jesus did.

In fact, in the Old Testament dispensation, there was no servant of God known to have has a deliverance ministry in the way and measure with which Jesus and His servants were endowed. The Old Testament believers did know that demons existed, but they did not have a deliberate and strategic or systematic ministry of casting demons out on a consistent basis. King David could qualify as someone who came close to this ministry in the Old Testament. However, his was not a direct ministry of deliverance. Furthermore, David’s was only a picture of the perfect ministry of deliverance to be established in his promised seed, Jesus the Messiah. The lesson here is that the ministry of deliverance is a unique gift of the Father to the church through Jesus Christ.

Although exorcism was in vogue during the time of Jesus, the audience saw the style and method of Jesus as unique and incomparable, especially in the sense of efficacy. They defined the divine attestation to the ministry of Jesus. By implication also, they discovered the impotence of the claims of their contemporary exorcists and the scribes. On these grounds, therefore, one could appreciate the awe and other results the ministry of Jesus produced in the man with an unclean spirit and also on the entire synagogue audience.

Non-biblical exorcism was found to be sterile by the synagogue audience more than two thousand years ago. Today, it is still impotent, while also spiritually and often financially fraudulent. The experience of the seven sons of Sceva is one such presumptuous case of non-Christian attempt at the ministry of deliverance - acts 19: 11-17. Most of the exorcism as practice in virtually every part of the world today, especially among animists, witchdoctors, herbalists, native priests, Muslims and other non-Christian religions, is at variance with New Testament revelation. Such non-biblical exorcism may involve incantations, enchantments, washings and other bizzarre methods that Jesus and the early church did not employ.

The method of the Lord and His church is simple. It usually involves the proclamation of God’s Word in faith and the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit manifested in the person and the name of the Lord Jesus.

Apostle Isidore Agoha is the Senior Pastor at Triumphant Life Church in the Bronx, N.Y.

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