I listened with great interest to the interviews that Rick Warren did with the two Presidential candidates. One question really engaged me. It was the one about whether evil exists in the world and, if it does, do we confront it, negotiate with it, contain it, or defeat it? The answers from the two candidates were most interesting. Not just because they were different or because one was definitively right and the other definitively wrong, but because they mirrored the struggle with evil in the Bible and the differing attitudes of the Old and New Testament.One of the answers given that night was that we need to contain evil. That is the primary Jewish attitude toward evil. It's why Jews had the Law that governed their every action. The Law told them what to avoid, what defiled them, what made them unclean. In reality, to be unclean was to be exposed to evil - be it a dead body, the wrong kind of animal, or an unholy person (a Gentile or someone like the Gerasene demoniac). Evil was to be contained, so they built a kind of wall around their culture and tried to keep the evil out. The problem is that evil cannot be contained.
The Gerasene demoniac was an evil man. Today we might call him mentally ill, bipolar, or schizophrenic. Even in biblical times, the Talmud had a definition of mental illness that fits the actions of the demoniac. However, the people saw him as evil, unclean, out of control. And when you confront evil, the thing you do is to contain it. But the problem with the demoniac is that he wouldn't stay contained. He broke the chains and fetters that were put on him. Exiled to the caves, he went away from his isolation and comes to stand before Jesus. And Jesus does not contain him.
Jesus destroys the evil within the man. The demons, so numerous as to call themselves Legion. are exorcised out of the man and into a herd of 2,000 pigs. Then the pigs go running helter-skelter into a lake and drown. And the evil is defeated. Jesus knew at this early date in the Gospel of Mark that he could not try and contain it but had to defeat it. It was a lesson and commitment that would lead him to the Cross. No earthly ministry, no matter how filled with miracles and sermons, could ever contain evil. Only his death, his sacrifice on the Cross could destroy evil. This is the great difference between the Old and the New Testament. One contains the evil by trying to avoid it. The other destroys it by the power of love and sacrifice.
We live in perilous times. Evil rears its ugly head at every possible nook and cranny. The evil must be confronted in order to destroy it. That's why I believe in the doctrine of sanctification. I'm not a reformed theologian because I don't believe that evil can be contained. I believe that one must ask the Holy Spirit into one's life in order for the Spirit to destroy the evil that so contaminates our lives. Holiness is not about being perfect in every way. Holiness is about allowing the evil that is within us to be destroyed by the only power that can - God. I've quit trying to contain the evil within me. It doesn't work. I have given the Spirit full sway to destroy it within me so that I may live for Him. Like the Gerasene demoniac, I sit here fully clothed in that Spirit and in the right mind. His.
