He Knew

Jesus is God

Scripture Reading: Luke 8:26-39

              One of the common challenges put forward by those either opposed to or unconvinced about Christianity is that the Bible never says that Jesus is God. Of course, it doesn’t take a lot of Bible detective work to figure out that isn’t true.

              One man who was convinced of Christ’s deity was the Gadarene demoniac. After he was delivered from the legion by whom he was possessed, he begged Jesus to let him stay with him. Jesus told him to instead “Return home, and declare how much God [had] done for [him].” So, what did the man do? Luke tells us that “he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.”

              Did he do everything the way Jesus told him to or did he miss part of his mission? Was he mistaken about the most important point? He did go and he did tell, but he declared what Jesus had done, not what God had done. What gives?

              Well, the former demoniac wasn’t making a mistake or misspeaking. He realized Jesus is God. He saw no contradiction between what Jesus told him to say and what he was saying. It was saying the same thing to declare what Jesus had done or what God had done. How fully formed his Christology was, I can’t say. What I can say is he understood right off the big thing. Jesus is God.