“But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.” — Mark 3:27, NASB

The earthly ministry of Jesus was not inconspicuous. As He moved from place to place He attracted increasingly large crowds of people who had heard about His teaching and the wonders He was performing. Many throughout the region would either have known someone who had been touched by one of His miracles or had directly experienced one. Whether it was raising people from the dead, healing the afflicted, casting out demons, commanding the weather or some other supernatural act, all were intended to authenticate His true identity, emphasize the message of His gospel, and demonstrate the grace, goodness and compassion of a loving God. Many flocked to wherever Jesus was so that they might observe or experience His miracles, hear His preaching, or catch a glimpse of Him.

Despite the evidence and the growing crowds, not everyone was convinced that Jesus’s miracles confirmed Him as a legitimate prophet of God, let alone the Almighty Himself come to earth. Mark’s gospel describes an episode in His Galilean ministry where an especially large and oppressive crowd has arrived outside of a house in which Jesus and the disciples have gathered. In the midst of the throng are a number of unbelievers and detractors, including some of the Lord’s own faithless friends and relatives, who label Him mad and seek to restrain Him. Also present are a group of scribes from Jerusalem, understood to represent the religious establishment, who take it a step further and ascribe His exorcisms to the power of Satan.

Jesus responds to the accusations with a question, asking the scribes why Satan would ever cast out Satan. Because of human sin, Satan is the de facto ruler of this fallen world, but he knows it is a tenuous rule. Any advantage he has, any spoils he has taken, he will fight to hold onto. He certainly knows better than to work against himself by relinquishing any possessions, because a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. In suggesting that he would willingly put his earthly kingdom at risk by empowering Jesus or anyone else to cast out demons, the scribes reveal their spiritual blindness and underestimate the god of this world.

Jesus then gives the parable illustration, in which the house of a strong man is plundered only after the man has been bound. The strong man represents Satan. The house can be understood as the world and ultimately, the individual human heart. By entering the fallen world, Jesus had entered Satan’s domain. Because the Son of God is infinitely more powerful, Satan is unable to engage Him and is in effect bound and restrained from preventing the plundering of his possessions, which Jesus does in this case by casting out demons and reclaiming those individuals previously lost. The parable emphasizes that these exorcisms, rather than being evidence that Jesus is in league with Satan, proves instead that He has opposed and overpowered him.

The parable appears in each of the synoptic gospels. Luke’s version specifically notes Satan’s intent to guard his present kingdom and that he is perfectly capable of retaining it unless someone more powerful attacks:

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. -- Luke 11:21-22

There is no doubt that Satan wields considerable control and influence in this world, but his power pales in comparison to the manifold superiority of Jesus. People often make the erroneous assumption that God and Satan are equal and opposite forces in an eternal tug of war for the souls of men. Let there be no mistake. Satan is a creature whose power is temporary and limited. Jesus Christ is the living God incarnate whose power is eternal and infinite.

Yet we must remember how formidable an opponent Satan is to us. His spiritual attacks are real and constant, and we must regard them as the serious threats that they are. We exist in a physical world, so we have a tendency to focus primarily on the temporal and material issues in our lives, disregarding the equally real and ever-present spiritual dangers. It is those unseen forces of darkness harnessed by the “strong man” of this world that pose the greatest threat, and we have to be spiritually vigilant in order to recognize it. Satan does not often come right at people, but rather disguises his attacks, masquerading and manipulating to deceive whoever he can. One of his methods has always been to use humanity’s pride and faith in their own wisdom to muddle the clarity of God’s truth. We see it with the Jerusalem scribes who denied the deity of Christ and it continues to this day.

The Christian prevails against Satan by being armed in faith and strengthened by the truth and assurance of the gospel. This is not possible without conviction and trust in God and devotion to His word. Scripture is the sword of His Spirit, the all-sufficient weapon we have been given to counter Satan’s lies and temptations, and it is by the power of God’s word that the strong man is bound. That word confirms the Lord’s victory, in which Satan’s most powerful weapon—the accusation before God that man is guilty of sin and must perish—was rendered useless. Those who trust alone in Jesus’s work on the cross will never perish, and nothing can separate them from that reality.

In Christ the true believer is empowered to stand firm, to rise above fallen human nature and resist Satan in full confidence, knowing that they face a foe that has
already been defeated.