Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists.
Seven sons of Sceva
A great spiritual revolution had taken place in Ephesus. At first Paul found the twelve disciples without Christian knowledge beyond the baptism of John. Under Paul’s ministry the Holy Ghost had been poured out, and from that time great interest was felt in the whole subject of spiritual influence. From time immemorial superstition has grown in Ephesus, and to add one superstition to another came quite easy. Christianity was another department of magic, and the men who had practised exorcism were willing to try it. We must not dismiss the men as impostors. They wanted to do a good work, and so far we must credit them with a good motive. A wonderful testimony--the more wonderful because unconscious is here borne to the power of Christianity. If Paul had failed, the Ephesians never would have tried the new art. Much is expected of Christians today, as much was expected of Paul in his time. Necromancers may fail in their momentary trick, but Christians must be kept up to the mark. This is the sublimest tribute which can be borne to the Christian faith.
2. Add to that thought the one which arises out of the endeavour of the seven sons of Sceva to cast out evil spirits. Wherein did they fail? At every point. They came into the ministry in a wrong way; and that is always an explanation of failure of the worst kind. “They took upon them”--that is the explanation. This ministry is not something which a man may elect in preference to something else. The ministry is nothing if it is not a burden, a necessity.
3. The sons of Sceva knew nothing about the Name with which they conjured. Instead of saying, “We adjure you by Jesus Christ whom we love,” they said, “We adjure you by Jesus Christ whom Paul preacheth.” The sacred influence will not pass through such negative or nonconducting connections. That is one of the noblest tributes that can be paid to the dignity of Christianity. There are many persons who would be glad to amalgamate Christianity with something else. But Christianity will not be amalgamated. Christianity wants the world to itself. How much modern meaning there is in “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.” There was no doubt about the subject of Paul’s preaching. This is a tribute to the honesty and consistency of Paul. We are urged today to preach the Christ whom the Puritans preached. That exhortation is not without deep meaning; but a man may say to his hearers “I adjure you to serve the Christ whom the Puritans preached,” and they will return the answer of indifference or mockery. A minister may go further and say, “I adjure you by the Christ whom the apostles preached,” and the Word would have no power. A man might go even further and say, “I adjure you by the Christ of the New Testament,” and the nineteenth century would know nothing about such a Christ. How is the Christian to suit his age and arrest it? By preaching the Christ whom his own heart knows and loves. Paul uses an expression which some persons cannot think is in the New Testament. He uses the expression, “my gospel.” Every man has his own hold of the gospel, and he must preach that. If I have to preach a Christ whom another man preached I have to commit a lesson to memory and to be very careful lest I stumble in the verbal recitation; but if I preach a Christ born in my own heart, the hope of glory, living with me day by day, then my whole life must break into eloquence, and men must be constrained to say, “He has been with Jesus and learned of Him.”
4. The answer returned by the evil spirit is the answer which every age will return to professional necromancers and moralists (verses 15, 16). These seven sons of Sceva are living today. Here is one of them. A man who indulges himself in some way and then seeks to exorcise the spirit of intemperance in others. The seven sons of Sceva have seven sisters, and the whole fourteen of them are living today. They are living, for example, in that person who reproves worldliness and practises religious vanity. There is a religious worldliness as well as a worldliness that does not debase the name of religion by calling it in as a qualification. Shall we who have a beam in our eyes be preaching about the mote that is in the eyes of other men? You will hurl the ten commandments at the head without effect if you do not go along with them. The world can laugh even at Christian theology when marked out in abstract propositions, but when theology is incarnated in personal godliness the age will begin to wonder, and may end in prayer. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The seven sons of Sceva--spurious Christianity
Note at the outset--
1. Man’s craving for the supernatural. Under the shadow of Diana superstitions were rife, and priests and miracle workers abounded. Man feels that he has a relation to something deeper than the earth beneath and higher than the sky above him.
2. Accommodation in the work of Christian propagandism. The apostle, on entering Ephesus, meets the tendency of the inhabitants by performing miracles. As Moses met the magicians of Egypt on their own ground, confounding them by the supernatural, so Paul now confronts and confounds the deluded supernaturalists of Ephesus. This extraordinary narrative presents to us a spurious Christianity.
I. As in impious mimicry of the Divine (verse 13, 14). These “exorcists” witnessed the marvels that the apostle had wrought, and they impiously tried their hands at the same. The work they imitated was Divine--
1. In its object. Paul had expelled evil spirits; and this was the grand work of Christianity. Christ came to “destroy the works of the devil.”
2. In its method. Paul accomplished his work in the “name of Jesus Christ.” He never attempted it in his own power. As in the case of these exorcists, a spurious Christianity is ever a mimicry of the Divine. It has two distinctive forms in Christendom--the naturalistic and the ritualistic. Now, a spurious Christianity imitates the Divine both in the object and the method.
II. As the indignant scorn of hell (verse 15). The evil spirit is here spoken of as a person distinct from the man. We may infer, therefore--
1. That hell knows and respects Christ and His true followers. “Jesus I know” (Mark 1:23). He encountered and conquered our leader in the wilderness, and bruised his head upon the Cress. And “Paul I know.” I know he is an earnest and successful preacher of the faith he once endeavoured to destroy. Not a word does this evil spirit say either against Jesus or Paul.
2. That hell despises and avenges religious pretenders. “Who are ye? What right have you to use that wonderful name at which we tremble?” Hell has no respect for its own emissaries. Not only does the evil spirit express its indignation and contempt, but wreaks vengeance on the head of the pretenders (verse 16). This incidents suggests--
(1) That the efforts of a spurious Christianity only increase the force of evil. The evil spirit in the man seemed to get new strength from the efforts of the exorcists. That which is not the genuine gospel gives strength to the devil. “He that is not with Me is against Me.”
(2) That heaven employs evil to punish evil. The sinner is the tormentor of the sinner everywhere, and forever.
III. As Divinely overruled for good (verse 20). The narrative shows three useful results.
1. A popular excitement in favour of the true. “And fear fell on them all.” Much is done for truth when the general mind of the community is excited towards it. There is a sad tendency to run in old ruts, or sleep on the stagnant thoughts of ancestors. Sometimes, as in the case before us, the abominations of a spurious Christianity have so broken forth upon the public mind as to startle it from its slumbers, and to excite it into earnest inquiry after the truth. Witness Popery in the days of Luther.
2. An open profession of Christian faith (verse 18). Like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, they were secret disciples. They had not sufficient moral courage to declare convictions repugnant to popular belief. This event, however, brought them to a crisis.
3. A Conscientious renunciation of evil practices. The force of conscience is seen--
(1) In the sacrifice of secular interest. Let England’s conscience be Divinely touched, and many of her trades, crafts, and callings will go off in flame.
(2) In the outrage on historic feeling. They were associated with many a tender name, and with many a thrilling event in life, Notwithstanding that, conscience would have them go. Conclusion: This subject urges several important facts upon our attention--
1. That evil spirits are amongst men. Are not men possessed when they live the irrational, immoral, and ungodly?
2. That evil spirits must be expelled. Whoever does it is the philanthropist, the saviour.
3. That evil spirits can only be expelled by genuine faith in the name of Christ. The exorcists failed because they pronounced that name and had no faith in it. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Demoniacal possession
I. There are powers of demon evil widely diffused and ceaselessly active. Look at--
1. Idolatry.
2. Superstition.
3. Infidelity.
4. Dissipation.
II. There are expedients formed to counteract and depose them, which only provoke their contempt.
1. Education.
2. Legislation.
3. Art.
4. Science.
III. Nevertheless, means of resisting them exist which they comprehend and dread. (R. W. Hamilton, D. D.)
Evil spirits in the heart
We are taught here--
I. The reality of Spiritual influences, good and bad.
1. It was believed in Ephesus, and all through the ancient world, and there must have been some foundation for this belief.
2. This fact is demonstrated by the miracles of Christ and His apostles.
II. There is manifest deliverance from the evil power in the name of Christ.
1. Men have tried various expedients in vain.
2. The name of Jesus has never been known to fail.
3. We shall have deliverance as we put ourselves under its protection. (Bp. S. Wilberforce.)
Religion used by those who do not believe in it
The wandering Jews wished to work wonders by the name without being disciples of the person of Jesus, which circumstance furnishes a rebuke--
I. To all who use religion at second hand.
1. How much of mere hearsay there is in the greatest concerns. Jesus is “Jesus whom Mr. So-and-so preaches,” or of whom men have learned in childhood.
2. How much of religion is a matter of proxy.
II. To all who use religion for selfish ends.
1. The politician who makes religion the stalking-horse behind which he aims at other things.
2. The theologian anxious to carry his point.
3. The bigoted sectarian, who will do anything for his religion but live it.
III. To all who try to influence others by a religion which does not influence themselves.
1. Worldly statesmen who use Christianity as a sort of moral police to hold a fretful realm in awe.
2. Ungodly parents who are wishful to keep their children from bad ways.
3. Preachers and teachers from whom the evil spirit is not exorcised.
IV. To all who try to conjure with religion as if it were a sort of magic.
1. People who use the Divine book as though it were a divining book.
2. Mere ritualists and sacramentarians. (H. Osborne.)
Unreal religion
1. In all that marvellous history of the conflict between the powers of this world and the world to come contained in the Acts, there is no more striking or instructive passage than this.
2. Rich and luxurious Ephesus was the stronghold of evil; the prince of this world held it as the very centre of his kingdom, and against him God set forth, by the hand of St. Paul, the special might of the Holy Spirit. Here, as upon some conspicuous theatre, the mighty contest raged.
3. Whether the powers of evil knew that in Christ, as the champion of humanity, the great battle must be fought, or whether the instincts of their nature were roused into a trembling energy by His appearance, we know not; but it is clear that about the time of the Advent they exerted an unusual amount of power over the bodies and spirits of men.
4. Against these powers a remedy had been found among the Jews in the use of the name of Jehovah; and so there had sprung up a class of men who professed (and sometimes, it would seem, with success, from our Lord’s words, “By whom do your sons cast them out?”) to counteract the workings of the evil one. And just as Simon Magus perceived the wonderful effect of the laying on of the apostle’s hands, and was led to strive to possess the same power, so was it with these men. Their own employment of the name of Jehovah would make them readily perceive that St. Paul drew his strength from the name of Christ; while their feeble and uncertain success would contrast strongly, in their own eyes, with the surpassing might with which he wrought. And so they were led to look at Christianity mainly as a system of powers against outward evils, and to use it as a means of effecting these wonders to obtain either influence or gain.
5. Now this was the very opposite to the whole course of St. Paul. The essence of Christianity to him was to know Christ and to find peace in Him, and not the power of working miracles. But knowing Christ, he had found power to heal others, as Christ had healed him: he had found Christ first for his own salvation, and then he spoke of what he had found himself; and these powers had come out of themselves.
6. Now look at the contrast. The sons of Sceva, not knowing Christ for their own salvation, His name, in their mouths, only stirred up to a higher flood tide of wrath these spirits of darkness. Instead of being able to curb it through the name of Christ, they were hurried helplessly along by it. The man, in the paroxysm of their working, leapt upon them, so that they “fled out of that house naked and wounded.”
7. This irreverent attempt, with its frightful issue, produced its natural effect upon all those who heard or saw it. These powers could not thus be trifled with. They were not merely matters of wonder, things to use for earthly purposes; they were not the fantastic tricks of a marvel monger, but they were indications of the nearness of the Almighty, with whom it was very fearful to have really to do. And so a searching self-examination sprung up among those upon whom this fear fell, and many became real seekers after Christ.
8. Now these events were no accidental peculiarities of that time; they point to a deep and an abiding evil inclination of men’s hearts. Let us, therefore, ask ourselves this question, Are we free from this evil typified in these sons of Sceva, the essence of whose sin was using the name of Christ as a means of obtaining power, instead of seeking to know Christ for themselves as the Healer and portion of their own souls?
I. Take its plainest exhibition: how do they differ from them who in the ministry of Christ’s Church seek, without knowing Christ for themselves, to wield as to others the powers of the kingdom of His grace? Surely in those who seek to minister that gospel, of which they do not partake, the fearful character of the sons of Sceva is plain enough to everyone amongst us.
II. Look at the broad features of our own national and political life and see if we may not see the working of this evil. Are there not whole bodies of men manifestly without any governing principles of religion for themselves, yet believe Christianity so far as to think it an excellent thing for governing a nation, and preserving it in social order and in political quiet? And what is written, in broad characters, as the result of this but the same discomfiture?--for what more certainly tends to spread a universal infidelity than this unreal spirit of Christianity?--as if it were something good for others, but something which has no internal reality for ourselves.
III. If this evil is plainly to be read in the features of our public life, is our private life much more free from it? Are there not heads of families who think Christianity an excellent thing because it will keep their families respectable? Are there not masters who wish their servants to be religious enough to be good servants, but who know nothing themselves of Christ and of His salvation? And must not the effect of all this be a very shameful discomfiture now, just as it was of old? You only stir up evil that you cannot deal with. Servants, children, they see through all this. How do the rebellious appetites and sinful vanities of your children, as they grow up, laugh to scorn this ineffective and unmeaning resistance to their sway! And then this unreality brings a deadly wound upon themselves. We get so used to all the wonders of redemption, that nothing affects us. To such everything is a trick to play, and not a verity to be realised.
IV. And there is a form of this evil still more subtle, when a man calls all these powers over himself, and not upon other people--when he seeks to heal certain great evils in his own character. How many a man is seeking for the self-command, the courtesy, the intellectual power, or the power of influencing others, which Christianity bestows, for themselves; not seeking to know that his name is written in the book of life, and then knowing that the evil spirit will be subject to him, but seeking to have the evil spirit subject to him for itself, instead of seeking that he may know Christ. What is this but a man calling over his own spirit the name of a Saviour that he does not know? And so this man, too, becomes the sport of the enemy. Sometimes through mighty moral storms, which break in upon him, just when he thinks that he has become decent, some old temptation breaks out upon him, and hurries him away into open iniquity Sometimes there is a mysterious spiritual working in the man, and he becomes a mere empty formalist; or perhaps he sinks into the depths of despair, because he gets a perception that there is no reality, after all, in this work that he thought was going on within him. Conclusion: Now if these dangers are so common, what is the cure of them? Rest contented with nothing short of knowing Christ for yourself, as Him who is working salvation for you and in you. And then seek to use the powers which He thus gives you, as one who has his mission from Christ. And then, lastly, spend yourselves in working for Him. (Bp. S. Wilberforce.)