An Empty House: Luke 11:24-26
When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, “I will return to the house I left.” When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.
The context of this passage is Jesus’ expulsion of a demon that kept a man mute (11:14-16). Upon witnessing the miracle, some Jews claimed that Jesus had done it “by Beelzebul, prince of demons” (v. 15), and others asked him for signs “to tempt him” (v. 16). Clearly, these people had decided not to believe in him, regardless of what he did. Calmly but forcefully, Jesus exposed the absurdity of their reasoning: “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” (vv. 17-18). And then he explained what is really happening: the house of a strong man who cared for it (Beelzebul) has been attacked and conquered by another, stronger one (Jesus himself), and this was proof that the kingdom of God has come to them (vv. 20b-22).
Why couldn't these Jews accept the obvious? First, because they—like their ancestors—were stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears (Acts 7:51); and second, because their leaders had disfigured the Jewish religion and had taught them a hypocritical morality. Jesus censures them harshly, as also seen in Matthew 23:23-24, 27-28:
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. … Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
So, going back to our initial passage, Jesus' teaching about the impure spirit that returns to the house from which it had left accompanied by seven others is a warning against this type of religion, a religion full of self-righteousness but empty of God.
This is how Alfred Edersheim explains this passage:
As compared with the other nations of the world, Israel was like a house from which the demon of idolatry had gone out with all his attendants, really the Beel-Zibbul' whom they dreaded. And then the house had been swept of all the foulness and uncleanness of idolatry, and garnished with all manner of Pharisaic adornments. Yet all this while the house was left really empty; God was not there… And so the demon returned to it again, to find the house whence he had come out, swept and garnished indeed, but also empty and defenceless… So this house, swept of the foulness of heathenism and adorned with all the self-righteousness of Pharisaism, but empty of God, would only become a more suitable and more secure habitation of Satan… So, to continue the illustrative language of Christ, he came back with seven other spirits more wicked than himself—pride, self-righteousness, unbelief, and the like, the number seven being general—and thus the last state—Israel without the foulness of gross idolatry and garnished with all the adornments of Pharisaic devotion to the study and practice of the Law—was really worse than had been the first with all its open repulsiveness.[1]
What can we learn?
First, that self-righteousness is simply an empty house, a risky spiritual condition that attracts all kind of demons. Our house must be filled with God’s Spirit as Paul says in Ephesians 5:18 and so, adorned with “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23). Moralism is not the appropriate way to approach God.
Second, we learn that self-righteousness is destructive of brotherly affection. It promotes rivalry among believers, which leads not only to contempt for those we consider spiritually inferior, but also to Schadenfreude[2] when our brothers/sisters suffer some type of failure. In Philippians 2:3-4, we are told: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4).
Third, self-righteous people do not know the love of Christ and, therefore, they cannot be filled with all the fullness of God:
For this reason I kneel before the Father… so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14, 17-19).
May God dwell in our hearts throughout this New Year.
1. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Book IV, Chapter 11.5
2. A German word that designates the feeling of joy or satisfaction generated by the suffering, unhappiness or humiliation of another.
