How Can Satan Cast Out Satan?

In Mark 3.22, scribes come down from Jerusalem to Jesus’ home in Capernaum to explain Jesus’ miraculous power by some other reason than his divine origin and commission. These scribes appear to have been dispatched to dismiss the Nazarene preacher by attributing His power to infernal sources: “He is possessed by Beelzebul…by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” (3.22b-23).

This is an important development in their worsening relationship with Jesus; one that Jesus will exploit later when He highlights their failure to respond to His forerunner John the Baptist (11.27-33) as a rejection of God’s authority. Authority is really the issue at hand here. In short, if they can explain Jesus’ power as coming from Satan rather than God, his message could be written off as blasphemy/heresy rather than authoritative and requiring a repentant response. In Mark 11, the Pharisees see this is exactly the point: “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’” (v.31).

Jesus’ response is simple but powerful: “How can Satan cast out Satan?” The brief parables that follow concerning the divided kingdom and house demonstrate the ridiculousness of such a suggestion. Simply put, Satan would not be working against himself, lest he hinder his own purposes. Satan’s work could only be hindered by another, one who first “binds the strong man” and then goes about plundering his house (3.27). The casting out of demons would only be done by one who was opposed to their presence and empowered to expel them, i.e., one commissioned by God (or in Jesus’ case, God Himself).

Reading Mark 3 in the context of our current culture seems rather familiar.

The vocal and powerful in our internet-driven culture are attempting to do exactly what the scribes claimed Jesus was doing: Using Satan to cast out Satan. Their efforts are as futile in the 21st century as they were ridiculous to suggest in the 1st century.

On the one hand, Christians (and their beliefs) are denigrated and ostracized. This is nothing new nor shocking: “Do not be surprised, brothers, when the world hates you” (1 John 3.13). The world at large has no interest in submission to God, being under “the power of the evil one” (1 John 5.19). As a result, divinely originated morality (or divinely originated anything for that matter) is reviled as outdated and out of touch in a 21st century world: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” (Psalm 2.2-3).

On the other hand, the current push in our society is toward calling people to account for what they say and do, “cancelling” powerful or vocal offenders of whatever has been deemed forbidden. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement (among others) made popular the “woke” concept of becoming more aware of and active against various sources of oppression such as racism, sexism, and the like. Make no mistake: Righting the wrongs of oppression and injustice is a noble and worthy cause. God often states in scripture that He defends the rights of the vulnerable, such as widows, orphans, & the poor (cf. Deut. 10.18, and others).

However, the world is feverishly working to right the moral ship while ignoring the gaping hole in its hull: Without an objective moral standard (and submission to the God who gave it), NOTHING can be objectively declared right or wrong. As a result, anything goes, and all of it downhill - “while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3.13). Our culture still recognizes certain evils and seeks an answer for those evils, so long as the answer is not found in God.

Seeking to right the wrongs of sin while rejecting the rule of God is attempting to use Satan to cast out Satan. All the while the “strong man” of Mark 3 reigns unperturbed, & the devouring lion of 1 Peter 5.8 roars in laughter at the ridiculousness of such a notion.

The only way to effectively address sin is to turn to Him who binds the “strong man”: Jesus Christ. Satan is perfectly content for mankind to seek a solution for the evils of sin apart from Christ for one simple reason: There is not one to be found, as Jesus put it in a parallel passage: “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe.” (Luke 11.21). However, if we truly desire the answer to evil, sin, injustice, and oppression, it is only to be found in submission to the will of God.

We must remember that evil was introduced to this world by way of ignoring the will of God (Gen. 3.6) and seeking the solution by means of the same is illogical and futile. Instead we must adhere to and proclaim the saving gospel of Christ. Paul described the effect of doing so in recounting his commission to Agrippa in Acts 26.18: “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”