Mk 3:7-12
7Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples. A large number of people [followed] from Galilee and from Judea. 8Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon. 9He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him. 10He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him. 11And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God.” 12He warned them sternly not to make him known.
UNCLEAN SPIRITS… FALL DOWN BEFORE HIM: In Sacred Scriptures, there is a close connection between the holy and the clean. Holiness is first applied to God as someone who is “wholly other,” and expresses the idea of separation, majesty, incomprehensibility. By analogy, a person or a thing is holy or “clean” since it is set apart for the service of the deity and is removed from common use. Later, the idea of cleanness/holiness is broadened to include ethical or moral purity.
Angels are spirits who act as messengers of God. Created as higher than human beings and closer to God, they are considered holy. But there are also “unclean spirits”; these are demons or spiritual powers which are opposed to God. While angels are “ministering spirits sent to serve, for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Heb 2:14), the “unclean spirits” put people under their power, rendering them unclean, and causing them insanity and harm.
Here the unclean spirits address Jesus as the Son of God, not as a confession, but as an attempt to render him harmless. There was a popular belief that knowledge of the precise name or quality of a person confers mastery over him. The demons try to control Jesus and strip him of his power, but their cries of recognition are futile. Jesus is truly the Son of God, the Bearer of the Holy Spirit, and between the Holy Spirit and the unclean spirits there is a categorical antithesis that the demons must recognize. With Jesus’ divine authority, the unclean spirits are silenced. He is the “Stronger One” who ties the “strong man” (the devil) and despoils him.