Twelve Extraordinary Women, Week 24
Notes
Transcript
MARY MAGDALENE
MARY MAGDALENE
9 Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.
Mary Magdalene is one of the best-known and least-understood names in Scripture. Scripture deliberately draws a curtain of silence over much of her life and personal background, but she still emerges as one of the prominent women of the New Testament. She is mentioned by name in all four gospels, mostly in connection with the events of Jesus’ crucifixion. She has the eternal distinction of being the first person to whom Christ revealed Himself after the resurrection.
Church traditions dating back to the early fathers have identified Mary Magdalene with the anonymous woman (identified only as “a sinner”) in Luke 7:37–38, who anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. But there is absolutely no reason to make that connection.
37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment,
38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.
Indeed, if we take the text of Scripture at face value, we have every reason to think otherwise. Since Luke first introduced Mary Magdalene by name in a completely different context (8:1–3) only three verses after he ended his narrative about the anointing of Jesus’ feet, it seems highly unlikely that Mary Magdalene could be the same woman whom Luke described but did not name in the preceding account. Luke was too careful a historian to neglect a vital detail like that.
Some early commentators speculated that Mary Magdalene was the woman described in John 8:1–12, caught in the very act of adultery and saved from stoning by Christ, who forgave her and redeemed her. There is no basis for that association, either.
1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst
4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”
6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.
9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Mary Magdalene has also been the subject of a lot of extrabiblical mythology since medieval times. During the early Middle Ages, some of the gnostic heresies virtually co-opted the character of Mary Magdalene and attached her name to a plethora of fanciful legends. Apocryphal books were written about her, including one purporting to be Mary Magdalene’s account of the life of Christ, The Gospel of Mary. Another, the gnostic Gospel of Philip, portrayed her as an adversary to Peter.
In recent years, some of those legends have been resurrected, and many of the long-discredited apocryphal stories about Mary Magdalene have been republished. She has become something of an icon for women in the “spiritual” fringe of the feminist movement who like the idea of Mary Magdalene as a kind of mythical goddess figure. Many of the ancient gnostic tales about her are well suited for that perspective. On a different front, one bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, adapted several long-forgotten gnostic legends about Mary Magdalene and wove them into an elaborate conspiracy theory that included the blasphemous suggestion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were secretly married and even had children. (According to that view, she, not the apostle John, was the beloved disciple mentioned in John 20:2 and 21:20).
2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”
20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?”
Stacks of books ranging from utterly frivolous speculations to quasi-scholarly works have further revived selected gnostic fabrications about Mary Magdalene. A few highly sensationalized television documentaries have further reinforced the popularity of the revived myths.
So while Mary Magdalene is currently being talked about more than ever, much of the discussion is mere hype and hyperbole borrowed from ancient cults. What Scripture actually says about her is extraordinary enough without any false embellishment. Let’s not allow this truly remarkable woman to get lost in the fog of ancient heretics’ mystical and devilish fantasies.
DARKNESS
DARKNESS
Mary Magdalene did have a dark past. Nothing indicates that her conduct was ever lewd or sordid in any way that would justify the common association of her name with sins of immorality. But Mary was indeed a woman whom Christ had liberated from demonic bondage. Luke introduced her as “Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons” (Luke 8:2 NKJV).
2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,
Mark 16:9 also mentioned the seven demons. It’s the only detail we have been given about Mary Magdalene’s past, except for a clue that we derive from her surname.
9 Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.
Actually, “Magdalene” is not a surname in the modern sense. She wasn’t from a family that went by that name; she was from the village of Magdala. She was called “Magdalene” in order to distinguish her from the other women named Mary in the New Testament, including Mary of Bethany and Mary, the mother of Jesus.
The tiny fishing village of Magdala (mentioned only once by name in Scripture, in Matthew 15:39) was located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, some two or three miles north of the Roman city of Tiberias, and about five and a half miles south and west from Capernaum.
39 And after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.
(Capernaum, on the north shore of the lake, was Peter’s hometown and a sort of home base for Jesus’ Galilean ministry. Mary’s hometown was within easy walking distance, or accessible by a short boat trip across the corner of the lake.) Jesus’ ministry involved a number of exorcisms in that region. It seems to have been a hotbed of demonic activity.
The symptoms of demonic possession in the New Testament were varied. Demoniacs were sometimes insane, as in the case of the two demon-possessed men who lived in a graveyard and behaved so fiercely that no one dared approach them (Matt. 8:28–34; Mark 5:1–5). At least one of them, Mark tells us, was given to the nightmarish habit of deliberately mutilating himself with stones (Mark 5:5). More frequently, demonic possession was manifest in physical infirmities, such as blindness (Matt. 12:22), deafness (Mark 9:25), an inability to speak (Matt. 9:32–33), fits and seizures (Mark 1:26; Luke 9:38–40), and general infirmity (Luke 13:11–13).
Don’t imagine (as many do) that the biblical descriptions of demon possession are merely crude accommodations to human superstition, as if the maladies characterized as demonic possession in the Bible were actually manifestations of epilepsy, dementia, or other purely psychological and physiological afflictions. Scripture does make a clear distinction between demon possession and diseases, including epilepsy and paralysis (Matt. 4:24). Demon possession involves bondage to an evil spirit—a real, personal, fallen spirit-creature—that indwells the afflicted individual. In several cases, Scripture describes how evil spirits spoke through the lips of those whom they tormented (Mark 1:23–24; Luke 4:33–35). Jesus sometimes forced the demonic personality to reveal itself in that way, perhaps to give clear proof of His power over evil spirits (Mark 5:8–14).
In every case, however, demon possession is portrayed as an affliction, not a sin, per se. Lawlessness, superstition, and idolatry undoubtedly have a major role in opening a person’s heart to demonic possession, but none of the demonized individuals in the New Testament is explicitly associated with immoral behavior. They are always portrayed as tormented people, not willful malefactors. They suffered wretched indignities at the hands of evil spirits. They were all miserable, sorrowful, lonely, heartsick, forlorn, and pitiable creatures. Most of them were regarded as outcasts and pariahs by polite society. Scripture invariably presents them to us as victims with utterly ruined lives.
Such was Mary Magdalene, we can be certain. Satan tormented her with seven demons. There was nothing any mere man or woman could do for her. She was a veritable prisoner of demonic afflictions. These undoubtedly included depression, anxiety, unhappiness, loneliness, self-loathing, shame, fear, and a host of other similar miseries. In all probability, she suffered even worse torments, too, such as blindness, deafness, insanity, or any of the other disorders commonly associated with victims of demonic possession described in the New Testament. Whatever her condition, she would have been in perpetual agony—at least seven kinds of agony. Demoniacs in Scripture were always friendless, except in rare cases when devoted family members cared for them. They were perpetually restless because of their inability to escape the constant torments of their demonic captors. They were continually joyless because all of life had become darkness and misery for them. And they were hopeless because there was no earthly remedy for their spiritual afflictions.
That is all that can be said with certainty about the past of Mary Magdalene. Scripture deliberately and mercifully omits the macabre details of her dreadful demon-possession. But we are given enough information to know that at the very best, she must have been a gloomy, morose, tortured soul. And it is quite likely (especially with so many demons afflicting her) that her case was even worse. She might well have been so demented as to be regarded by most people as an unrecoverable lunatic.
DELIVERANCE
DELIVERANCE
Christ had delivered her from all that. Luke and Mark seem to mention her former demonization only for the purpose of celebrating Christ’s goodness and grace toward her. Without dredging up any squalid details from her past, they record the fact of her bondage to demons in a way that magnifies the gracious power of Christ.
One intriguing fact stands out about all the demonic deliverances that are recorded in Scripture: demon-possessed people never came to Christ to be delivered. Usually they were brought to Him (Matt. 8:16; 9:32; 12:22; Mark 9:20). Sometimes He called them to Himself (Luke 13:12), or He went to them (Matt. 8:28–29). On occasions when demons were already present upon His arrival, they would sometimes speak out with surprise and dismay (Mark 1:23–24; Luke 8:28).
Evil spirits never voluntarily entered the presence of Christ. Nor did they ever knowingly allow one whom they possessed to come close to Him. They often cried against Him (Luke 4:34). They sometimes caused violent convulsions in a last-gasp effort to keep the wretched souls they possessed away from Him (Mark 9:20), but Christ sovereignly drew and delivered multitudes who were possessed by demons (Mark 1:34, 39). Their emancipation from demonic bondage was always instantaneous and complete.
Mary Magdalene was one of them. How and when she was delivered is never spelled out for us, but Christ set her free, and she was free indeed. Having been set free from demons and from sin, she became a slave of righteousness (Rom. 6:18). Her life was not merely reformed; it was utterly transformed.
At one point in His ministry, Jesus gave a rather poignant illustration of the inadequacy of the religion of self-reform:
When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. (Luke 11:24–26 NKJV)
It’s intriguing that Mary Magdalene herself was possessed by seven demons. Perhaps she had tried to reform her own life and learned the hard way how utterly futile it is to try to free oneself from Satan’s grip. Good works and religion don’t atone for sin (Isa. 64:6), and no sinner has it within his power to change his own heart (Jer. 13:23). We can make cosmetic changes (sweeping the house and putting it in order), but that doesn’t remove us from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of light. Only God can do that (2 Peter 2:9). Only the same “God who commanded light to shine out of darkness” has the power to shine “in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6 NKJV). That is precisely what the Lord did for Mary Magdalene.
Mary owed everything to Christ. She knew it too. Her subsequent love for Him reflected the profound depth of her gratitude.
MacArthur, John F., Jr. 2005. Twelve Extraordinary Women: How God Shaped Women of the Bible and What He Wants to Do with You. Nashville, TN: Nelson Books.