"And Jesus asked him, saying, what is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him." [Lk 8:30]

In Jesus’ ministry, it came to pass that when “they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes,” that “there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.” [Mk 5:1-2] This man Jesus met was sorely distressed by the evil spirit which possessed him, and when Jesus healed the poor fellow, we learn that what is referred to as a singular spirit was in fact two-thousand; for when they departed from the man it is recorded, “they were about two thousand.” [Mk 5:13] This man had a wretched existence by reason of these foul creatures. Mark writes,

“[He] had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.” [Mk 5:3-5]

Those of us who are saved have each been as the man who was healed of these infirmities. We have, at one point or another, been in bondage to various sins or evil spirits. As Paul wrote regarding fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate men, homosexuals, thieves, covetous men, drunkards, extortioners, and revilers, “and such were some of you.” [1 Cor 6:9-11] We had all certainly been slaves to satan and this world; for regarding the unsaved Paul writes, “…who are taken captive by [the devil] at his will.” [2 Tim 2:26] But as it was with the man, so too it was with us: we were gloriously delivered of Christ and transformed, so that just like the man was afterward “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind,” [Mk 5:15] so too we have been touched of Jesus and given new hearts, new spirits, being clothed with His very own righteousness. But let us turn our attention to what the man says to Jesus when asked a question.

When Christ who is the God of Glory came up to the man, He “asked him, saying, what is thy name?” To this question, the man said “Legion: because many devils were entered into him.” When asked of Jesus what his name was, Luke makes it clear it is the man to whom Jesus directed the question; this is shown to us in Mark’s commentary, which explains the man’s answer, “because many devils were entered into him.” The man’s answer is a sad one; for he tells Jesus, “Legion.” The man identified himself with his weakness, with his affliction, with his miserable condition. But what else may he identify with? For he spent all his time afflicted in that way, and could do nothing to help himself. He was utterly destitute, as we were, “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” [Eph 2:12] He very well describes the man’s condition apart from Christ, who cannot be identified with anything good, seeing “there is none good but one, that is, God.” [Mk 10:18]

Unfortunately, even many Christians identify themselves not by Christ, but by their past, by their sin, by their affliction, or by their misery. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Instead, may we, as children of God, never identify ourselves with our past sins or current sins, nor with miseries, either past or present. Our identify is in Christ, who has made each of us “a new creature” and who promises, “to him that overcometh will I give…him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written…” [2 Cor 5:17, Rev 2:17] It is Jesus who gives us the wonderful ability, to call ourselves by a new name: by Christ; and to identify with that which is good, even God Himself – for in Christ we are made new and given new names. And again, as Paul said “henceforth know we no man after the flesh,” [2 Cor 5:16] so too it should be with our view of self: we ought not to say, ‘Oh I am a wretch, I am an impatient wretch;’ neither should we say, for example, ‘I am grief and bitterness, I am a failure a thousand times over.’ Rather, we ought to say, ‘I am Christ’s seed; I am accepted by God as His child through the Blessed Son; I am a prince and a priest by Jesus’ blood.’ Let us not view ourselves condemningly by the past nor by what may be current, for there is no more condemnation to those in Christ. Rather, let us view ourselves according to Jesus: for that is how God views us, and our God “cannot lie.” [Titus 1:2]