Who is the "Strong Man" in Mark's Gospel?: Studies in Mark, Pt. 5

Of nearly 50 works written on the Gospel according to Mark that I have recently surveyed, 99.9% of them agree that the “strong man” mentioned in Mk. 3.27 is satan. The argument goes as follows: Jesus is the thief who breaks into satan’s house, ties satan up and then plunders him for his followers. Honestly, I must say that I am shocked at such conclusions. It reminds me of the early atonement theory expounded by Pope Gregory the Great (AD 600) who said, “…matching deceit with deceit, Christ frees man by tricking the devil into overstepping his authority. Christ becomes a ‘fishhook’: His humanity is the bait, His divinity the hook, and Leviathan (satan) is snared.”

I want to show here though, that Christ does not have to trick or deceive satan to lead believers to Himself. Just as well, He does not have to, as would a thief under the cover of night, attempt to break into satan’s home (this earth) and steal believers away! Yet, when Christ is taken as the “thief” and satan as “the strong man,” that is exactly the picture that this interpretation paints.

Currently, I am writing a paper to be submitted to a journal on this topic. However, I want to share many of my initial findings here. What I want to do here is to show how the “strong man” is actually Jesus and that satan is the thief. Now, very few people have argued this point and usually when they have, they have only do so because they cannot stomach the thought of the term “thief” being used to describe Jesus. While I understand their hesitation, I must say that in other places the Gospel writers refer to the return of Christ as “a thief in the night.” I don’t have any qualms with that. What I do have a problem with is Jesus having to deceive satan to gain followers. When the return of Jesus is mentioned, it is not a return to “gain” followers or to “make” new believers but rather it is to judge and to pardon. There is a huge difference between the two uses of thief language! Moving on…

In Mark, the “strong man” has to be Jesus because that is the only reading that, from a narrative / literary standpoint, makes any sense. Putting it all in context, here is what has happened prior to the “strong man” comment in 3.27:

From a spiritual standpoint:

* satan has tempted Jesus in the wilderness without avail (1.12-13)
* Demons attempt to gain control over Jesus repeatedly by calling His name (1.24-35; 3.10-11)—it should be noted here that, in ancient exorcism handbooks, one way to gain control over the demon or evil spirit was to call it by name, thus, when the demons call Jesus by His name, they are attempting to reverse the norm and get control over Him

From a religio-political standpoint:

* The empire has taken John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, to be killed (1.14)

Note the progression of violence towards Jesus here in each of Mark's episodes:

1. The religious leaders, sitting in the home of Jesus, talk amongst themselves about Christ’s claims and actions; they see Him as a blasphemer (2.7)
2. The religious leaders challenge the followers of Jesus to their faces, concerning Christ’s actions (2.16)

3. The religious leaders work up the nerve to confront Jesus to His own face (2.18)
4. The religious leaders begin spying on Jesus (2.23)
5. The religious leaders attempt to boobytrap Jesus by placing an ill man in the synagogue (3.2) to see if He will heal Him on the Sabbath
6. The religious leaders plot with the Herodians to kill Jesus (3.6)
7. The religious leaders bring the Herodians to the home of Jesus and accuse Him of being in-league with satan (3.20ff)
8. The family of Jesus sides with the majority and agree that Jesus is possessed (3.21)

The point of showing all of this is to bring to the fore the fact that in Mark’s account, there is a mounting aggression towards Jesus on behalf of both the spiritual and religio-political realms; they both want control over Him and want to shut Him up. In short, because He is drawing so many people to Him and the people are listening, they want Him dead. And why not, if He’s taking their fame and authority away from them (1.27)? What all of the forces are trying to do then, is to shut Jesus down and shut Jesus up. He, then, is the strong man that everyone wants bound! Yet, He will not be intimidated by these people; He will keep professing that He is God in the flesh—even though He knows His end.

Now, one of the other telltale signs that Jesus is the “strong man” comes in the parables directly after the “strong man” analogy (e.g. ch. 4). For example, in the parable of the soils, Jesus uses the soils not as a sermon on inner-spiritual growth (God help us) but He uses it as a way to tell talk about the types of people He has confronted thus far on His mission. Moreover, He is using it to tell His disciples that if they preach that He is God, they too will face these same people and types of opposition. This is why in 6.11 He tells them that from time-to-time, they will simply have to “shake the dust off of their shoes” and move on.

To spell it out: 1) the soil near the path represents satan and demonic forces, 2) the rocky, shallow soil represents the crowds who only come to Jesus for a miracle, not discipleship, 3) the soil among the thorns represents those close to Jesus who try to hold Him back from carrying out His ministry, for example, His family (see: 3.31-34), and 4) the good soil represents those who are willing to follow Him despite hardships.

Again, Jesus is using this parable to tell His disciples the types of hardships that He has encountered and that if they are serious about preaching the Good News that Jesus is God, they will encounter these hardships too. As with Jesus, the rest of society will try to tie them up and plunder them—perhaps even kill them.

The point, then, is that from a narrative standpoint, it makes no sense that the “strong man” is satan whom Jesus is attempting to bind; it is the other way around. Also, from a theological standpoint, when we follow the satan equals “strong man” theory, we are led back to Pope Gregory’s atonement theory—a sad theory indeed.