When Jesus Sent Legion Into a Herd of Pigs

---

Luke 8:26-38 

26. They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, across the lake from Galilee. 27. When Jesus stepped ashore, He was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time, this man had not worn clothing or lived in a house, but he stayed in the tombs. 28. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before Him, shouting in a loud voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Highest God? I beg you not to torture me!" 29. For Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was bound with chains and shackles, he had broken the chains and been driven by the demon into solitary places. 30. "What is your name?" Jesus asked. "Legion," he answered, because many demons had gone into him.

Demons want to inhabit people, and I imagine not because they need a home in the human sense, but because they gain fuel from polluting and destroying God’s creation. It is a spiritual motivation to mock the relationship between God and his children. They want to inhabit a human being the way God wants to inhabit us with his Holy Spirit through Jesus, but they want to do it to mock and jeer at God, to cause trouble and destroy God's work, and to make fun of God and his children. They derive fuel from our suffering, like narcissists.

The pigs in this story are a symbol. The Old Testament Law said not to eat or touch the corpse of any animal that doesn't both chew the cud and have cloven hooves. 

The cloven hoof represents a life separated from the sinful world. An animal that chews the cud represents someone who constantly learns and meditates on the truths of God's word. ". . . let the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord," (Psalm 19:14) Like previously eaten grass comes up from within the cow, and the cow sits and chews on it, so the previously learned truths of God that settled in our heart come back to us, and we meditate on them, and our mind chews on them. 

An animal that chews the cud but doesn't have cloven hooves symbolizes someone who learns God's word but does not separate their life from the sins of the worldly. Their religion is in their academic mind, but has not changed their life. They are carnal still and have not given themselves fully to God's kingdom. God said, "These people worship me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." (Isaiah 29:13)

The animal that has cloven hooves but doesn't chew the cud symbolizes someone who has separated their life from others, but they do not learn or mediate on God's word. Their motivation for separating themselves is selfish, as in the man spoken of in Proverbs 18:1, “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.”

Pigs have cloven hooves, but they do not chew the cud. Pigs symbolize the self-righteous who separate from others, but they have nothing to do with the grace of Jesus or the one true God. They are entirely works oriented. They are self-centered, self-indulgent consumers, like rooting pigs.

You'll notice in verse 29 of this story that the demons had driven this man out into solitary places, because the town people had tried to get his excesses under control, even to the point of chaining him. He is separated from the world, but he isn't remotely righteous or good. He is separated out, but he is filthy, wild, and demon possessed. 

The pigs nearby symbolize this man, and those like him. 

The demons in the man were afraid to be imprisoned in the abyss, so they begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs. But Proverbs 16:9 says: "The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." The demons planned to go into the pigs and use their little legs to run away from Jesus, but the Lord directed the pigs' steps, and he ran them into the water to die; and most likely, God imprisoned the demons inside of the rotting carcasses rather than the abyss. These demons had turned the man into a sort of rotting carcass, so it would have been fitting to now lock them all inside of literal rot at the bottom of the lake: a symbol of the abyss. Jesus didn’t even have to specifically send them to the abyss, because their own behavior did it to them.

The man symbolizes the person who self-righteously separates their life from others, most likely while worshiping a false god in a false religion or cult, but since they do not know Jesus, all they've done is senselessly drive themselves to their own destruction. Their legs are running, but they're running themselves into the spiritual death of hell.

Without Jesus, God's word says it is impossible to reach the Father; and without faith in Jesus, it is impossible to please God. (John 14:6 and Hebrews 11:6) These people may plan their own way to heaven, but God will direct their steps to destruction under the weight of their own behavior.

God's word says that those who persist in rejecting the truth of Jesus will perish, because they refused to believe the truth that could have saved them. (2 Tim. 2:10)