The unclean spirit cried out, shook him violently, and came out. The boy became like a dead man, so that many said that he died.
The evil spirit’s departure is accompanied by a final violent convulsion. This once again shows the cruel nature of evil. The person being set free for a moment falls into such a condition that it seems everything ended in death. But what looked like loss in people’s eyes was in fact the gate of freedom. Often God’s works at first appear frightening or incomprehensible in people’s eyes. They hurry to say, “It is over, it is lost, he died.” Yet in Christ’s hands even moments that look like death can be the threshold of life.