Legion is the name the man from the tombs gave when Jesus asked,
What is your name?
My name is Legion,
for we are many.
A Roman legion was thousands under one command.
The word on that shore is occupation
—
many in one man, an army in a graveyard.
He begged Him earnestly not to send them out of the country.
Send us to the pigs.
He gave them permission.
About two thousand rushed down the bank.
Sitting, clothed, in his right mind is what is left when Legion is gone.
Jesus had said, Let us go across to the other side. The first voice on the beach is a scream that knows His title: Son of the Most High God. Then the question that pulls a name into the open. Legion. Not a person. A count. Mark and Luke let the man speak with a we. The request is tactical: not the abyss yet, not out of the region, into the herd. Permission is not partnership. It is command letting the unseen become countable so a village can see what had been riding a neighbor. Two thousand swine are a market and a mercy at once—the man is not the price of the pigs. The town fears the calm more than the tombs. They beg Jesus off their land.
Legion as a word has wandered into slogans and entertainments. In Scripture it is a confession of many, a plea to stay, a crash into the sea, and a preacher sent home.
Paul will later write of wrestling not against flesh and blood. Jesus had already shown what flesh and blood look like when the many are told to leave. Twelve unused angel-legions wait in Gethsemane. He will not call them. He calls this man to go tell mercy.
- We are many is the truth of possession, not a personality quiz.
- A Roman measure on a Gentile shore makes the occupation felt.
- Permission to enter swine is judgment and reveal, not a bargain among equals.
- The abyss is still ahead of them. They know a worse place than pigs.
- Right mind after Legion is the sign that the Most High outranks the many.
- Do not romanticize the name. It was chains, graves, and cutting.
- Angel-legions He will not use prove He is not short of armies. He is drinking a cup.
- The Name Asked – What is your name? We are many.
- The Title They Know – Son of the Most High God.
- The Plea – Not the abyss; not out of the country; the herd.
- The Bank – About two thousand; the sea.
- The Man Left – Clothed; seated; sent home to speak.
- The Town – Afraid; begging Jesus to leave.
- Other Legions – Twelve of angels unused; hosts of the Lord.
- Mark 5:9-13 – “And Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion, for we are many.’ And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, ‘Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.’ So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.”
- Luke 8:30-33 – “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.
- Mark 5:15, 19-20 – They saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind… “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.”
- Mark 5:7 – “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”
- Matthew 8:29 – “Have you come here to torment us before the time?”
- Luke 8:31 – They begged Him not to command them to depart into the abyss.
- Matthew 26:53 – Do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once send Me more than twelve legions of angels?
- Ephesians 6:12 – We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness.
- Mark 1:24-26 – “I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” Jesus rebuked him, “Be silent, and come out of him.”
- Revelation 20:1-3 – An angel seized the dragon… and threw him into the pit.
- Psalm 68:17 – The chariots of God are twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands.
What is your name? My name is Legion, for we are many.
They begged Him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Send us to the pigs. He gave them permission.
About two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea.
The man who had had the legion sat clothed and in his right mind.
Go home and tell how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.
More than twelve legions of angels wait on a word He will not speak.
Do not wear the name as a joke. Many is not a match for the Most High. Ask Him to send them out. Sit. Get dressed. Tell the mercy. The army in the tombs cannot keep the beach when He steps out of the boat.
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