Each gospel has its own set of Bible stories, some of which are also mentioned in other gospels. When this happens I like to compare the different versions to see if additional information is provided. That’s the case with the twelve year old girl Jesus raised from the dead. In Mark 5:35-40, we learn the girl’s father was the ruler of the local synagogue where Jesus was preaching and he came to Jesus to ask him to heal his sick daughter and before they reached his house he found out she had already died. Jesus told the man his daughter was not dead, but sleeping. When Jesus entered the girl’s room he took her by the hand and called, saying, “Little girl, arise.” The girl immediately arose and was well. In Luke’s version he gives us two extra bits of information that Mark left out. First, Luke names the ruler of the synagogue as Jairus. Second, Luke tells us how the twelve year old girl was brought back to life. The girl’s spirit returned to her and reentered her body.
Luke 8:55 – Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately.
We know that God gives each person an eternal spirit at conception, a part of himself. We know that the Bible says a dead body is unclean. At the moment of death our spirit must come out of the corpse. It’s a spiritual law of the kingdom of God. Our spirit is literally expelled from our bodies and if we’re indwelt by the Holy Spirit he leaves as well. Ancient Jewish tradition holds that a person’s spirit remains close to the body for up to three days hoping to reenter the body and only leaves when it sees the body start to decay. God owns our spirit and it goes back to him for disposition. At death our spirit goes to one of two destinations, to hell or to paradise within the earth, in this instance, since it was before the death of Christ. After the death of Christ the spirit of all believers go straight to heaven. What we don’t know is the timeline for spirits to depart. How long can a spirit hang around the body it just came out of? Must the spirit leave immediately? We don’t know.
In Luke 8:55, we can surmise the girl had a spirit and it departed her body when she physically died. Since the girl’s spirit is eternal it therefore had no choice but to leave her body. The girl only came back to life because her spirit returned to her. Of course we know Jesus summoned the spirit with his, “voice of authority,” and had it reenter the girl which brought her back to life. No spirit, no life. No life, no spirit. If you’re alive your heart is still beating and your spirit is still in you. We don’t have any live zombies walking around with no spirit like the “walking dead” movies. This story is just more proof of what of what we already know. We all have an eternal spirit that belongs to God and one day it’ll return to God. We’ve all heard the stories of near death experiences where people briefly die and are brought back to life and they say they were temporarily out of the body watching everything go go on around them. I don’t know whether to believe that or not. It sounds reasonable. What I do believe is our spirit will never leave our bodies as long as there is any chance we might live. It’s all part of the same spiritual law God has established for our lives.
Luke 22:2-4 – And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might kill Him (Jesus), for they feared the people. Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray Him to them.
Luke and John both record the betrayal of Jesus at the hands of Judas by telling us that Judas was indwelt by Satan himself at the time of Jesus’ betrayal. The devil normally leaves the indwelling of human beings to his underlings but in this instance he wanted to personally be the one to betray Jesus and ensure his crucifixion. The only other instance in the Bible where we are told Satan indwells someone is the antichrist during the tribulation.