“No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.”
In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man's house — the strong man parable interprets the exorcisms: the world is the strong man's house (the domain of Satanic power over human beings), and the exorcisms are the plundering of that house. But plundering is only possible after binding. Jesus is not merely casting out individual demons; he has first bound the strong man — in the wilderness testing of chapter 1, the temptation was resisted and Satan was overcome in principle. The exorcisms throughout the Galilean ministry are the plundering that follows the binding. Revelation 20:1–3 will use the binding language explicitly for the defeat of Satan.
Church Fathers on Mark 3:27
The meaning of the example is this: The devil is the strong man; his goods are the men into whom he is received; unless therefore a man first conquers the devil, how can he deprive him of his goods, that is, of the men whom he has possessed?
The Lord has also bound the strong man, that is, the devil: which means, He has restrained him from seducing the elect, and entering into his house, the world; He has spoiled his house, and his goods, that is men, because He has snatched them from the snares of the devil, and has united them to His Church.
Or this is meant; that he will not deserve to work out repentance, so as to be accepted, who, understanding who Christ was, declared that He was the prince of the devils.
Read all 6 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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