In part
1 of this article we saw that the Bible suggests, strongly at times, that
ministry to people afflicted by demons is something that should be ongoing
today.
In this second part I will move on to consider some other relevant
aspects of this topic. Although the
Bible will not be as directly in focus as it was in part 1, it will still
feature prominently in the following discussion.
MANY PEOPLE ARE
AFFLICTED BY DEMONS TODAY
The first important point to make is that there are many people today
who have demonic problems.
Of course, some who claim to be Christians deny the existence of
Satan and evil spirits. In this article,
however, I don’t intend to argue that these creatures exist. I am writing for those who already accept
that they do.
More importantly for the purposes of this article, there are some
Christians who claim that today people only very rarely suffer from demonic
afflictions. These Christians rightly agree
that Satan and evil spirits exist. And
they rightly agree too that in the first century many people had demonic
problems. But they say that today things
are different.
Those who take this view are completely mistaken, for the
following reasons:
The amount of demonic
affliction in the first century
To begin with, in the light of the amount of demonic affliction
that there clearly was in the first century, it would be very surprising if
demons didn’t afflict people frequently today.
Why would we expect things to be any different now? After all, Satan is still the god of this age
in which we live (2 Corinthians 4:4).
Of course, in the last 2000 years the good news of the Christian
message has spread to more and more people.
But this has hardly meant that the evil in our world has reduced in any
real way. We just need to read the news
to hear of all sorts of terrible evils that go on everywhere. The idea that the world is gradually becoming
a morally better place is just a myth. And
we would therefore not expect demonic activity to be any less now than it was
in the first century.
Misdiagnosis
We should also listen carefully to Christians who claim to have
experience of freeing people from demons.
They can often be heard saying that many of those who are diagnosed with
psychological illnesses are in fact suffering from demonic problems. And they say that physical ailments also often
have a demonic root.
Nothing about these claims looks implausible. Just because non-Christians diagnose an
illness in a certain way doesn’t mean that they have to be right. We must remember that the fear of God is the
beginning of wisdom and knowledge (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10 ). So if people’s
starting point is wrong, it is likely that they will often reach wrong
conclusions about things too.
Modern Western intellectuals, including those in the medical
profession, are typically non-Christians who don’t believe in the existence of
demons. It should therefore be easy for us
to understand how doctors could misdiagnose demonic affliction as something
else.
Demons speaking
through people
In the Gospels and Acts we find examples of evil spirits speaking
audibly through people. See, e.g., Mark
1:24; 5:7-12; Acts 16:17 ; 19:15 . I think one reason
why some Christians doubt that demonic afflictions are common today is because
they don’t hear of examples of this happening.
Again, we should listen to those who claim to have experience of
freeing people from demons:
(1) They say that evil spirits do at times speak through people
today.
Sadly, ministry to people afflicted by evil spirits is so lacking
in so much of the church today that many Christians never hear anything about
it. It is a fact, however, that there
are reports of demons speaking through people in our day.
(2) Those who claim experience in this area also tell us that when
a demon is expelled from a person, this is often the only time that it ever
speaks through the person hosting it.
(3) They tell us too that often a demon never speaks through the
person it is inhabiting, even at the time it is expelled.
(4) They also tell us that in a majority of demonic afflictions,
it is inappropriate to think of the demon as living inside the person in
question. Usually demonic afflictions
are less serious than that, more of a demonic grip on a person than a living
inside. And in such cases, it makes
sense to think that the demon would never speak through the person affected.
It is worth noting too that at times Scripture itself quite
strongly implies that a demonised person never had a demon speak through them.
For example, in Matthew 9:32-33 we are told:
‘32 As they were going out, a mute, demonised man was brought to [Jesus]. 33 And when the demon had been expelled, the mute man spoke . . .’
Note here that the man’s problem was specifically inability to
speak. It therefore seems very unlikely
that the demon spoke through this man before Jesus met him.
Note too how the text says that the man spoke when the demon had
been expelled. This also suggests that
the demon never spoke through him.
Given this passage (and others), and given the claims of
Christians who say they have experience in this ministry, then, it seems
entirely plausible that many people today could have demonic afflictions
without a demon ever speaking through them.
And, as I have noted, there are reports of demons speaking through
people anyway.
Summing up
There seems to be no good reason, therefore, for thinking that people
today only rarely suffer from demonic afflictions. And in the absence of such a reason, it makes
sense to think that today things are much the same as they were in the first
century. Today, as then, many people are
afflicted by demons.
IT IS WRO NG TO
THINK THAT PRAYE R ALONE USU ALLY FREES PEOP LE FROM DEMONS
There are some Christians who agree that many people today have
demonic problems, but who claim that the way to set people free is simply to
pray for them. They say that no special
ministry of expelling demons or such like is needed.
I do think it is true that sometimes prayer alone frees people
from evil spirits. Nevertheless, there
are a couple of points to make here:
First century ministry
typically involved more than just prayer
To begin with, the Bible makes it clear that in the first century
people were typically freed from evil spirits through actual ministry to them. This ministry often involved prayer but it
was rarely, if ever, confined to prayer.
We know that when Jesus was on earth, He and His followers
performed this kind of ministry. See,
e.g., Matthew 8:16; 10:1, 8; Mark 1:23-27; 6:7, 13; Luke 9:1, 6; 10:17 .
And we know too that when the early church ministered to people
with demonic problems, they did more than just pray. See Acts 5:12-16; 8:6-7; 19:11 -12, and the verse we know as Mark 16:17.
So why would we expect things to be any different today? There seems to be no good reason.
The Bible suggests
ministry today
Second, I refer the reader to part 1 of this article, where I
discuss several biblical passages which suggest that ministry to people with
demons should be ongoing today.
Summing up
The idea, then, that the way to free people from demons today is just
to pray for them fits very poorly with Scripture.
IT IS WRO NG TO
THINK THAT DEMONS LEAVE NEW CONV ERTS
AUTOMATICALLY
There are some Christians who agree that many people today suffer
from demonic problems, but who argue in this way:
To get free of a demonic problem in our day, all someone needs to
do is become a Christian. Demons will
leave automatically when a person is saved.
And there is therefore no need for ministry to people afflicted by them.
This is a very weak argument, for several reasons:
Biblical teaching and
examples
To begin with, the points I made above are also relevant here:
(1) We know that in the first century Jesus and Christians
ministered to people with demons. And
there is no good reason for thinking that things should be any different today.
(2) The Bible suggests, strongly at times, that ministry to people
afflicted by demons should be ongoing today.
Both these points count strongly against the idea that no ministry
to people with demons is needed today.
The Bible’s silence on
demons leaving at conversion
Next, there is no suggestion anywhere in the Bible that demons
leave people at the moment they become Christians.
I do admit that I have heard reports of this happening. However, even if it is true that this does
sometimes happen, it is still the case that the Bible never refers to it. So we would hardly expect this to be a common
thing.
Christians with
demonic problems
Finally, those who claim to have experience of freeing people from
demons widely agree that Christians can have demonic problems.
There are some who rule out the idea that a Christian could have a
problem of this sort. They point out
that the Holy Spirit lives inside Christians.
And they argue that the Spirit couldn’t and wouldn’t share His residence
with a demon.
This argument, however, is too simplistic, for two reasons:
(1) We need to take account of the metaphorical language here.
When we talk about the Spirit living in a Christian, we need to
understand that this is a metaphor as far as the human soul is concerned. Our souls are not spatial entities, i.e.,
they don’t literally occupy a space with physical dimensions. So it is not as if the Spirit literally lives
inside and fills them. Instead, the idea
is that the Spirit enlivens our souls in an important way and acts in very
close relationship to them.
Similarly, talk of demons living inside people is also
metaphorical as far as the human soul is concerned. And, as I have already noted, in a majority
of demonic afflictions it is inappropriate to refer to demons living inside
people anyway. Usually demonic problems
are less serious than that.
When we recognise that neither the Spirit nor demons literally
live inside people, it becomes much easier to understand how a Christian could
have a demonic problem.
(2) We must bear in mind that the Spirit (metaphorically) lives
inside us despite the fact that we are not yet free of sin. Although all true Christians are justified and
upright in God’s sight, we remain sinners.
So the Spirit lives in sinners. And
sin, of course, is an extremely bad and serious thing.
But if the Spirit can live in sinners, it is not all that
surprising if He could live in people with demonic problems too. It is true that the Spirit and demons are
totally incompatible. Yet the Spirit and
sin are also totally incompatible. So if
the Spirit can live in a sinner, as we know He can, it doesn’t seem implausible
that He could live in someone with a demonic problem.
For two reasons, then, the idea that the Spirit couldn’t live in
someone with a demonic affliction is too simplistic.
Something that causes misunderstanding here is Bible translation
of the Greek verb daimonizomai, found 14 times in the New Testament (e.g., in
Matthew 4:24 ; 8:16 ; Mark 1:32 ; 5:15 ; Luke 8:36 ). In English
versions the passive participle of this verb is usually translated
‘demon-possessed’.
This is actually a very poor translation. Importantly, there is no part of the word daimonizomai
that signifies possession.
Daimonizomai is related to two nouns, daimon and daimonion, both
of which are used in the New Testament to mean ‘demon’. Daimonizomai certainly implies some sort of harmful
action by a demon. But there is nothing
in the word itself which tells us exactly what this action is. By itself daimonizomai doesn’t imply that the
action involves actual possession by a
demon.
Those who translate the passive participle of daimonizomai as
‘demon-possessed’ think that when this word is used in the New Testament of a
person affected by a demon, the action involves possession.
However, the New Testament never teaches that anyone who is
troubled by a demon is possessed by that demon.
And I believe that daimonizomai should be interpreted accordingly. I would hold that all actions by demons on
people in the New Testament always fall short of actual possession, even when a
demon speaks through a person at the time it is expelled.
When translating daimonizomai into English, I prefer to use the
simple term ‘demonise’ (‘demonize’ in American English). And I translate the passive participle as
‘demonised’. This avoids saying what
kind of action the demon performs, just as daimonizomai itself avoids doing
this.
The reason this is important is that if a Christian thinks that
having a demonic problem involves actually being possessed by a demon, they
will say that it is impossible for a Christian to have such a problem. And it is surely correct that no Christian
could be possessed by a demon.
However, if we say that a Christian can be demonised in a way that
is far less serious than being possessed, it is much easier to understand how a
Christian could have a demonic problem.
All things considered, then, there seems to be no convincing
reason for thinking that Christians cannot have demonic problems. So when those who claim to have experience in
this area say that Christians can
suffer from demonic afflictions, we should pay attention to what they say.
If Christians can have demonic problems, as I am sure they can, this
counts as evidence that demons don’t disappear automatically when people are
converted.
Summing up
In the light of the above points, we should have no hesitation in
rejecting the idea that there is no need for ministry to demonised people
because demons will always leave automatically when people become Christians. There is a need for this ministry, and
demons, at least usually, don’t automatically disappear when people are saved.
CONCLUSION
That concludes our discussion of this topic, and we have found the
following:
(1) The Bible suggests, strongly at times, that ministry to people
afflicted by demons is something that should be ongoing today.
(2) It makes perfect sense to think that many people today have
demonic problems.
(3) We shouldn’t expect demons to disappear simply by praying for
people.
(4) The idea that we should expect demons to automatically leave
people when they become Christians is a mistake.
When all these points are taken into account, we should have no
hesitation in saying that there is very much a place for ministry to people
afflicted by demons today.
It is not my intention here to say exactly how Christians should
get into this ministry, especially as I have little experience of it myself. My goal has simply been to try to show that
this is something that many Christians should be involved in at the present
time. Ideally, it should be a ministry
that is performed by every local church.
My understanding of God, however, is that if Christians are closed
to Him doing things through them, He usually holds back from working in those
ways even if He would like to. I would
therefore encourage believers to be open to God working through them in this
ministry and to seek His leading.
See also:
