Spiritual World: Demons
Matthew 8
Introduction: Was demon possession real or was it merely a superstition of the ancient peoples? Who are the demons? How did they choose their intended victim? If a man did not want to be a habitation for demons, could he refuse to let them into his body? Can demons possession occur today? Some of you may be asking why would we ever want to study such a repulsive subject? The subject of demons is a Bible subject, occurring 80 times in both testaments. Not a whole lot is said in the Bible about the Lord's Supper but we rightly emphasize it as the centerpiece of our worship. However, 1 Cor. 10:21 shows that the counterpart to the Lord's Table is "the cup of demons" and the "table of demons." Since the opposite of the Communion is the table of demons, should we not as least know who the demons are?
1. Who Are Demons?
a. As to the identity of demons, there are only 4 classes of evil in the spiritual universe. Satan, fallen angels, & evil men who are living & dead. We can eliminate living, evil men as a possibility. Consider the other 3: 1) Satan. The word devils is an unfortunate translation in the KJV. There are many demons but only one Devil. Satan therefore is not a demon, but is Beelzebub, prince of the demons. This can not mean that he is prince of himself. 2) fallen angels are evil. Demons have behaviors which fallen angels never displayed: There is no record of any angel ever entering any animal or human. Neither is there evidence that angels preferred tombs or cemeteries in the way that demons did. 3) Proposition: Demons are the ghosts of dead men. A number of learned, conservative Bible scholars have concluded that the demons are not fallen angels, but are actually the ghosts of dead wicked men. Included within this group are men like J. W. McGarvey, Guy N. Woods, and Alexander Campbell. Over 150 years ago Campbell spoke to a group of people in Nashville, TN on the subject of demons and presented evidence showing why he concluded that demons are ghosts of wicked men. The evidence shows that the word "demon" means "one who knows." The evidence from paganism, Judaism and Christianity is very convincing that a demon is a ghost of a wicked person. In going through ancient, non-biblical evidence, one usually finds truth & error mixed and one must weed through the falsehood to separate the imaginary from the real. What proof is there for believing demons are ghosts of the dead?
b. Pre-Christian Pagans.
i. Hesiod said, “The spirits of mortals become demons when separated from their earthly bodies.”
ii. Plutarch, “The demons of the Greeks were the ghosts & genii of departed men; and that they go up and down the earth as observers and even rewarders of men, and although not actors themselves, they encourage others to act in harmony with their views and characters.”
iii. Zenocrates as quoted by Aristotle said that demons are the souls of men before death.
iv. Ancient Greeks saw the demons as mediators between God and men. Such were the views of Zoroaster, Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, Plutarch, & Celsus. Each one saw a heroic man on earth who became a demigod, a superhuman being or demon in Hades. The mythologies of all ancient religions had as their ultimate foundation a belief that the spirits of men survive their death and exist somewhere apart from their bodies. These spirits upon death were elevated to genii, gods, demigods or demons. When Paul took the Gospel to Athens and told of Jesus & his resurrection, the philosophers said that he was telling them about “strange gods” (Acts 17:18, KJV), “foreign divinities” (RSV), or “strange deities” (NASB). Acts 17:18 is proof that pre-Christian pagans held this view. The Greek philosopher Lucian said, “What is man? A mortal god! And what is God? An immortal man!”
c. Jews & Patriarchs
i. When the law was given to Moses, God warned the Jews against practicing the religion of the Canaanites. This included consulting the spirits of the dead (“Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God” Lev. 19:31; 20:6; Deut. 18:11; 1 Sam. 28:7ff; 2 Sam. 21:6), necromancy (Deut. 18:11), & divination (Deut. 18:10; 2 Kings 17:17).
ii. Of Jeroboam it was said in 2 Chron. 11:15 that he appointed his own priests & sacrificed unto goat-demons & calves. The word translated “demons” םידיעש is taken from Egyptian idolatry in which the worship of the god Pan was represented by goats (Keil & Delitzsch’s Commentary 2 Chron. 11:15).
iii. David admitted that his own people “sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood” (Psa. 106:37-38). Earlier in v. 28, he said they ate the “sacrifices of the dead” clearly showing that in worshiping demons one is worshiping the dead. In Isaiah 8:19 “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?” The song of Moses is recorded in DT .32. If you will notice vv. 16-17, you will see that false religion and idolatry are interconnected. Here the people of God provoked him to jealousy by making offerings to idol gods. Moses says that they were not worshipping Jehovah. Instead they were sacrificing to demons.
iv. Josephus the Jewish historian said, “demons are the spirits of wicked men who enter into living men and destroy them, unless they are so happy as to meet with speedy relief.” (see Wars of the Jews, VII, cpt. 6, sect. 3). The Jewish philosopher Philo said, “The souls of dead men are called demons.” There is a distinction between Pagan & Jewish usage of the term demon. The Jews always thought of a demon as being wicked & unclean whereas the Pagans though of demons some being good and some evil.
d. Christian Fathers
i. Justin Martyr argued for an afterlife and mentioned “those who are seized & tormented by the souls of the dead, whom all call demons and madmen…” Others had the same views including Irenaeus, Origen, etc.
ii. Ignatius was trained by the apostle John. In his Epistle to Smyrna, he refers to Matthew 14:26 where the disciples saw something walking on the water & thought it was a ghost or phantom. Ignatius has Jesus saying to the apostles, “Handle me and see, for I am not a disembodied demon.”
e. New Testament Usage
i. The word demon appears about 75 times in the New Testament but in no single case is the word defined. There is a difference between the word demon and the word devil. In the KJV, the word devils in the plural always refers to the demons. In fact, the word devils occurs 50 times in the KJV and refers to the demons. EX.: "In thy name we have cast out devils (demons)..."(MT 7:22). Jesus "suffered not the devils to speak because they knew him." (MK 1:34). In the latter days men will give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils/demons. The many devils are actually demons but there is only one devil, Satan. The common opinion among all cultures before Jesus, during his time, and hundreds of years afterwards was that demons were the departed spirits of wicked men. Jesus certainly knew the identity of who demons were, and, If this notion was incorrect, would not have Jesus have corrected it? If the men of Jesus’ day had incorrect notions about what a demon was, Jesus and the apostles would have redefined the word & correction their error.
ii. 1 Corinthians 10:20-21 shows that when 1st century men ate food sacrificed to idols, they were actually eating food sacrificed to demons. Yet, Psalm 106:28 shows that in idol worship there is eating things sacrificed unto the dead. Since demons are actually connected with idol worship, should we not know some things are demons so we might avoid their influencing us to worship idols? “And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.” (Rev. 9:20-21). Furthermore, Paul in 1 TM 4:1 quoted what the Holy Spirit had said on numerous occasions; i.e. in the last days, some would depart from the Faith. How? By giving heed to seducing spirits and the doctrines of demons. Do these spirits and demons influence people directly? No, because v. 2 says that the ones who fall away will be influenced by hypocritical liars who have seared consciences.
iii. Satan in Ephesians 2:2 is called "prince of the powers of the air" which is an obvious reference to demonic powers. In MT 12:24, Satan is also called Beelzebub the prince of the demons. Whoever the demons are, they are1) spirits--which means they have a personality; 2) they are morally defiled, making them incapable of doing good.
2. What do demons do & what are some of their characteristics? In Matthew 8, Mark 5, & Luke 8, we are told of the time when Jesus traveled across the Sea of Galilee. He steps off the boat & is immediately confronted by a demon-possessed man who lunges at His feet by falling down & worshiping. “When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.) And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep.” (Luke 8:28-31). Note these observations:
a. Demons can inhabit bodies, whether human or animal. These had the strong desire to be in a body. For reasons not told us, they did not want to be out of a body & preferred an animal body if a human one was unavailable. 2000 pigs fed nearby & Jesus gave permission for them to enter them. They ran into the lake & drowned. We are not told if Jesus commanded the pigs to drown, if the demons did this to escape Jesus, or if the pigs did this on their own being startled by the evil within them.
b. The demons admitted Jesus had the ability & right to torture them, thus they acknowledged the rightness of their condemnation Their knew their destiny was in the hands of Jesus. This torture was connected with Jesus’ right of judgment in throwing them into the abyss, the world of the dead & the name of the bottomless pit of hell. They saw remaining in a body as one way to avoid torture.
c. These demons numbered in the thousands as evidenced by their name legion, a Roman term for 3000-6000 men. This means that several thousand were crammed into the one body of the demoniac. Jesus healed Mary Magdalene who had 7 demons inside her (Mark 16:9). Jesus told the parable of a man who was demon possessed & the demon was cast out. The demon walked through dry places looking for rest but was unable to find it. He entered back into his former host with seven other demons (Matthew 12:45). Possessing a body was one way demons could find temporary rest.
d. The demons hated the man’s body & wanted to harm it. He cut his body repeatedly (Mk. 5:5). Day & night, he continued to cry out in agony, so he was restless & emotionally tormented. You can read other stories in the New Testament of demons throwing their host’s bodies into fire to burn them, in water to drown them, or you read about how the demons supernaturally caused handicaps like muteness, blindness, deafness, or some other illness. They are associated with violence. Two demon possessed men were so violent they did not allow anyone to pass through their region unmolested (Matt. 8:28).
e. Demons have supernatural knowledge about current & future events. They knew who Jesus was the very moment they saw Him. In Acts 16, a demon-possessed slave girl had the ability to foretell future events. Her owners made money from her abilities & were not happy when Paul threw out the demon. The demon was called a “spirit of divination,” meaning she was a fortune-teller or soothsayer of the future. Divination was practiced by pagan tribes in Canaan because God warned Israel about seeking the future through them (Deut. 18:10). These people were not contacting the dead merely to chat but were learning the future from the dead.
f. Demons tried to hinder the work of the Gospel. Luke 4 tells of Jesus teaching in a synagogue & was interrupted by a demon-possessed man who was in the audience. He yelled out while Jesus was teaching & threw the man onto the ground (Lk. 4:33-35). Acts 16 tells of a slave girl who was demon possessed. She followed Paul & Silas for several days disrupting their mission work (Acts 16:18). Paul became grieved by the constant disruption from the demon & threw it out.
g. There are several synonyms also used to describe these same beings. They are called evil spirits, unclean spirits, foul spirits, seducing spirits, & angels/messengers of the Devil.
3. Limitations of Demons
4. Can demons possess men today? The Bible uses the analogy of a meteor to describe Satan who is like a flash across the sky. By contrast, Jesus is compared to the planet Venus which is called in Scripture the morning and evening star. In Luke 10, Jesus sent out 70 other disciples and gave them power over disease and demons. When they returned, they had been most impressed with power over demons. LK 10:18 "Lord, even the demons are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Jesus equated the casting out of demons with the demise of Satan's authority over peoples' bodies. The casting out of demons meant that the kingdom of Satan was being opposed by a kingdom of righteousness. Jesus used this argument against the Pharisees in MT 12:28 after he had cast out a demon which had caused blindness and muteness. "If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come upon you." Characteristics of Demon Possession--LK 4:33-35, 41 why would a demon possessed man go to a religious service? Was it to disrupt the people and take their minds off the word of God? Note that the demon possessed man knew the identity of Jesus and acknowledged the right of Jesus to destroy him. v.35 also shows that there was violence in the synagogue, he threw him in the midst of the building. v. 41 shows that this happened other times also. LK 8 tells of multiple possessions. v. 2 of Mary Magdalene who had 7 demons in her but Jesus came to her rescue. In the same chapter, v. 30 tells of 2 men, one of whom had a legion of demons in him. 4 things jump out at me from this passage. 1) They lived in tombs which are symbols of death v. 27; 2) they were exceedingly violent showing they were out of control; 3) they both were naked, a loss of human dignity; 4) day & night they would cry out & cut themselves with stones--notice their torment, perhaps even a picture of hell on earth. 5) they begged Jesus not to throw them into the abyss, the place of final torment. Thus they acknowledged the sovereignty of God and his right to judge. 6) Instead they proposed an alternative fate. About 2000 pigs fed nearby & the demons preferred to live in the pigs rather than to live in a deserted place. Jesus only gave the demons permission to possess the pigs not to hurt them. But the pigs panicked and drowned in the water. What fate awaited legion after the pigs died? Presumably they went to the abyss. LK 9 tells of demon possession of a child. We are not told how or why a demon would take an innocent child but this only shows how evil some people are. But the demon caused the boy to foam at the mouth, it bruised him, it made him fall into fire and water (MT 17:15). When Jesus commanded the demon to come out, one last time the demon made the boy go into convulsions. Demons looked for ways to injure their victims. They often caused handicaps, blindness, deafness, inability to speak. They caused their victims to act in an irrational manner showing their thoughts are vain. Acts 19 tells how a demon possessed man jumped 7 brothers and beat them so severely that they ran naked and bleeding (Acts 19:16).