In previous webpages we dug deep in Scripture’s goldfields and mined much ore. Now is our opportunity to better appreciate our findings by concentrating the ore.

Or, to view the process differently: we’ve discovered and then examined an abundance of jigsaw pieces scattered throughout the Bible. Each has been a valuable clue as to what the full picture looks like but greater clarity comes when we bring the pieces together.

It should come as no surprise that, rather than have a proof text, we must examine so many pieces. No Bible verse specifically states that God is three persons in one or even that Jesus is God, nor that abortion or burning heretics at the stake is wrong. Such matters belong to a host of important truths that are each arrived at only by carefully considering the full teaching of the Bible. Anyone is edging on to quicksand who stubbornly refuses to believe unless he can find a specific Bible verse that distills the full teaching of Scripture into a single, undeniable statement. Truth is arrived at by combining intimacy with Scripture’s author with knowing the entire Bible as thoroughly as a starry-eyed lover longs to know everything about his beloved.

Let’s commence by reminding ourselves of the daunting, yet thrillingly intimate task we face. It plunges us not into academic study but into the very heart of the most exciting Person in the universe.

The Challenge

Sadly, this topic splits Christians into two large camps. On each side, passionately believing opposite things, are Christians worthy of our highest esteem. This means that no matter who is right, the humbling – even scary – reality is that we are daring to confront a matter on which truly great men and women of God have got it wrong. It is tempting to think that if God allows this, it must be because this issue is unimportant. If this were so, however, it becomes perhaps even more confusing. It would mean that so many fine Christians on both sides are wrong in thinking this is an important matter.

The thought of so many good people getting it wrong seems enough to send us reeling into defeatism. If people more spiritual, knowledgeable, experienced and gifted than ourselves have somehow missed the truth, who are we to get it right? We feel the same way when hearing the crushing news of a great Christian having a moral fall. Nevertheless, there is one truth with the power to lift us out of defeatism: no matter how much Christians may differ in giftedness, and no matter how much some may seem superior to us, we are all equal in our dependence upon the grace of God.

If anyone could be mistaken, it’s me. But if anyone can reveal the truth, it’s God. If it depended on us, we might have little hope, but since it depends on the grace of God, we each have boundless reason for hope.

If we can stop putting our faith in our devotion, experience, Bible skills and human teachers, and place our faith solely in the Almighty’s power to override all our inadequacies and penetrate our dull minds with his truth, then we have mastered two key factors in receiving divine revelation: humility (“The meek will he guide . . .”), and all of our faith in the Almighty, none in self. Another essential is, of course, a right relationship with God. “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Psalms 66:18). “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). Sin must be removed by us trusting in Jesus’ cleansing and by genuinely wanting that cleansing. We are genuine only to the extent that we passionately long for purity and for devoted obedience to our Lord. The remaining essential is to have such a driving passion to receive the truth from God that we rival the mother of the demonized child who kept refusing to be put off from her quest to receive from Jesus the longing of her heart. Our Lord “rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

When devout Christians come to wrong conclusions, much of their understanding is correct. People on both sides of this issue typically have a commendable grasp of most of the puzzle. Almost all of us, however, long to rush ahead and try to join the dots too soon. The problem then becomes our tendency to feel more certain than warranted by the evidence so far gathered, and to unintentionally close our minds to anything further God may wish to reveal to us that does not gel with our presumptions.

It is so hard to remain open to the possibility that we have reached our conclusions prematurely and that God has new things to show us. We tend to become closed off because we are rightly concerned about being seduced into error. Seldom do we consider, however, that we might already have slipped into a mistaken conclusion. This is one reason why humility is so critical for truth seekers.

Since we all have blind spots that we are quite unaware of, we need to keep praying for an openness to any revelation that is truly from God that we might unknowingly reject because it “does not compute” since it is incompatible with our current mindset.

I don’t for a moment suppose that most of those who happen to have reached the right conclusion – whatever that is – are any more in tune with God than those who have not. No doubt, many have jumped to the correct answer as a mere fluke. They may, in fact, know less of the puzzle than some of those who have not yet found the right answer.

I have sought not to be so presumptuous as to try to tell you the answer to the question we have been examining, but rather to remind you of the pieces of the puzzle all Christians are certain about. My prayer is that you will then be better able, under the personal leading of the Spirit, to determine the nature of the missing piece. I have wanted to serve you by being cool and gentle, and to move out of the way so that Spirit of God can speak to you. Nevertheless, I confess to being both passionate and biased. My prayerful – but I could have been more prayerful – investigations have personally brought me to some compelling conclusions and to the belief that this subject is too important for anyone to remain neutral.

I reached this point despite having no axe to grind. I have had virtually no conscious experience with anything demonic, nor with people who claim such experiences. Nevertheless, if exorcism is as important to the Son of God as the Gospels proclaim, it must surely be critical that you and I get this matter right.

When it comes to us manifesting the blood-bought victory of the risen Lord by liberating people through casting out demons, are Christians off-limits or will Christians be significantly helped by this approach?

To crystallize our thinking let’s piece together what we have discovered.

Bringing the Pieces Together

With the demonic, more than perhaps any other subject, we seem to have a bizarre tendency to toss calm, rational thought to wind and let fear, emotions and superstition run wild. We saw a staggering example of this in the way otherwise kindhearted Christians have baselessly accused Mary Magdalene of shameful behavior when she had seven demons, even though at that time she was probably moral and possibly godly. We must sober up and free ourselves of preconceptions if we are to find the truth.

If to have a demon is to be overpowered by an anti-God monster who owns or enslaves one’s entire life, we could immediately dismiss the notion as impossible for a Christian. Using the Bible as our sole source, however, we gained the impression in Where Have All the Demons Gone? that having a demon is closer to physical sickness than what many of us imagine. In fact, although Scripture repeatedly distinguishes sickness from being demonized (eg Matthew 4:24; 8:16; 10:8; Mark 1:32; 6:13; Luke 7:21; Acts 5:16), often only physical symptoms – not moral or spiritual or even mental symptoms – are mentioned.

Bible scholar, Norval Geldenhuys, writing about all the times Jesus delivered people from demons, says:

It is noteworthy that Jesus nowhere speaks of forgiveness of sins or of purification-sacrifices that have to be brought after His curing of such cases (as He did in some cases of physical illness). Those possessed are depicted throughout as unfortunate sufferers who by no fault of their own are dominated by evil spirits and who, when the spirits are cast out by Jesus, accept their deliverance with joy and gratitude . . . (Source )

I don’t accept this argument from silence as proof that not a single person could be held responsible for having a demon (consider King Saul, for example) but Geldenhuys’ thought might help sober some of today’s hysteria about the subject.

In at least one area of life, a person with a demon is being hindered from reaching his God-given potential. There are Scriptural hints, however, that the rest of his life might not necessarily be out of control. This raises the question of whether it is possible to have a demon and the rest of one’s life be in submission to Christ.

What makes this seem untenable is the thought of the Holy Spirit and evil spirits co-habiting. Nevertheless, there is a somewhat similar problem with the thought of the Holy Spirit dwelling in a Christian suffering physical sickness. Without considering how regularly or rarely it applies, if just once or twice it is appropriate to call a Christian’s sickness what we discovered the Word of God calls sickness in Acts 10:38 – being dominated or controlled by the devil – the implications are profound. It means some Christians can have part of them – an aspect of their physical health –controlled by the deceiver and enemy of our souls who comes to kill, steal and destroy. If our Lord could allow that in a Christian’s body, could it be unthinkable for God to allow an agent of the devil – a demon – in a Christian’s body?

We came upon this same quandary when discussing Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” Here we find a Scriptural account of the Holy Spirit and a satanic tormentor coexisting in the same body. I certainly don’t think that mysterious thorn was a demon, but whatever it was, there are truly astounding verbal similarities between Scripture’s inspired description of “a messenger/angel from Satan” “in the flesh” of Spirit-filled Paul and a demon/angel from Satan in the flesh of a Christian. Clearly, Scripture does not see choosing such imagery as grossly insulting to the Holy Lord.

What I believe is insulting to God, however, is to suppose that the Holy Spirit could find it easier to tolerate the “tiniest” moral imperfection in our flesh than tolerate a demon in our flesh. What tears my heart about such thinking is that it implies God’s holiness is not absolute but as fickle as human standards. It is supposing that for the Perfect One, near enough is good enough. In contrast to that view, the Bible repeatedly reveals that the Holy One’s standards are so exacting that in his eyes ordinary – or even what to us seem “good,” highly respectable people – are as wicked as the devil himself (consider these Scriptures).

The only person ever to walk this planet with pristine perfection is Jesus. He alone could meet the Holy Spirit’s standard of holiness. The rest of us should instantly fry to a puff of smoke in God’s presence. The Holy One can dwell in us, not because we are presently like crystal but only because, through our identification with Jesus, God treats us as if our daily lives were as flawless as Christ’s.

For the Spotless Lord to dwell in any of us, he must treat us as if there were no defiling imperfection in us. This mystery could be no bigger than it would be for God to dwell in someone who has a demon; treating the person as if there were no demon. How could one be a greater manifestation of divine grace than the other?

The Complexity of Our Wonderful Lord

There is no question that when considered in isolation, God’s holiness would seem to exclude the possibility of a Christian having a demon. At all costs, however, we must try to embrace the full truth about God.

Little children have such difficulty grasping the complexity of adults that, say some psychologists, they almost think of their mothers as two different people – a wicked witch and a fairy godmother. In intelligence and complexity, the Almighty is much further beyond us than a mother is beyond a child. So it is not surprising that we discover in God’s nature what seem incompatibilities beyond human powers of comprehension. God’s fearsome holiness and his intimate closeness to his creation – all of whom are utterly dependent upon him – is just one example. A few other seeming incompatibilities include his love and his wrath; his gentleness and his power; his mercy and his judgment. To dare diminish our estimation of the intensity of any of these will produce a dangerously distorted view of God. Our holy Lord is the one who no one may see and live (Exodus 33:20; 1 Timothy 6:16; 1 John 4:12), and yet the one of whom even idol-worshipping (Paul would say demon-worshipping – 1 Corinthians 10:20, see also Revelation 9:20) pagans can rightly say, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28-29).

Yes, the Spirit of God is terrifyingly holy. We dare not downplay this truth. Rather than isolate himself from evil, however, being poured out upon all flesh involved not only indwelling believers but the Holy Spirit actively working in the hearts of unbelievers, convicting them of sin and drawing them to Jesus, even while they are a part of the kingdom of darkness.

If we stopped at what is theoretically impossible, we would decide there is no need even to consider the possibility of a Christian having a demon. James, however, reminds us of the vast gulf between what “should not be” and what is practical reality in the lives of some Christians. He acknowledged that what should be as impossible as a grapevine producing figs or fresh water flowing from a salt spring, can actually flow from the mouths of Christians. Jesus likewise revealed that what should be impossible for a rich man – indeed, for any of us – sometimes happens through the grace of God.

Keep Seeking

“Seek and you shall find,” said Jesus, and yet Christians have sought the answer to whether a Christian can have a demon and come to opposite conclusions. That means some have stopped seeking before they truly found.

If there are those who stopped prematurely just because of what seemed impossible, there are those who have stopped just because of what seem convincing testimonies of demonic manifestations in true Christians.

If demons cannot dwell in Christians, they must leave prior to, or at the point of, salvation. Unless demons are inexplicably rarer today than they were among God-fearing first century Jews, this exit of demons as people become Christians must be quite common. So added to all the testimonies of demons leaving Christians at some point after salvation, we must grapple with the fact that a peculiarly small proportion of Christians report demons leaving at or before salvation in the obvious matter recorded so often in God’s Word. Furthermore, over and over in Scripture we see demons leaving not spontaneously but only when specifically commanded to do so.

The scope of testimonies of exorcism after salvation is enormous and powerful but since the danger is to stop seeking before we have truly found, we must push through the temptation to stop here.

Of course, either side could be led by experience. There are those who have seen only excesses or mistakes or obviously fake “demonic manifestations” in Christians and on the basis of this experience – rather than Scripture – have presumed that nothing genuine exists.

We earlier listed reasons for not expecting apostles to let demons remain in Christians and for not expecting a biblical record of early Christians with demons. Be that as it may, however, we must endeavor to keep seeking God and be led by the revealed Word of God, rather than trusting our own spiritual experience or that of other Christians, no matter how dramatic and convincing the experience seems. To the human mind there will always be mysteries, but divinely interpreted experience will always fit hand in glove with divinely interpreted Scripture.

The Bible gives considerable circumstantial evidence that the woman with the demonic spirit of infirmity was godly. She was found in the place of Bible teaching and worship. Her spontaneous reaction to healing was to praise God. Far beyond these factors, however, is the way Jesus defended her by granting her the lofty, spiritually-charged title “daughter of Abraham” and indicating that this spiritual status applied to her even during the time when she was physically bound by an evil spirit.

We can keep forever ducking and weaving but there is no indication that early church member, Ananias, was not a true Christian. This was a time and place where to be a Christian was not just unpopular but highly dangerous, especially to let oneself be seen as a high profile Christian. In just the previous chapter in Acts, the Jewish leaders who had ordered Jesus’ execution had arrested two apostles. And as explained earlier, Ananias being a Christian helps explain the severity of his judgment.

Peter – backed by such authority that Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead – said Ananias had let Satan enter into his heart. Satan (rather than one of his underlings) entering into (not just overstaying after a person’s salvation) the heart (not just the physical body) of someone who is already a Christian, is a more shocking thought than a minor demon being in a non-Christian’s physical body and staying on after salvation until it is specifically ordered to leave.

Wherever we go in Scripture we keep bumping into startling expressions like this that sound even worse than a demon grimly hanging on after a person’s salvation. Not only does Satan entering into the heart of Jesus’ chosen apostle, Judas, remind us of what happened to Ananias, there is so much more. There’s:

* a messenger/angel from Satan” “in the flesh” of a Spirit-filled apostle

* Christ-loving Peter, a recipient of divine revelation, with so much spiritual authority that he had already cast out demons, being such a tool of the devil that Jesus had to tell him, “Get behind me Satan”

* the Holy Spirit speaking prophetically through the man so controlled by Satan that he was at that very time plotting the Messiah’s murder

* divinely chosen, anointed, spiritually transformed, prophetic Saul regularly tormented by a demon, and even after his demonic experiences, the Spirit of God came upon Saul, prophesying through him, (1 Samuel 19:23) and spiritually-sensitive David kept honoring him as anointed by God

* the possibility of a Christian being dominated by the devil through sickness

* talk in Scripture of a freed Christian slipping back into bondage (Galatians 5:1)

* Scripture actually needing to teach Christians (rather than it automatically happening) that they are stronger than temptation and evil powers

* the Almighty and Satan chatting together (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7).

Can we honestly say that against the background Scripture keeps painting, present day testimonies of a demon in a Christian stand out as being odd? Can we really find more believable than Christians having demons, testimonies of Christians being defeated year after year by besetting sins before finally finding victory, or Christian leaders falling into sexual sin, despite all the liberty and victory that is the spiritual inheritance of every Christian? We hear such horror stories so often that we are hardened to them, but when examined in the cold light of day, are they really any less bizarre than a Christian having a demon?

Then we can add the biblical revelation that a Spirit-filled Christian can, not just in romantic fiction but in the piercing eyes of the holy Lord, be declared one flesh with a demonized non-Christian marriage partner. To be divinely pronounced one flesh means that in God’s sight your partner’s flesh is as much your own as the body you were born with. So for a Spirit-filled Christian married to a demonized person, there is, in the eyes of the Holy One, a demon in the Christian’s flesh. We can theorize about God in this case sanctifying or quarantining or whatever, but if God renders it possible for the Holy Spirit to indwell such a Christian, would he not render it possible in the case of a Christian with a demon?

Could the Holy Spirit and filthy thoughts dwell in the same body? Clearly they can, since even the holiest Christian can suffer temptation in the form of unbidden, demonically-inspired thoughts thrust into their minds.

Do we suppose the Holy Spirit would be in danger of moral or spiritual contamination if he dwelt where a demon lived? Do we imagine physical distance means anything to an omnipresent God? When people died by touching the ark of the covenant, sinful disrespect was the issue, not physical distance. Do we think it beyond the Holy Spirit’s patience to endure a demon in a Christian when to remain in any of us without reducing us to robots, the Almighty must share rulership with us, and every time we take over, it is an act of evil? If the Holy One lets an underling of the devil sit, as it were, on our shoulder seductively whispering vile temptations in our ear, flooding our minds with evil suggestions week after week, is it unthinkable for God to permit a demon to take up residence, within us if we don’t exercise our Christ-given authority? If God waits for us to say no to temptation, why should he not wait for us to say no to a demon remaining in us? If God doesn’t make it impossible for us sin, but seeks our conscious cooperation in overcoming sin, should we expect God to physically remove demons from us without our conscious cooperation? Can Christians be entrusted with authority to drive out demons without being granted the authority to let them remain?

Our minds recoil from the possibility of there being such a thing as a Christian alcoholic or a Christian porn addict. It seems a complete contradiction in terms, and yet how many people have been Christians for long without at some point in their Christian lives feeling enslaved to a certain sin? All Christians have power over sin but there are those who have not yet discovered how to use all the power resident within them.

All Christians are a new creation. Spiritually, Christians are an entirely different species to non-Christians. So although there may be superficial similarities between a non-Christian addict and a Christian addict, there are enormous differences. The same would apply if there were such a thing as a demonized Christian. For instance, demonized non-Christians need another person – a Christian – to drive a demon out. Christians, however, already have the power within them to make demons flee and so wouldn’t necessarily need the help of anyone else.

We all agree that for demonized non-Christians to be freed, demons must be cast out. There are those who say, however that for Christians it is different; that Christians need merely resist a demon to be free. There could well be truth in this but I would suppose that if a demonized Christian existed, that person could, if he chose, benefit from the help of another Christian casting the demon out, rather than him necessarily having to do it all himself. Moreover, what if a Christian fails to recognize the presence of the demon itself and so resists not the actual demon but only the symptoms of the demon’s presence? What follows is only a wild guess but it seems to me likely that although such a Christian could find victory over all the pressure the demon exerts (be it severe temptation or whatever) the Christian who pays no attention to evicting the demon itself might find himself repeatedly wrestling that pressure, rather than having the pressure cease. Although victorious over all the demon’s attempts to dominate his actions, such a person might keep suffering attacks that would have ended had he evicted the demon itself.

Might a demon eventually leave simply because it is getting nowhere with that Christian? Possibly. Could it be, however, that relief would come quicker by focusing on evicting the demon rather than just resisting the evil it causes?

Like most of us, I rightly emphasize Jesus quoting Scripture and steadfastly clinging to its truth when battling the enticing lies of the Tempter. I wonder if I have overlooked, however, the significance of Jesus, in addition to this means of defense, rebuking the evil personality behind the temptation.

Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness was not his only time of temptation. Scripture says the devil left him “for a season” (KJV) or as the NIV puts it “until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). It would seem another occasion when Jesus was tempted was when Peter tried to entice Jesus not to fulfill his earthly mission via the cross. How significant is it that on both occasions Jesus specifically commanded Satan to leave, saying “Away from me, Satan!” (Matthew 4:10) and “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:23)? Was this just words or a significant aspect of Jesus’ victory?

Scripture provides other examples of this method of spiritually defending oneself.

Zechariah 3:1-2 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! . . .”

Jude 1:9 But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses . . . said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

Of course, this fits snugly with the way Jesus, instead of praying for God to remove demons from people, specifically addressed the demons and commanded them to be quiet and to leave. And this approach was not unique to the Son of God. Jesus has bestowed that same authority on us, as seen, for example, in the way Paul delivered the psychic slave girl by commanding the demon to leave her (Acts 16:18, note also Luke 10:17).

The key point, however, is that Jesus commanded Satan/demons to leave, not just when helping other people, but in his personal spiritual battles. It is a scriptural method of spiritual warfare that can be used regardless of whether one thinks the demon is within or outside the person, since Jesus used it in both situations. Should we be doing likewise – not merely defending ourselves against spiritual attacks but going on the offensive against the spiritual source of the attacks?

Whether we like it or not, we live in a spiritual war zone. Satan and his hordes have declared war on God and we cannot avoid getting in the crossfire. There are two approaches to withstanding such an attack. One is to stand your ground and refuse to give in to the attack. The other is to take authority over demons and demand in Jesus’ name that they leave.

Most Christians tend to favor one approach over the other and tend to be suspicious of those who take the other approach. Those favoring taking authority over demons say those taking the other approach suffer unnecessary attacks. Those favoring the grit-your-teeth-and-resist method point to the many who have supposedly been delivered from demons and yet still have problems. I believe a significant reason is that some who try the deliverance approach expect deliverance to be the end of all attack, which won’t happen in this age. Expecting deliverance to end all spiritual battles moves people to let their defenses down. It renders them unprepared for further attacks and lacking in the necessary resolve to keep resisting. Rather than choose between the two methods, however, why not use both?

Can we get too concerned about arguments as to what can let demons into our lives or whether there is such a thing as generational curses? If a simple prayer could possibly give you greater protection, why not offer the prayer? If someone wrongly thinks there is a thief in the vicinity, does it really matter if it turns out you locked the door when it wasn’t essential?

Wrap Up

Perhaps I could produce some flashy conclusions that make me feel good, but what would that do for you? My views have immense implications for myself and those I minister to, but not for you. Your life and ministry hinge on your own conclusions, not mine. I’m as capable of being wrong as anyone, so the last thing you need is my conclusions. What you need is God’s conclusions. I have sought to clarify issues and to take some heat out of the debate. Now it’s over to you. May our Lord guide us both.

Not to be sold. © Copyright, Grantley Morris, 2005. For much more by the same author, see www.net-burst.com These writings may be freely copied provided they are not placed in a webpage, nor in anything that is sold and provided this entire paragraph is included. For use outside these limits, written permission is required. Freely you have received, freely give.

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