HomeIn this chapter, we return to the difficult and therefore important problem of the language used, in the first three Gospels especially, to describe incidents involving those possessed with demons. The demons are sometimes reported as speaking and as throwing the victims about. The Lord Jesus is reported as addressing demons directly and calling on them to come out, which they do. The disciples are given power to cast out demons.
Taken in isolation, these descriptions certainly give the impression that demons exist as real supernatural entities. However, the scripturally wide-ranging evidence already considered militates against this assumption. It is summarised below.
The word "demon" derives from a Greek word used for gods, especially but not exclusively of a minor nature- in both OT and NT the pagan gods are rejected as non-existent: there is but one God. The idea of a god of evil and lesser gods which could inhabit human beings and distress them has roots in the religions of the pagan nations of the ancient world, such as Babylon, Egypt and Persia. Although, on returning from the Babylonian captivity, the Jews had abandoned worship of pagan gods and only worshipped the LORD, superstitions regarding a god of evil and demon possession had infiltrated Jewish thought. They were especially prominent in the north of the land, where Gentile influence was strongest as a result of aliens brought in by the Assyrians and a later influx of Greeks and Romans, among whom such ideas were also prevalent. In the absence of other explanations, people who were actually mentally disturbed, or were assumed to be so because of abnormal behaviour, were deemed to be possessed of demons. The afflicted persons would themselves accept that diagnosis. Jesus would not, himself, believe in the existence of pagan deities such as Beelzebub, the reputed prince of the demons. The conclusion we are led to, therefore, is that when we read of Jesus casting out a "demon", he was removing the pagan ideas from the mind and, at the same time, curing the underlying mental or physical affliction.
The incident at Philippi illustrates the position clearly. The demented slave-girl is described as being "possessed by a spirit of Python", and Paul calls on this spirit to "come out of her". However, neither he, nor Luke the narrator, would believe in the existence of this mythical spirit associated with the god Apollo. It must, therefore, be the pagan ideas which are removed, and the girl is cured of her insanity.
Further support for not taking the language of demonology, as used in the New Testament, literally can be found in how pagan gods are spoken of in the Old Testament.
In the history books of Israel, from Joshua to Chronicles, in some of the Psalms and parts of the Prophets, one can read through chapter after chapter containing many references to pagan gods, without any indication at all that these gods had no real existence. If these references were considered in isolation, there would be nothing to prevent the reader assuming that the writers believed the pagan gods did actually exist, alongside the LORD (Yahweh), and had real power.
In order to see things in their proper perspective, the reader of the Old Testament must bear in mind a relatively small number of widely dispersed statements, to the effect that the pagan gods were "no-things", that they had no power to do good or ill, and that there was no other god but one, Yahweh, the God of Israel, and he alone ought to be worshipped.
It is difficult to show the extent of this feature of scriptural language in a short space, but the following references or give a feeling for it.
In Joshua chapter 24 there is quite a long section, from v. 14 to 25, where Joshua is warning the people about turning away from the LORD to worship the gods of Babylon, Egypt or Canaan. It begins like this:
"Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve him in sincerity and truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River, and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served ... or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
There is no indication here, or elsewhere in the whole of the book of Joshua, that the pagan gods did not actually exist. Indeed, if we did not know to the contrary, we eight easily assume that Joshua believed that these gods did exist and were rivals to the God of Israel. But in the previous book (Deut. 34:9), Joshua is described as being "full of the spirit of wisdom" from God. He would have heard the statement to Israel, "the LORD himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other" (Deut. 4:39), and again in the song of Moses, "Now see that I, even I, am he, and there is no God beside me:" (Deut. 32:39), which show clearly that the pagan gods were accounted as nothing.
"Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals; and they forsook the LORD God of their fathers ... they followed other gods, from among the gods of the people who were all around them and they bowed down to them ... They forsook the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtoreths" (Judges 2:19)
"For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD and did not fully follow the LORD ... Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh ... and for Molech ... and he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. So the LORD became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the LORD God ... who had commanded ... that he should not go after other gods." (1 Kings 11:5-10)
Elijah to the prophets of Baal:
"Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened." (1 Kings 18:27)
2 Kings 5:17-18: Naaman has been cleansed from his leprosy and promises not to offer "burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods but to the LORD" and
"when my master goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there ... and I bow down myself in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD please pardon your servant in this thing."
"Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord" (Psalm 86:8)
"The idols of Egypt will totter at his [the LORD's] presence" (Isaiah 19:1)
"Bel bows down, Nebo stoops ..." (Isaiah 48:1)
"For the idols speak delusion" (Zech.10:2)
Had we not already known otherwise, as we read through all these verses, and there are many more like them, we might assume the Bible is teaching us that the gods of the pagan nations did exist as living rivals to the LORD, but that they were simply not as strong as he was. Indeed, on the basis of this kind of evidence, some critics of the Bible argue that this was the view held by many of the biblical writers.
However, if we are prepared to accept the Bible wholly as a revelation from God then we must also take into account the other evidence, which clearly teaches that there is but one God, and the pagan gods are nothing more than the product of human imagination.
Now, an interesting feature of that evidence, especially in the historical books, is how widely spaced apart it is. After the statements in Deuteronomy, the next clear pronouncement I have been able to find is not until 2 Samuel 7, around 500 years later. King David is responding to the promise God has made to him concerning his seed:
"Therefore you are great, O Lord GOD. For there is none like you, nor is there any God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears." (2 Samuel 7:22)
The next clear statement found, and then of the briefest kind, appears in 1 Kings 8. This chapter is the record of Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple built "for the name of the LORD God of Israel" (v. 20). After the prayer, Solomon stood and blessed all the congregation of Israel, in order that "all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God; there is no other" (v. 60).
I have not noticed another statement of this nature until 2 Kings 19, some 250 years later, and it is again of similar brevity. Jerusalem is under siege from the Assyrian armies. Rabshakeh, Sennacherib's emissary, has declared on his behalf: "Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?" (2 Kings 18:35). In his prayer to the LORD for deliverance, Hezekiah responds thus:
"Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands - wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them. Now, therefore, O LORD ... save us ... that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the LORD God, you alone" (2 Kings 19:17-19)
During this long period of Israel's history, many of the Israelites, often together with their kings, did believe in the gods of the nations around them, and were led by that belief into depraved behaviour - even, at times, sacrificing their children to these gods. But, although the writers of the records, and the prophets through whom God spoke, used the language of the times to describe these gods and attributed the evil in Israel to the worship of them, it would be a grave error to assume that they themselves believed these gods really existed as supernatural beings. Widely spaced though they are in the historical records, the statements affirming that there is but one God are there and must be given full weight.
When we look to the Psalms and the prophetical books, statements declaring that the LORD alone is God become more frequent, and are often found alongside the kind of passages quoted above. For example, in Psalm 86, verse 8 says "among the gods there is none like you, O Lord;" from which the reader might get the impression that the Lord is one god among many that existed, but then verse 10 says "You alone are God."
It is also clear that the prophets were often using irony, mocking the faith which the worshippers were placing in the product of their own imagination. In 1 Kings 18:27 (see above) it actually says that Elijah "mocked them". When Isaiah spoke of Bel bowing down and Nebo stooping (46:1) he was mockingly picturing these gods doing before the LORD (see 45:23) what their worshippers were supposed to do before them. Later in chapter 46, verses 6-7, the LORD pours scorn on the god made of gold and silver:
"... from its place it shall not move. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer nor save him out of trouble."
And then in contrast in verse 9:
"for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me."
The pagans' gods were the products of their own imaginations, and it was from the minds of the human agents of the gods, the sorcerers and such like, that the supposed messages from these non-existent gods came.
There is a similar example of irony in the New Testament, in James 2:19. James is writing to Jewish Christians who lived outside Palestine among the Greeks. James says: "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe - and tremble." Here, as elsewhere in the NT, the word "demons" is daimonion, the same word we have met before which the Greeks used for their gods. James' readers would be aware of this. These non-existent gods are pictured as trembling before the one true God (Gk. theos). There is a striking parallel here with Isaiah 46:1, "Bel bows down, Nebo stoops", alongside v.9, "I am God and there is no other", and also Isaiah 19:1: "the idols of Egypt will totter at his [the LORD's] presence". The Hebrew word for "idols" here is also one we have met before, in Chapter 5: "things of nought"!
All these examples show how necessary it is to keep in mind the overall teaching of scripture that the pagan gods are imaginations of men's minds, and the idols, which represent them, merely the works of their hands. Such gods do not really exist, but the convictions of those who believe in them can be so strong as totally to distort their thinking and their behaviour, even to the point of apparent madness.
So when we come to the Gospels and find that the writers, and Jesus himself, speak of demons in a way which, on its own, might lead us to think that they are living supernatural beings, we must take into account all the other scriptures we have examined. Against the background of that evidence, I would suggest that the only consistent way to understand the language of demons used in the Gospels is that it refers not to beings with any real existence, but to the pagan superstitions which, through various influences, infected the minds of many, especially those mentally deranged or thought so to be.
Nevertheless, we are still left with the question, why is there no outright repudiation of literal belief in demons, including Beelzebub as the ruler of the demons, in the Gospels? As analysed in Chapter 8, the reply of the Lord Jesus to the accusation that he cast out demons by Beelzebub does, by implication, contain within it a repudiation of these superstitions. In particular, the reference to "the finger of God" shows that, just as the judgements on the gods of Egypt proved they were of no account, so his ability to cast out demons did the same in regard to Beelzebub (Satan, the devil) and his minions.
But why nothing more direct? One suggestion, which carries some weight, is that even if Jesus had been in a position to put forward the physiological explanations of epilepsy and mental disorders, which we accept today, the people of his time would not have been able to understand them and would not have been persuaded by them. He may have had little alternative but to use the colloquial language of the day.
In addition to that, I offer the following suggestion. Although ideas concerning demons lingered on, especially in the north of the land where pagan influences were strongest, there is no evidence in the Gospels (or, incidentally, in the contemporary writings of Josephus) that the Jews in any way worshipped Beelzebub, the supposed prince of the demons, or showed him any reverential fear. Nor do they appear unduly fearful of the demoniacs, except when possession was accompanied by violence, as in the case of Legion. Those supposedly possessed came or were brought in the crowds to Jesus, and are even found in the synagogues among the worshippers of God. Indeed, in the Gospels, this residual belief in demons largely seems to exist only as an explanation of afflictions accompanied by persistent, if intermittent, abnormal behaviour; disorders such as mental illness, epilepsy and profound dumbness.
Alongside these ideas there was another, in some ways deeper, problem, which had frequently beset Israel in the past, as testified by the OT prophets. Although outwardly there has a high degree of piety in the worship of the one God, the rituals of the Law, temple services, feasts and sacrifices, there was also a serious lack of correspondence between these outward forms and the moral and spiritual aspects of people's lives. Rabbinical "tradition of men" led to "laying aside the commandments of God" (Mark 7:8). A major aspect of the ministry of Jesus was the denunciation of such abuses and the hypocrisy associated with them (e.g.. Matt. 23).
Faced with such spiritually destructive influences, countering superstitious belief in demons as the cause of certain kinds of diseases may not have been regarded as a high priority. As we know, the Lord Jesus did not expect the majority of those to whom he preached to accept his message, nor did they. Consequently, any attempt to set about eradicating these superstitions from a one the general population would, I suspect, have been doomed to failure and also, more crucially, might have detracted from more important issues.
Among his committed followers, a proper understanding of who he was and what his message was would, in due course, lead to a rejection of all aspects of paganism, including belief in demons as supernatural beings - and he would know this. In this respect, it is perhaps significant that in the Gospel of John, usually reckoned to have been written much later than the other three Gospels, there are no descriptions of people possessed by demons, but only false accusations against Jesus in this respect. "Unclean spirits" replaces "demons" in the Acts, and there are no references to demon possession in the epistles.
What we do find in the epistles are many applications of the word "spirit" to men and women. It is a word which, during the course of this study, has often arisen alongside the word "demon". In Chapter 11, the significance of the phrase "unclean spirit" is considered within the more general use of the word "spirit" in the Bible.
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