Angelic Conflict V: Attack of Demonism;
Demon-Possession
We need to look at the
dynamics of how Satan pulls off his assault on mankind. What are his means and
his strategies and tactics?
First of all we have to
realise that Satan has a vast organization of troops at his disposal called the
fallen angels or the demons. He is called the leader of the ruler or the prince
of darkness. Matthew 12:22 NASB “ Then a
demon-possessed man {who was} blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He
healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw.” The recovery from
demon possession here is indicated by a general term, iaomai [i)aomai], the same word used for physical healing. It is
merely a general term that describes physical deliverance from physical
suffering. It is not a technical term of demonic deliverance. [23] All the
crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can
he?” The reason they are saying that is because according to
various prophecies in the Old Testament, especially in Isaiah, when the Messiah
came He would heal the lame and the blind and this would be a sign of His
credentials as the Messiah. The Pharisees were reacting to that and their explanation
was: [24] But when the Pharisees heard {this,} they said, “This man casts out
demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.”
In Ephesians 2:2 Satan is called the prince the prince of the power of the air.
This indicates that he has a hierarchy. Ephesians 6:10-12 establishes the basic
foundation of spiritual warfare and informs us that Satan has a strategy, a
plan, a goal which is to demonstrate his ability to rule planet earth. Then
Paul says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. What plays itself
out on the stage of history is often the consequence of what happens in another
dimension in terms of spiritual warfare in the angelic conflict. In the Old
Testament there are two Hebrew words for demons. The first is shed, found in Deuteronomy 32:17 and in
Psalm 106:36, 37. The second is sair, which if we think about it is very similar to the
Greek sater,
the goat god which had the upper body of a human and
the lower body of a goat. This is referred to in Leviticus 17:7. A third word that
is used is in the New Testament, daimonion
[daimonion], the Greek word for demon.
The Arabic word that is comparable to daimonion
is the word djimn, a term that
referred to an evil spirit or a demon. It was a djimn that appeared to Mohammed and revealed
to him the Koran.
Deuteronomy 32:17 NASB
“They sacrificed to demons who were not God, To gods whom they have not known,
New {gods} who came lately, Whom your fathers did not dread.” This is a
reference to idolatry and the sacrifice to idols. This is confirmed in the New
Testament in 1 Corinthians 10:20, that those who
sacrifice to idols sacrifice to demons. So idolatry and false religion is
related to demonism. This tells us of one of Satan’s five assaults on the human
race: a) the genetic assault in Genesis 6 when some of the demons procreated
with the daughters of men to produce a kind of hybrid race to destroy the
genetic purity of mankind. This is also covered in 1 Peter 3:18-22, Jude 6, and
2 Peter 2:4, 5; b) demon influence, which is the assault on the thinking of
mankind so that the thoughts of mankind are influenced by demons. This is
differe3nt from demon possession; c) demon possession, the control of the body.
That occurs in only unbelievers, but both believers and unbelievers can be the
objects of demon influence; d) the assault of demon armies during the
Tribulation, covered in Revelation 9 & 12; e) the Satanic led revolt at the
end of the Millennium called the Gog and Magog revolution, Revelation 20:10.
Demon influence must be
distinguished from demon possession. One of the primary ways in which demons influence
mankind is through religion. Some of these religious influences are 180 degrees
opposed to Christianity; others are very simple modifications that end up
looking a lot like Christianity but just being distortions of Christianity. One
of the ways in the Old Testament was through idolatry. So those who sacrifice to
idols were worshipping demons. Psalm 106:36 NASB “And served their
idols, Which became a snare to them. [37] They even
sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, [38] And shed innocent blood, The blood of their sons and their
daughters, Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
And the land was polluted with the blood.”
One episode of demon
possession is in Mark 5:1 NASB “They came to the other side of the
sea, into the country of the Gerasenes.
[2] When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an
unclean spirit met Him…” This one way of describing a person who is demon
possessed. There are three key words that are used in demon possession. This is
akatharos [a)kaqaroj] plus pneuma [pneuma] for “unclean
spirit.” Another word that is used is daimonizomai
[daimonizomai] which is a present passive participle, not a finite
verb. The present tense indicates a continuous action. The passive means that
the subject is being acted upon. The problem with this word is that many people
who are writing books on spiritual warfare today make a fundamental error in
the way they handle the Greek here, called an etymological fallacy. They would
say that on the basis of etymology daimonizomai
simply means to be acted upon by a demon, and it doesn’t tell us anything about
how it is acted upon by a demon. So their view is that this can refer to any
kind of action upon somebody. The problem with that is that others words in the
context tell us what that action is; they are going to define it. One of these
other words that is used is the Greek word echon
[e)xwn] daimonion [daimoniwn], the basic word to have or possess plus the word for
demon—“to have/possess a demon.”
Mark 5:3 NASB “and
he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore,
even with a chain; [4] because he had often been bound with shackles
and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken
in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. [5] Constantly,
night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and
gashing himself with stones. [6] Seeing Jesus from a distance, he
ran up and bowed down before Him; [7] and shouting with a loud
voice, he [the demon] said, ‘What business do we have with each other, Jesus,
Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not
torment me!’ [8] For He had been saying to him, ‘Come out of the man, you
unclean spirit!’” The command to come out is the Greek verb exerchomai [e)cerxomai]. The
root word here is erchomai [e)rxomai] which
means to come or to go. The “ex” [e)c] here is the prefix from the preposition ek [e)k], meaning out or
out from. There are three key words that are used in this context: erchomai, exerchomai which means to come out of, and then there is the
phrase eiserchomai [e)iserxomai]—eis,
the prefix, means in or into—which means to come into or to go into; exerchomai means to come out or go out
from. Then there is one other important word here, ekballo [e)kballw] which means to cast out. Notice “out” and “in.” daimonizomai may be a general word but
these other words associated with it mean into or out of something.
Mark 5:9 NASB “And
He was asking him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said to Him, ‘My name is Legion;
for we are many.’ [10] And he {began} to implore Him earnestly not to send them
out of the country. [11] Now there was a large herd of swine
feeding nearby on the mountain. [12] {The demons} implored Him,
saying, ‘Send us into the swine so that we may enter [into] them.’” That is
what demon possession is. It is entering into the body of something in order to
control it. [13] “Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean
spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the
sea, about two thousand {of them;} and they were
drowned in the sea.”
Luke 8:26ff describes the
same incident. Luke 8:27
NASB “And when He came out onto the land, He was met by a man from
the city who was possessed with demons [daimonizomai]…
[28] Seeing Jesus, he cried out and fell before Him, and said in a loud voice, ‘What
business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me.’ [29] For He had commanded the
unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had seized him many times; and he
was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard, and {yet} he would
break his bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. [30]
And Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion’; for many
demons had entered [e)cerxomai] him.”