Chapter 7: Demonic Oppression

Angels are spirits (Heb 1:14; Ps 104:4). While spirits are normally invisible to us, that does not necessarily make them intangible, nor does it stop an angel from affecting the life of a human being whenever the Lord permits it. Angels throughout Scripture are capable of interacting with humanity in very real ways. One angel appeared in the sky over ancient Israel, sword drawn, while it materialized a plague as punishment for sin (1 Chr 21:12, 16). A different angel, standing next to an altar in the Jewish temple, struck a priest mute for refusing to believe a message from God (Luke 1:19–20). Angels took care of Jesus’s physical needs at the end of His wilderness temptations (Matt 4:11; Mark 1:13) and rolled away the stone that sealed His tomb (Matt 28:2).

These accounts all show that angels are capable of interacting with humans as well as our physical surroundings. When an angel acts, it is not in an abstract sense. Because demons are the same kind of spirits as holy angels—albeit with radically different objectives—they, too, are fully capable of direct interaction with humanity. There is nothing in their created nature preventing them from performing feats similar to that of their holy counterparts.

But in sharp contrast to the righteous objectives of holy angels, demonic interactions always begin and end with wicked intentions. Demons influence victims throughout the Bible who are all helpless in their grasp until God resolves the situation. In many ways, demons are like parasites: they cause tremendous harm for their hosts and offer nothing good in exchange. Yet demons are not solely limited to emotional manipulation and battles over personal control—they can harass humanity in a variety of other ways too.

For example, demons may have been responsible for tormenting the ancient Egyptians by materializing snakes, blood, and frogs as counterfeit corollaries to the divine plagues (Exod 7:11–12, 21–22; 8:6–7). Satan inflicted a painful disease upon a man (Job 2:7) and caused two destructive weather events (Job 1:16, 19). Demons can also touch human beings or move heavy objects when the Lord permits those particular interactions (cf. Gen 19:10; Matt 28:2). The strategies of the kingdom of darkness are many and varied. When a demon does not have the Lord’s permission to affect a person directly, it may instead opt for a more deceptive approach in an attempt to either incapacitate its target or lure that person into rebellion against God.

Demons on the Outside

Additional Reading

• See Appendix E for a more comprehensive discussion of what happens when we die.

Holy angels do not appear to be limited in their physical interactions with humanity. They can provide food for human beings (1 Kgs 19:5–6) just as easily as they can open prison gates (Acts 5:19). The only limiting factor is what God will or will not permit them to do. Accordingly, fallen angels do not appear to be intrinsically limited in their physical interactions with humanity either, nor are they limited from manipulating the very same objects with which we ourselves interact. This means demonic oppression can come from outside a person (cf. Job 1:16, 18–19; 2:7). It does not require a demon residing inside a person to initiate it.

When the Lord permits a particularly radical display of demonic power, the results may be unsettling because these supernatural phenomena are often well outside of our everyday experiences. Demonic activity on full display in our surroundings can easily produce physical assaults (cf. Acts 19:16), moving objects (cf. Acts 12:9–10; Matt 28:2), voices (cf. Matt 4:3, 5–6, 8–9), or sudden weakness (cf. Dan 8:17–18; 10:17) from invisible assailants who are felt but not necessarily seen (cf. Dan 10:7). If this is beginning to sound like the paranormal phenomena commonly attributed to ghosts, there is a very good reason for that. Demons are in the deception business, so there might be times when a ghost is not really a ghost at all but a demon in disguise. That raises several questions: Where are the lines between ghosts and demons? Is this overlap a common or rare occurrence? How much of ghost lore is true, and how much of it is just one more example of clever demonic scheming?

We are normally blind to the unseen world. There are some exceptions (2 Kgs 6:17; 1 Sam 28:11–14), but for the majority of people the majority of the time, we do not and cannot see what goes on in the heavenly realms. We know there are holy angels who care for Christians (Heb 1:14), but we do not often see them. We know Satan is active in the world (Eph 2:2–3), but we do not typically see him either. And although Scripture describes a few occasions where someone claims to speak with the spirits of the dead (Isa 8:19; 19:3; 29:4), the reality is we cannot be sure who—or what—is answering should we call out to these spirits (1 Sam 28:13). This gets to the heart of our original problem in discerning truth from lies when it comes to ghosts.

Ghosts are popularly thought to be the spirits of dead humans or animals. There have been ghost stories in perhaps every human culture throughout history. One commonly held view is that each person and each animal has a physical body containing a spirit. It is said the body tethers that spirit to a corporeal existence while the spirit animates the body to life. When the body dies, the spirit becomes untethered and may either move on to an afterlife or linger at the place of death. The popular notion is that people with unfinished business, as well as those who die tragic deaths, often produce ghosts that will indefinitely haunt their surroundings from the moment of death. Ghosts are said to be trapped in the world unless they can resolve that which binds them here. Some ghosts are said to be entirely unaware of current events taking place within their haunting grounds while others are said to be fully cognizant of their surroundings. These common beliefs about ghosts are all rooted in the philosophical concept of substance dualism, the notion that humans have two distinct, irreducible elements: body and spirit.¹ The Bible supports this idea.²

Solomon writes “the spirit will return to God who gave it” upon the death of the body (Eccl 12:7 NASB); Jesus cried out, “Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit” when He died on the cross (Luke 23:46 NASB); Paul, “whether in the body… or apart from the body” was “caught up into Paradise” (2 Cor 12:2–4 NASB); and the psalmist laments, “Will You perform wonders for the dead? / Or will the departed spirits rise and praise You?” (Ps 88:10 NASB). So if Scripture does not specifically contradict this philosophy, what we believe about the spirit after death is critical to discerning how much truth ghost stories actually contain.

The Bible teaches that righteous spirits go to heaven to be with God whereas condemned spirits go to hell to live apart from God once our earthly bodies die.³ Everybody reaps the consequences of their earthly choices, waiting in one of these two locations until the Lord is ready to resurrect humanity. When that time comes, God will give every human being who has ever lived a new resurrection body to contain his or her spirit. This includes individuals who are condemned to live apart from God in the lake of fire (Dan 12:2; 2 Cor 5:1–5; 1 Cor 15:22–24). However, even before that time comes, the afterlife is no picnic for those who reject God. Jesus consistently makes it clear in the Gospels that the condemned and righteous will each experience radically different outcomes during their post-lives (Matt 25:46; Luke 16:19–23; cf. Rom 10:6–7). Hell is a very unpleasant place; therefore, it is reasonable to think that recently departed human spirits who catch a whiff of hell will surely want to do whatever is possible to avoid this destination, even if it means hanging around ramshackle houses and decaying cemeteries. But is this even possible? Do we have any individual agency after death to choose whether we stay here on earth? Scripture indicates that we do not.

Upon death, the human spirit returns to God who gave it (Eccl 12:7). The Lord says that when we die, we go to join our departed ancestors (1 Chr 17:11). Jesus teaches that the dead cannot choose to stay here on earth (Luke 16:22–23)—the rich man in His parable ended up in hell, the poor man ended up in heaven, and neither man could change his circumstances. These verses all support the idea that human beings do not get to decide whether they will proceed into heaven or hell upon death. God has already determined how this works a very long time ago.

In the Old Testament, the prophet Ezekiel describes a vivid prophecy about the afterlife (Ezek 32:17–32). None of the mighty rulers in his prophecy who rejected God would have chosen to end up in hell. Moreover, they all died violently—which matches common ghost lore indicating that a violent death is cause for ghostly hauntings—but even then they had no say whether they wanted to remain here on earth. We must all transition into heaven or hell upon death, and nowhere in Scripture does God say that our destination is anything but fixed based on our life choices. Those who are destined to live with Jesus will not want to tarry. Those who are condemned to hell would probably choose to stay here instead, but Scripture suggests the condemned deceased are cut off from the Lord’s care (Ps 88:5; 115:17; Eccl 9:5; Luke 16:24–25), which means they have no more chances to reform bad behavior and no more time to avoid the consequences of their sinful rebellion. Lingering here on earth would negate the penalty for a life lived apart from God since God is still active on earth. His very presence is associated with love, joy, peace, and every other fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22–23). Those who rejected God in this life and practiced the same activities God condemns “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21 NASB) in any form, not even the hints of it we can experience in our fallen world.

We might ask if the dead can interact with the living even if they are bound for heaven or hell. Although the Bible indicates that yes, they can, the Lord says in no uncertain terms, “Do not turn to mediums or spiritists [or, alternatively, ghosts or spirits]; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God” (Lev 19:31 NASB) who will turn against those who commit spiritual prostitution by placing their trust in anything that a ghost or spirit has to teach (Lev 20:6). People who act as either a medium or a necromancer (a person who attempts to consult the dead) are just as guilty of a capital offense in the Lord’s view as the people who seek their services (Lev 20:27).

Still, since the Bible says the dead are capable of interacting with the living from their places in the afterlife, why would the Lord so strongly prohibit this communication? There is more than one answer to this question, but one reason is that the dead do not provide useful guidance (Isa 8:19–22). Why would anyone “consult the dead in behalf of the living” rather than God Himself (Isa 8:19 NASB)? There is nothing a dead human being knows that God cannot reveal with more accuracy and perfect clarity. Why even bother asking the dead? The ancient Egyptians consulted spirits of the departed to no avail (Isa 19:3). King Saul consulted what he believed to be the ghost of Samuel only to hear the same condemnation he had already heard from Samuel when he was alive (1 Sam 15:26–29; 28:16–19). Nothing was gained. Consulting the spirits of the dead only disgraces oneself before God for information that is not even useful!

Ultimately, God is the final arbiter of what contact He does and does not allow between the dead and the living, but given the strong prohibitions in Scripture against proactively seeking contact with the dead, any interaction with a departed human being is something God clearly opposes as His standard operating policy. There may be extenuating circumstances when the Lord permits a dead human to interact with the living—Moses and Elijah, who both lived many centuries earlier, spoke with Jesus during the transfiguration (Matt 17:3; Mark 9:4; Luke 9:30)—but those situations are almost certain to be extraordinarily rare occurrences and initiated solely by God.

That takes us back to the original question: how much truth do ghost stories actually contain? Scripture emphatically prohibits contacting the dead but does imply the dead may have the capability to communicate with the living. However, this does not mean human spirits have free reign to wander the earth. Even after our deaths, God has full authority over what happens to us, and He has made it clear through Scripture that the spirits of deceased human beings belong in either heaven or hell. Ghostly encounters are far more likely than not to contain satanic deception hiding behind the attendant paranormal phenomena. After all, the world is filled with evil spiritual beings for whom deception is an intrinsic part of their nature, who delight in twisting the truth and leading people in a straight line away from God, and whose identity should be clear by this point—demons, of course, fit this description to the letter.

Could a demon have both the capability and the motivation to impersonate a dead human? Absolutely. Demons impersonate gods all the time (1 Cor 10:19–20; 2 Chr 32:19), so why not humans? It is a trivial matter for a demon to do so while unseen, yet even when we can see these spiritual beings, Scripture teaches that an angel can take the appearance of a person (Gen 19:1–5; Mark 16:5). Therefore, while not all ghosts are demons, it is highly probable that the vast majority of ghostly encounters are, in fact, interactions with demons rather than dead humans. This is surely another reason why the Lord expressly prohibits seeking contact with “the dead.” It is for our own protection!

Where Demons Reside

Everything God has ever created must exist somewhere. First there was nothing; then there was something. His every creative act is additive to our present reality and therefore represents the exact opposite of nothingness. Hence, as created beings, even angels must have a specific location where they exist at any given time. So where do fallen angels exist? Where might they reside? Scripture gives certain clues that help answer these questions.

Some fallen angels are presently chained in the abyss⁴ (2 Pet 2:4; Jude 1:6; Luke 8:31; Rev 9:1–3). These are particularly rebellious demons who chose not to stay within the limits God defined for them (Jude 1:6). They are not free to leave the abyss until God commands otherwise, such as when the time comes for Him to move these incarcerated demons into the lake of fire (Matt 25:41; Rev 20:10; Isa 24:21–22).

We can also say with certainty that many, if not most, demons reside here on earth because Satan “was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Rev 12:9 NASB). Where else would they go? Satan himself roams the earth (Job 1:7) looking for people he can either corrupt or destroy (1 Pet 5:8). When not roaming the earth, he may even have a particular city where he calls home (Rev 2:13). Furthermore, lower ranking demons may also claim particular cities, regions, or locations as their preferred residences. The demon Legion earnestly begged Jesus on behalf of every demon infesting the Gerasene demoniac “not to send them out of the region” (Mark 5:10 NASB). This suggests the region where Jesus encountered these demons had become their home. By extension, there are surely many different home regions and specific locations demons claim throughout the world given the vast number of them that must exist for John to describe them as “a third of the stars of heaven” (Rev 12:4 NASB).

But we should also note as a guiding principle that after God created the earth, He soon tasked human beings with responsibility over tending the earth when He said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth” (Gen 1:26 NASB). Responsibility “over all the earth” is a part of our created purpose. The Lord did not create the earth as an abode for angels; instead, He placed human beings and animals on it. “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31 NASB). This includes the created order He established for both humans and angels.

Consequently, a demon does not own the earthly location it chooses to claim as its personal residence, and in many cases, its extended presence amounts to the angelic version of house squatting. Just because a demon settles somewhere does not mean it owns the property rights. The deed belongs to human beings (and ultimately God), an idea that God codified into spiritual law right there in the very first chapter of Genesis. Jesus even seems to allude to this when, in a parable, He describes a wandering demon who traverses desolate places but finds no rest when not afflicting a human being (Matt 12:43 par.). The lengthy wandering through uncomfortable places expressed in this parable suggests an entity with no permanent home. That makes sense given that demons were thrown out of heaven—their original home—to a place God created for human beings.

Since demons live here on earth with us, where exactly they choose to live also merits consideration because they have a material impact on their human neighbors. One locale the Bible suggests as a demonic residence is the wilderness, or lonely and deserted places. Jesus’s parable of the wandering demon “reflects the popular idea that the parched deserts of Syria and Arabia and Egypt were haunted by demons, who thence came to invade the bodies and the souls of men.”⁵ While this cultural footnote is interesting, we must not mistake it for doctrine—Jesus was simply telling a memorable story to teach an unrelated point. Nevertheless, Isaiah echoes the more general idea pairing demons with wastelands when he writes that all manner of unclean animals—and perhaps even demons—will make their homes in the desolate aftermath of a particular nation God has condemned to destruction (Isa 34:14). John writes in Revelation that after the corrupt empire he identifies as Babylon falls in divine judgment, it will become “a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit” (Rev 18:2 NASB). Again, this idea of some demons living in desolate places, particularly those that once hosted human activity, echoes throughout the Bible.

What would be the modern equivalent of such places? Many people in the world today neither have a deserted wilderness nor an annihilated nation anywhere near them, yet demons continue to live here on earth with us nonetheless. Whatever we say in response to this question is just speculation because the Bible is not clear on this point. However, given the many stories of supposedly haunted places and evil presences associated with various locations throughout the world, there may be an overlap between demonic residences and the subjects of these stories. Places like abandoned hospitals, decaying houses, and old buildings that have not seen human activity for a very long time may well be a modern equivalent to the ancient wilderness. A demon with no real claim to where it lives might choose to live in these places precisely because there is no one around to kick it out. It has to exist somewhere, so making camp in a deserted building may be a practical choice for it (though it should be said we have no reason to think that every deserted building has a demon living in it!)

Demons might also choose to reside where they are welcomed. Moses, Paul, and John all teach that other gods, when they are something other than lifeless images, are merely demons in disguise⁶ (Deut 32:17; 1 Cor 10:19–20; Rev 9:20). Those in ages past who “sacrificed to demons, who were not God, / To gods whom they have not known, / New gods who came lately” (Deut 32:17 NASB) eagerly sought the favor of these demons for everything from fertility to crop health. Some people even cut themselves to demonstrate zeal for their false gods, as seen in the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal (1 Kgs 18:27–28). If a demon impersonating one of these false gods chose to appear in the home of a believer, that person would have presumably been unlikely to turn it away. This scenario provides another practical living arrangement for a demonic vagrant.

Those who worship other gods want the attention of those gods, so not only would a demon in this situation have much greater access to the people it hopes to destroy, the people involved have no saving relationship with the one true God to hinder that demon from moving in. This is perhaps a far more desirable living situation for the demon than making a home in the wilderness because it aligns perfectly with the objectives of the kingdom of darkness. In fact, Jesus indicated that Satan may have once dwelled in Pergamum (Rev 2:13), an ancient and now destroyed city that hosted a hotbed of cultic worship.⁷ The defiant rebellion against God exhibited in this city would have created a welcoming environment for Satan and his demons.

In modernity, the same scenario remains a viable option whenever a demon is looking for a home. There are many nations, cities, and households in the world that uniformly reject the Christian God in favor of other religious preferences or no spiritual beliefs at all. Because there are no neutral choices when it comes to our spirituality (1 John 3:7–10), rejecting God is the same as welcoming Satan. The Lord requires us to “[revere] the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord’s commandments” (Deut 10:12–13 NASB). When we consistently choose not to do that, we are rolling out the welcome mat for the kingdom of darkness to varying degrees. Accordingly, individuals who knowingly or unknowingly worship demons are likely to have demons living among them. Individuals who reject God in favor of atheism or agnosticism open themselves up to the same possibility because, again, there is no such thing as spiritual neutrality.

Additionally, demons are likely to reside in proximity to people, particularly people who live in opposition to the Lord’s commandments. Demons are not indifferent spirits; they have a specific agenda guiding the choices they make, and that agenda revolves around corrupting and destroying human beings (1 Pet 5:8; Eph 6:11; Matt 6:13). If rejecting God in favor of other spiritual beliefs has a chance of attracting demonic attention, then rejecting God’s ways might also produce the same result. The Lord has said that grievous sins like murder pollute and defile the land (Num 35:33–34). Perhaps other sins have a similar effect—both Jesus and John liken hate to murder, for example (Matt 5:21-22; 1 John 3:15). A location where people routinely commit murder, hate one another, or actively disobey God creates an environment very much in line with demonic objectives regardless of the spiritual beliefs held by the sinning individuals. Those who defiantly make a habit of their sins are “of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning” unlike Jesus who “appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8 NASB). Those who show themselves to belong to the kingdom of darkness through their actions may find they are laying an ugly foundation very attractive to a demon looking for a place to call its home.

Demons on the Inside

Demons can also make their homes inside people. The Synoptic Gospels are brimming with accounts of demonized individuals. Stories like the Gerasene demoniac (Matt 8:28–34; Mark 5:1–20; Luke 8:26–39) and the mute boy at risk of serious injury (Matt 17:14–21; Mark 9:14–29; Luke 9:37–43) fill the pages of Scripture with tormented individuals who suffer greatly at the hands of indwelling demons. These accounts show how easily a demon can enter into a person to cause extensive harm. Demonic oppression is often chaotic, expressing itself in outbursts that can be sudden and unexpected. The symptoms may come and go, yet demoniacs have very little, if any, personal control over when they occur. Sheer force of will is not always sufficient on its own to overcome the symptoms of a demonic challenge.

While English translations typically use the word demon-possessed to describe demonized individuals, the original Greek word daimonizomai has some subtlety to it not clearly expressed in the English rendition. It means under the power of an evil spirit or demon.⁸ The Jews viewed such people as “afflicted with especially severe diseases, either bodily or mental,” whose bodies demons had entered before they subsequently exhibited “the mind and consciousness of the demons dwelling in them; and their cure was thought to require the expulsion of the demon.”⁹ This does not imply ownership because demons do not own anyone. The Lord said, “Behold, all souls are Mine” (Ezek 18:4 NASB; cf. Rom 14:4), and He does not share ownership, especially since He is the one who created all souls in the first place (Gen 2:7; Eccl 12:7). Moreover, Jesus has already purchased Christians at a steep cost (1 Cor 6:20). Those who reject God have consequently embraced Satan as their spiritual father, but even then, it is God who decides Satan’s limits. The popular notion that either Satan or his demons can possess (or own) souls is inaccurate. That was never in God’s plan.

Still, though demons cannot truly own anyone, some demons view people as their homes. One demon refers to its victim as “my house” (Matt 12:44 NASB) in Jesus’s aforementioned parable of the wandering demon (Matt 12:43–45; Luke 11:24–26), claiming ownership and making that person its semi-permanent address. When this demon exits the person, it enters into a desert seeking rest but finds none during its brief journey away from people (Matt 12:43 par.). Jesus is not teaching that a demon can refuse to live outside a person—many demons are unlikely to have a choice in the matter—yet Jesus does indicate that situations exist where a demon can come and go from a person as it pleases.

If a demon should choose to leave the person it claims, Jesus’s parable teaches that it can return, repeatedly indwelling the same person it vacates. The demon in His story freely enters a person, leaves, and then enters once more at different times. Nothing stopped the demon from reclaiming its house. Elsewhere in Scripture, Jesus commanded a demon to never again enter the boy it tormented (Mark 9:25). He would not have said this had the demon been unable to repeatedly reenter the child once it had departed. We see from these stories that demons can come and go from the human body with ease. Yet from a broader perspective, these lessons contain an important implication: those who pretend to seek God in order to deal with a demon problem are only hurting themselves. Should life return to the status quo for such a person, demons who appear to be gone are fully capable of moving right back in along with more of their comrades (Matt 12:45; Luke 11:26).

The parable also teaches that multiple demons can simultaneously reside within the same person; there were eight demons in this story all living inside the same man (Matt 12:45). Likewise, Jesus drove seven demons out of Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2; cf. Mark 16:9), and there may have been three different demons who tormented King Saul, whether from the inside or the outside (1 Sam 16:14; 18:10; 19:9). Perhaps the most extreme case in Scripture is the Gerasene demoniac who probably had thousands of demons indwelling him (Mark 5:9, 15). The Bible does not imply any limit to the number of demons who can take up residence within a single person. Moreover, if the Gerasene demoniac is any indication, the severity of the supernatural problems a demoniac will experience might be directly correlated with the number of demons who simultaneously indwell the same person.

Every Human Being Is Susceptible

Both men and women experience demon problems in Scripture. There were demonized men living in tombs (Matt 8:28) and demonized women living in cities (Luke 8:2; Mark 16:9; Acts 16:16). There were also demonized adults and demonized children. While adult demoniacs are well-represented, a boy of indeterminate age endured a particularly vicious situation. The boy had “a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes stiff” (Mark 9:17–18 NASB). He suffered at the hands of this demon “[f]rom childhood,” and it often threw him “both into the fire and into the water to kill him” (Mark 9:21-22 NASB). Elsewhere in Scripture, a Canaanite woman had a “little daughter” (Mark 7:25 NASB) who was “severely demon-possessed” (Matt 15:22 NASB). This child may have been no older than twelve given similar language elsewhere in the Gospels (Mark 5:23, 41–42). Children are not exempt from the spiritual perils of this world simply by virtue of their age and inexperience. Furthermore, Scripture suggests the potential severity of demonization in children is not any less than in adults, though it is also worth mentioning that children are precious to the Lord (Mal 2:15; Matt 18:5–6, 10–14; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2) and demons cannot separate anyone—not even children—from the love of God.

People of different social standings are also vulnerable to demonic oppression. Although many of the people who came to Jesus for help were poor (cf. 2 Cor 8:9; Prov 21:13; Luke 6:20–21), some were quite wealthy (cf. Matt 19:21–22; Mark 10:21–23). A Canaanite woman who approached Jesus to heal her demonized daughter (Matt 15:21–28; Mark 7:24–30) was a Greek from the region of Tyre and Sidon. Her culture was considered relatively sophisticated by Roman standards. Scripture does not comment on the woman’s social standing, yet her home region was also quite prosperous.

[Tyre and Sidon] were port cities on the Mediterranean Sea north of Israel. Both cities had flourishing trade and were very wealthy. They were proud, historic Canaanite cities. In David’s day, Tyre was on friendly terms with Israel (2 Samuel 5:11), but soon afterward the city became known for its wickedness. Its king even claimed to be God (Ezekiel 28:1ff). Tyre rejoiced when Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C., because without Israel’s competition, Tyre’s trade and profits would increase. It was into this evil and materialistic culture that Jesus brought his message.¹⁰

The woman and her family may have been just as wealthy and prestigious as her neighbors, but despite the wealth and social influence associated with her home region, the Canaanite woman’s daughter was, nonetheless, severely demonized. Social standing is not any more of a barrier against demonization than money or possessions. Everyone from the wealthiest politicians to the poorest paupers can suffer from demonic oppression. In fact, Scripture indicates that every gender, age group, and social class is equally vulnerable.

Demons Can Indwell Animals

When not torturing human beings, demons are also capable of indwelling and controlling animals, and that can lead to violent outcomes. Satan seems to have taken control of a serpent in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:1–7; 2 Cor 11:3; Rev 12:9; 20:2) whereas, much later in a different part the world, demons took control of a large herd of about two thousand pigs (Mark 5:11–13). These were the same demons who came out of the Gerasene demoniac. Given that the number of demons indwelling the demoniac were likely similar in size to a Roman legion of the first century (Mark 5:9), it suggests multiple demons entered into each pig to accommodate the difference in group sizes. Therefore, it appears possible for multiple demons to indwell an animal just as easily as they can indwell a human being. These demons begged Jesus to go into the swine herd, so it is unlikely that some would have chosen not to do so (Matt 8:31; Mark 5:12; Luke 8:32).

This large herd of pigs feeding near the Gerasene demoniac exemplifies supernatural compulsion in action (Matt 8:30; Mark 5:11; Luke 8:32). These pigs were under the supervision of herdsmen who understood their typical behavior (Mark 5:14; Luke 8:34). As soon as the legion of demons entered into these animals, their behavior became anything but typical. The demons forced the pigs to rush into the Sea of Galilee where they promptly drowned (Matthew 8:32; Mark 5:13; Luke 8:33). This was compulsory animal suicide; the herdsmen were shocked (Matt 8:33–34; Mark 5:14; Luke 8:34–35), probably in part because pigs can swim. In the modern era, Pig Beach is a tourist destination in the Bahamas where, on an uninhabited island, feral pigs forage for food and regularly swim in the ocean.¹¹ Demonic coercion is the only realistic explanation for the drowning Gerasene pigs given the context (Matt 8:31; Mark 5:12; Luke 8:32).

This suggests that whatever “code of conduct” God puts in place to limit demonic coercion of human beings (as we will see later in the chapter) does not equally apply to animals. But that does not mean the Lord has no concern for animals. Although humanity is uniquely special to the Lord, the same God who bids us to cast our cares upon Him (1 Pet 5:7) also feeds the birds (Matt 6:26; Luke 12:24) and provides food for every living creature (Ps 136:25). He provided a vegetarian diet for the Israelites in the wilderness (Exod 16:31; Num 11:7) and only sent them quail to eat after they loudly complained to Moses (Num 11:4, 10–15, 31–32). That God would do any of these things shows His love for animals.

Nevertheless, the Lord’s concern for animals is not equal to His concern for human beings. He values human lives so much that He permitted these pigs to die in order to save the Gerasene demoniacs from severe, supernatural torture—and in doing so, He provided a dramatic story Christians have studied for two thousand years. Demons are demonstrably capable of controlling animals, even to the point of compelling an animal to destroy itself. Although there are biblical clues that suggest a few different reasons why people experience demonization,¹² the reasons for animal demonization are far less clear. We can only speculate since biblical authors do not elaborate on this concept anywhere in Scripture.

We do know the pigs’ owners were more interested in themselves than the things of God (Luke 8:34–37). Their harmful attitudes might have included prizing the economic value of their animals above all else. One possible explanation for Jesus allowing the demons to enter into this herd only to subsequently destroy it might have been to demonstrate consistency with the biblical notion that human life is precious. Perhaps the pigs had harmed someone (cf. Gen 9:5–6; Exod 21:28), or perhaps this was His judgment for the owners valuing animals more than people. Regardless, “the text offers no other explanation (cf. Deut. 29:29; Rom. 9:20). By doing this, Jesus gave the [former demoniac] a graphic, visible, and powerful lesson on the immensity of the evil from which he had been delivered.”¹³

Can Demons Indwell the People of God?

Because Scripture shows that people of every description—men and women, old and young, rich and poor—are all vulnerable to demonization, it raises a serious theological question: can a demon enter into a redeemed Christian? Christians are the adopted children of God, after all, so we might wonder if they are immune to this problem. That question requires thorough consideration. To arrive at an answer, we should first ask a related question: can a demon enter into a person who believes in God but is not redeemed?

The wicked king Ahab consulted four hundred prophets concerning whether the Lord would ensure a victory against an opposing army (1 Kgs 22:6). These prophets knew who the Lord was; they even claimed to speak for Him. Without a doubt they believed He exists. But these false prophets, who were all guilty of serious idolatry, showed no indication they had a legitimate relationship with God. They even went so far as to slap an actual prophet of God across the face while accusing him of blasphemy (1 Kgs 22:24). “These 400 prophets of Ahab were not true prophets of the Lord. They worshiped at Bethel in the golden calf center set up by Jeroboam [1 Kgs 12:28, 29] and were supported by Ahab, whose religious policy also permitted Baal worship.”¹⁴ Despite religious knowledge and belief in God, every last one of these false prophets had a personal encounter with an indwelling demon who inspired them to tell lies (1 Kgs 22:21–23). Whether this demon was Satan or one of his fallen angels is beside the point; these were individuals who all believed in God and yet the Lord permitted “a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these prophets” (1 Kgs 22:23 NASB).

Neither religious knowledge nor belief in God is enough on its own to deter demonic indwelling. Even demons believe in God (Jas 2:19), but they are neither redeemed nor redeemable. Those who live apart from God live as part of the current world system, and the world is under the influence of Satan. People who live under his influence are particularly vulnerable to demonic oppression because God is the limiting factor. Without a relationship with God, there is no limiting factor beyond whatever mercy He chooses to express in any given situation.

In contrast, those who acknowledge Jesus as their Lord and Savior ideally believe in God and have a genuine, saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Is that enough to prevent demonic indwelling? Put another way, can a redeemed child of God expect that God will forbid all demonic harassment in that person’s life? The answer is no—not unless there is a biblical promise to back it up. Unfortunately, there are no direct promises in Scripture that explicitly address demonic indwelling in the life of a believer. Therefore, a genuine Christian can become demonized. This may not be a welcome answer, but it is a biblical one.

Despite a lack of scriptural assurance, there is a popular belief among certain Christians that demons cannot indwell the people of God. Proponents claim that because a Christian body is sealed with the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption (Eph 4:30) and a Christian body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19), it is therefore impossible for a demon to inhabit a Christian. Others assert that no demon can indwell a Christian because the Bible does not explicitly record any affirmed Christian suffering from an indwelling demon after the moment of salvation. These views are all unsupported in Scripture.

Christians Are Not Hermetically Sealed against Evil

The apostle Paul writes, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph 4:30 NASB; cf. Eph 1:13–14). One argument that a demon cannot indwell a Christian hinges on the definition of sealed. A sealed box cannot receive additional contents just as a hermetically sealed room is impervious to outside pathogens. But that is not what Paul means. The Greek word in this verse is sphragizó, meaning “to seal (affix) with a signet ring or other instrument to… attest ownership, authorizing (validating) what is sealed.”¹⁵ The Holy Spirit is God’s legal signature in the life of a believer. When He gives a Christian the Holy Spirit, God is in effect signing a legal contract with that person, certifying him or her as His adopted child with all the eternal benefits this implies. There is no implication that such a person is “hermetically sealed” against opposing spiritual forces. That is not what the Greek word means. Paul is saying that the presence of the Holy Spirit within a Christian is God’s guarantee of redemption. Nothing more. We will still suffer temptations; we are still vulnerable to spiritual attack.

Volume Measurements Do Not Apply to the Holy Spirit

Some Christians argue that because we are filled with the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:9; Eph 4:30; 5:18; Acts 2:4; 13:52), there is no room for a demon to reside within a believer. This argument envisions the human spirit as a kind of motel where all the rooms are booked by the Holy Spirit and a “No Vacancy” sign flashes in the window. Although this is a nice idea, it, too, is unsupported in Scripture. When Luke writes that believers were “filled with the Holy Spirit” at Pentecost (Acts 2:4 NASB), there is no textual support for the idea that the Holy Spirit literally takes up every milliliter of space within the human soul. The specific Greek word Luke uses—and one appearing in other contexts—can have a figurative connotation that simply means imbue, influence, supply, or fill to capacity.¹⁶ Those who are filled with the Holy Spirit are imbued with His presence. They do not receive some of the Holy Spirit; they receive as much of the Holy Spirit as is possible for a human being to receive. Elsewhere in Scripture, The Nazarenes who were “filled with rage” (Luke 4:28 NASB) at one of Jesus’s sermons were overcome with anger. This is the same Greek word. We should not take it to mean the Nazarenes were incapable of feeling other emotions. It means they were filled to the brim with anger—they were as angry as their maximum capacity to feel angry.

Additionally, who but God knows the capacity of the human soul to contain other spirits? The Bible does not comment on that. What it does say is thousands of spirits can all reside within the same person (Mark 5:9, 15). Do some spirits take up more room than others? Can we measure the weight or volume of a spirit? Do these naturalistic concepts even apply to something supernatural? No human being knows the answers to those questions! There is nothing in Scripture indicating a limit to the quantity of spirits able to reside within a single human being. Therefore, there is also no argument to be made that the Holy Spirit somehow takes up more space and prevents cohabitation by other spirits. The premise itself is problematic.

Demons Can Enter Temples

Paul writes, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Cor 6:19 NASB). Another argument that a demon cannot indwell a Christian is based on the idea that demons cannot reside within a temple dedicated to God. Once again, this argument is not supported in Scripture. While the Christian body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Satan has no problem touching or being in proximity to holy temples, let alone Jesus Himself (Matt 4:5; Luke 4:9). Jesus and His apostles both said that Satan made an appearance “at the churches of Jerusalem (Acts 5:1–10), Smyrna (Rev. 2:9, 10), Pergamum (Rev. 2:13), Thyatira (Rev. 2:24), Philadelphia (Rev. 3:9), Ephesus (1 Tim. 3:6, 7), and Corinth (2 Cor. 2:1–11).”¹⁷ What are churches if not new covenant holy temples dedicated to the Lord? Moreover, Satan can stand in the full presence of God (Zech 3:1; Rev 12:10; Job 1:6; 2:1) unlike human beings in their earthly bodies (Exod 33:21–23; cf. Exod 28:33–35; Lev 16:2; Ezek 43:12; 44:19; 46:20). Because Satan—a demon—can do all these things, the presence of God within a Christian is unlikely to pose any additional challenge for our accuser given that direct contact with God is clearly within Satan’s capabilities. There is no reason to think that his demons, who were originally created with the same capacity to stand in the presence of God, could not also do these same things.

Unexpected People Were Demonized in Scripture

Some will say that a demon cannot indwell a Christian because the Bible does not explicitly report it. There are many accounts in the New Testament of Jesus and His apostles driving out demons; however, Scripture is largely silent about what most of these demonized people did or did not believe. Jesus frequently helped them without any recorded conversation. The problem with making a blanket assertion about the faith or lack of faith associated with those who presented themselves for exorcism is that there is very little textual evidence to support it. Among the ranks of demoniacs seen in Scripture, young children (Mark 7:25 par.; Mark 9:21 par.) as well as a pious Jew (Luke 13:10–13) represent two categories of people who suffered from indwelling demons. Believing that either group was open to demonic indwelling based solely on their lack of Christian affirmation is to take a very dim view of the grace of God.

Young children are typically not developed enough to fully understand what it means to put their faith in Jesus, yet there are two stories in Scripture of young children suffering from this particular affliction (Mark 7:25 par.; Mark 9:21 par.). Are we to say that children who are too young to think abstractly are fully responsible for asserting personal saving faith in Jesus Christ? King David, who was beloved by God, indicated that he would be reunited with his deceased infant son once he, too, passed from this world (2 Sam 12:23). Infants cannot confess saving faith in Jesus, but the Bible suggests they go to heaven. This same grace surely extends to children until they reach a certain maturity and can decide for themselves whether to accept the Lord. That would seem to make them de facto Christians up until a certain point in their lives (though we should note Scripture does not directly state this).

Or consider the Jewish woman who had suffered an indwelling demon for eighteen years (Luke 13:11). That she was worshiping in a synagogue (Luke 13:10) and immediately glorified the Lord after Jesus drove out her demon (Luke 13:13) suggests that she was a pious woman who had a genuine relationship with God well before she had ever met Jesus. She might have been worshiping in that same synagogue for most of those eighteen years. Are we to say Jews who maintained faith in God before they knew the Messiah had come were somehow excluded from God’s grace? Jesus recognized her as a legitimate daughter of Abraham (Luke 13:16), meaning she was very much a part of God’s covenant. The Jewish people had a rich heritage as God’s chosen people long before the Messiah arrived. Her obvious relationship with God did not prevent this demon from causing her harm, yet God demonstrated His grace in her life by eventually addressing her problem through Jesus. Faith and saving grace, while very important, do not amount to a scriptural promise against demonization.

Custody Is Different than Ownership

There is biblical support for the notion that a demon cannot possess a Christian, a different concept than demonic indwelling. This is more than just splitting hairs. The distinction between these two concepts represents the difference between total loss of control to a demon versus partial loss of control. Demons cannot own a Christian because Jesus bought us at a steep price (1 Cor 7:23). We are His. In fact, demons cannot own anyone since everyone on this earth belongs to God. However, demonic control of a human being is really a question of custody rather than possession.

The way many people popularly imagine demonic possession is that an indwelling demon completely overshadows the human personality for a nonspecific period of time. During those moments, the demon controls that person’s body while the individual may black out and have no recollection of what happened. The controlling demon then says and does things while in control that are frequently out of character for the person it dominates. This can be the situation for some people—the Gerasene demoniac likely experienced something very similar to that—but this popular notion is best understood as God permitting a demon to share temporary custody over an individual. Furthermore, Scripture shows there are various degrees of demonic custody that are not nearly as severe as others. Some demons only have permission to bait their victims with wrongheaded attitudes (Judg 9:23). Others treat their victims like a puppet, effectively imprisoning the human spirit within its own body (Acts 19:15–16). There is a wide range of possibilities between these two extremes.

Full-blown demonic custody of an individual is probably, at the very least, a rarity among Christians because God promises time and again in Scripture that He loves and protects those who have an authentic relationship with Him. There is nothing in Scripture that makes total demonic custody an explicit impossibility for the believer, but it is not in God’s nature to reach for a nuclear bomb when a gentle word of warning will suffice. Even King Ahab, one of the most evil king’s in Israel’s history, experienced God’s mercy when he humbled himself before the Lord (1 Kgs 21:27–29).

It seems reasonable to conclude that a situation involving total demonic custody almost entirely applies to those who reject God. Whether deliberately or not, they have embraced Satan as their spiritual father (1 John 3:10) and are living well-outside the protection of God. The Lord delivers the righteous person from many troubles but not necessarily the unbeliever (Ps 34:19–21). Losing control to a demon is among the most severe symptoms possible with demonic indwelling, yet even then, God has complete authority over the situation and draws lines that adversarial spiritual forces may not cross.¹⁸ It is God who decides Satan’s limits, not the other way around.

Yet there are no explicit promises in Scripture governing the specifics of how God does or does not permit a demon to interact with His adopted children. In describing one of the overall themes of the Christian life, Jesus said very plainly that in this world we will have many troubles (John 16:33), and demon problems are just one of the many possible troubles we could face. It is true that Jesus has overcome both the world and its prince by His death and resurrection (John 12:31). The Lord “rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:13–14 NASB). However, Satan and his demons have not yet been judged and thrown into the lake of fire. That means they are still active in the Christian life as well as in the lives of every other person living in this world. One need only look around at the violence, depravity, and sin that fills the daily news cycle to recognize that Satan is still causing trouble even though Jesus crushed his head (Gen 3:15) by opening the way to our salvation. This is because Jesus did not kill Satan; He defeated him by removing the power of death Satan wielded against us (Heb 2:14).

Death no longer matters in a spiritual sense to Christians. Satan can kill us—and this regularly happens at the hands of those who reject God—but to what end? We simply go to be with Jesus who will one day create new and better bodies for us. It renders the power of death completely meaningless for the redeemed Christian. This is an amazing benefit God freely gives to all His children, but our salvation places no limits on how God might choose to discipline us. Demonic indwelling or demonic oppression of any kind is a serious matter, and in terms of how God might choose to rebuke us, demonization is an extreme option that God may choose as His sovereign right. Still, whenever the Lord rebukes us, it is always out of love (Rev 3:19; Heb 12:6–7). As Solomon writes, “He who withholds his rod hates his son, / But he who loves him disciplines him diligently” (Prov 13:24 NASB). He also says, “Bruising wounds clean away evil, / And blows cleanse the innermost parts” (Prov 20:30 NASB).

God may use demons to discipline us when nothing else will get our attention.¹⁹ This is not terribly different from God using hostile nations to chasten Israel when it went astray. The Lord did not condone the actions of these attacking nations, and permitting them to assault Israel was certainly not His first choice, but it quickly got Israel’s attention unlike anything else at a time when they were focused on all the wrong things. This is not to say that a divine rebuke is the only situation in which a Christian might encounter demonic oppression, but it is one of them.²⁰

Although Christians cannot be “possessed,” there are strong hints in Scripture pointing to the unpleasant reality that Christians are not exempt from demonic indwelling. This may be frightening for some people, but an important difference between Christians and unbelievers is that God “hears the prayers of the righteous” but is “far from the wicked” (Prov 15:29 NASB). That should be frightening for unbelievers. As for God’s children, nothing can separate us from His love—not even demons (Rom 8:38–39).

Demonization Is a Battle of Wills

Incidences of extreme demonization may include loss of bodily control or unconsciousness in an individual. The actions and speech of that person are not always of human origin because the indwelling demon has taken root deep inside that victim’s spirit. This leads to a constant tug-of-war between the person and the demon where both beings wrestle for control over that individual’s mind and body. Sometimes the human spirit is free to maintain custody over its own body; sometimes the demon has control. Whether human or demon, the particular spirit moving the body and speaking through the body can change in a flash, and there are not always clear indications when this will happen. From the perspective of an outside observer, a personality switch in a demonized individual can be instantaneous. Speech can rapidly shift into something unfamiliar, and actions can suddenly become lewd, aggressive, or self-destructive.

The Gerasene demoniac is an example of this exhausting inner battle. One moment he appeared to be compliant with the people who were attempting to restrain him, and in the next moment, he would snap his chains and break his shackles in a sudden display of supernatural strength (Mark 5:4). The many thousands of demons indwelling this man would take control over his body, forcing him to run away from human settlements into the wilderness (Luke 8:29). Other times, whether through direct control or strong suggestion, the demons drove the demoniac to cut himself with sharp stones (Mark 5:5). This man was not typically lucid (Mark 5:15; Luke 8:35). He lived naked and remote from ordinary people most of the time (Luke 8:27). Whenever he became aware of other people traveling through the area where he lived, he would leave the tombs to aggressively confront the travelers, behaving in such a violent way that no one could safely pass by him (Matt 8:28). The demons controlling this man stripped away all his dignity and comfort. He struggled to retain any shred of personal control over his own body and mind as he fought a daily, moment-by-moment battle with the demons who so mercilessly sought to overpower him.

The demonized boy Jesus encountered after coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration experienced his own inner battles. This boy could walk around and maintain some control over himself, but frequently, without any warning, the demon indwelling him would take control and brutally throw him to the ground (Mark 9:18, 20; Luke 9:39). His particular demon was intent on murdering him. From childhood, it had “often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to kill him” (Mark 9:22 NASB; cf. Matt 17:15). There is no indication the boy was suicidal. Rather, the demon periodically overpowered him before supernaturally hurling the child into water deep enough where he might drown or flames hot enough where he might burn to death. He had probably lived longer under the daily scourge of demonic struggles than he had as a normal child. For this boy and his family, the supernatural battles had very high stakes. The father and his mute son were both presumably at the end of their endurance (Matt 17:15; Mark 9:24; Luke 9:38–40). They were constantly worried about whether the demon would forcibly end the boy’s life during those times when it took control.

The demonized man near Ephesus (Acts 19:13–16), who may have been involved with occult practices (cf. Acts 19:19), also struggled to retain control over himself. Not only must he have known that he was demonized, he surely wanted to be free from his inner demonic struggle because he invited traveling exorcists into his home. This also suggests the man was in his right mind at least some of the time; however, as soon as the exorcists got to work, the demon took custody of the man and mocked his attending exorcists (Acts 19:15). It then used the man’s body to forcibly strip the exorcists naked. Finally, still controlling the man, the demon aggressively beat the exorcists until they fled from the house. These were the actions of a demon who did not want to leave its victim. There is no indication the man had any control over himself once the demon took temporary custody of his body.

Some people may read these verses about the Ephesian demoniac and cheer the idea that false teachers who blasphemously used the Lord’s name as an incantation were punished at the hands of the very same demon they sought to control—and there is a certain irony to this situation—but that viewpoint overlooks the pain and struggle of the demonized man himself. These were not the man’s deliberate actions, and these were not his desires. These were the actions and desires of an evil spiritual entity set on dominating him. He lost control to the demon indwelling him, and as a result, the demon took over. It must have been terrifying for the man to share a body with an evil demon who had no reservations about behaving in malicious ways that were presumably out of character for the man, even more so when that meant the people who were attempting to help him were violently driven away from his home. We can only hope the Ephesian demoniac was among those who confessed their sinful ways and honored Jesus (Acts 19:17–18), and if he was, perhaps God eventually set him free from his oppression.

In each of these situations, the spiritual struggle was very real. It raged unseen within the spirits of these individuals, erupting to the surface in dramatic ways whenever the indwelling demon won a battle of wills. This is the struggle of all those who involuntarily host indwelling demons. These evil spirits are fully capable of taking custody over the body and mind to varying degrees, but mercifully, the demons who tormented the demoniacs in Scripture were never in control all the time. The Gerasene demoniac had moments of lucidity when he interacted with other people and allowed himself to be restrained (Mark 5:4). The demon “seized him many times” (Luke 8:29 NASB), but that means there were many other times when he was free from its direct control. The demonized boy also had moments when he was free from demonic control. His father said that “whenever it seizes him” (Mark 9:18 NASB) it caused problems, but just like the Gerasene demoniac, this suggests there were times when the boy maintained control over himself. The Ephesian demoniac must have had his own moments of freedom to invite exorcists into his home.

These accounts all point to an important lesson: while demons are capable of using a human being like a puppet, nowhere in Scripture does God permit unlimited freedom for them to do that. Given these detailed scriptural accounts and the Lord’s abundantly merciful nature, it seems incredibly unlikely the Lord would permit a demon to shackle a human spirit within its own body indefinitely. The Gerasene demoniac is the most extreme case of demonization found in Scripture, yet even he had moments when the demons were not in control. This does not minimize the pain and struggle that each individual suffered, but it does point to a loving God who leaves the door open to ask for His help no matter how bleak our situation appears.

How Violent Demons with Temporary Custody Behave

Because demons are malevolent spirits by nature, they see nothing wrong with causing harm however they can. As a product of their angelic heritage, demons possess supernatural power enabling them to cause violence without ever entering into a person—but they can also achieve considerable violence through the bodies of human beings they temporarily control. Therefore, while God has full authority over the actions a demon may take, and demons can only commit violence when the Lord permits it, severely demonized individuals can pose a danger both to others and themselves. The Gerasene demoniac along with another demonized man living inside the local tombs “were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way” (Matt 8:28 NASB). That these men were known to be “so extremely violent” strongly suggests the demons inside them had caused physical injury to other people. This is similar to the Ephesian demoniac who “pounced on” the attending exorcists “and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded” (Acts 19:16 NASB).

It is unclear from Scripture how much of this violence was caused by direct demonic control versus forceful demonic suggestions the demoniacs failed to resist, yet it is exceedingly clear that severely demonized individuals can occasionally pose a physical threat. A demon is every bit as dangerous as a roaring lion (cf. 1 Pet 5:8). The question may arise whether this physical threat can include murder, but there is some nuance here leading to two additional questions:

1. Can a human being commit a murder after succumbing to a demonic suggestion that advocates murder?
2. Can a demon with temporary custody of a human being force that person to commit a murder?

The answer to the first question is, unfortunately, yes. Human beings are very adept at taking the lives of other human beings. The Lord is unquestionably against that; He views human life as precious and demands an accounting for violent actions taken against His creations (Gen 9:5–6; Exod 20:13). But while demonization is a complicating factor, it does not entirely remove the concept of human agency. A human being can always choose to murder another human being. A roughly equivalent question is whether a mentally impaired individual is capable of murdering another human being. The answer is also yes in some situations. A demon can work to make murder appear more appealing or less taboo to the murderer, but when the tormented human being is in control, the individual always retains the choice of whether to resist the demon’s evil influence or act upon it (Jas 4:7).

The answer to the second question is not directly stated in Scripture; however, there are absolutely no instances anywhere in Scripture where a demon who controls a human being successfully commits a murder. God has complete authority over every action a demon may attempt, and He never condones murder, though that does not mean a demon might not try to commit a murder. King Saul is potentially an example of this. He suffered from demonic influence after he rebelled against God in full view of Israel. The demons who tormented him frequently overwhelmed him (1 Sam 18:10), and during one of these instances, spear in hand, he “hurled the spear, for he thought, ‘I will pin David to the wall’” (1 Sam 18:11 NASB).

Was the demon in control, or did it merely encourage Saul’s attempt to murder David? Scripture is unclear on this point, but even if we assume the demon had temporary control of Saul’s actions, God remained the ultimate referee. David escaped from Saul’s murder attempts twice during this incident (1 Sam 18:11), no doubt by the grace of God. The demon (and Saul) might have wanted David dead because God had ordained him as the next king of Israel (1 Sam 16:1, 12–13), but the Lord prevented his murder from happening. A deeply serious sin like murder appears to violate the principles God has set in place limiting what demons are allowed to do when fully controlling a human being. A demonized individual might agree to go along with some truly heinous demonic suggestions—and that is its own set of problems—but God seems to place limits around the demon itself.

Unfortunately, assault and murder against other people is not the only risk a severely demonized individual poses because demons can also direct their violence toward the demoniac. The demons tormenting the Gerasene demoniac drove this man to injure his own body. “Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and cutting himself with stones” (Mark 5:5 NASB). Scripture is unclear whether the demons forced the man to do this or if he had succumbed to a strong demonic suggestion. Perhaps the man even chose to cut himself in order to scratch a “demonic itch” that could not otherwise be scratched—he clearly wanted relief from his constant torment (Mark 5:18; Luke 8:38). Nevertheless, the demons were a contributing factor to the self-harm this man inflicted upon himself.

In a similar fashion, the demons controlling the young boy caused him to fall into fire and water so that he might die (Matt 17:15; Mark 9:22). These injuries were supernaturally compelled, although just as in the story of King Saul and David, the boy did not die because the Lord did not permit that to happen—either the boy’s parents or someone else was always there to rescue him. It is unlikely that God would permit a demonized person to commit suicide merely at the whim of a controlling demon with temporary custody of its victim.

But that does not remove the possibility that a victim may have a personal desire to commit suicide. A demon may tempt that person to do so just as a demon may tempt a person to commit a murder. A demon might even force a situation that supernaturally pushes its victim into a hazardous situation like it did with this boy. But as with murder, it seems highly unlikely the Lord would allow a demon with temporary custody to successfully force its victim to commit suicide. What is self-harm and suicide if not assault and murder leveled at oneself? If God does not condone such actions against other people, there is no reason to think He condones it when we are both victim and victimizer. Suicide is a sin every bit as grievous to the Lord as murder because all people are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27; Eph 2:10). We are precious to Him.

Interestingly, even many of the demons who indwell a human victim may not actually be in favor of a successful suicide attempt. After all, it destroys their “houses” and causes them to wander through desolate places without rest (Matt 12:43; Luke 11:24). While demons are evil and will always want to incapacitate their victims whenever possible, Scripture suggests their incentive is to prolong the torment and suffering of an individual rather than destroy that person outright so as not to lose whatever respite that person involuntarily offers. So while self-harm is scripturally within the realm of possibilities for a demonized individual, a successful suicide appears to be the tragic choice of a tormented human being rather than something a demon can successfully force upon its victim.

It is almost always up to individual choice whether to murder another human being or murder oneself. Demonization does not appear to change that. There is absolutely no biblical evidence that God ever permits a demon to make either of those choices for us. Demons may want to make that choice for us. They may try to make that choice for us. But since God hates when innocent blood is spilled, why would He ever permit evil spiritual beings, which we can neither see nor control, to spill our blood just because they wanted to do so? The Bible places a great deal of emphasis on resisting temptation and sin. If a demon could force us to sin, there would be no need to resist sin because that decision would not have been ours to make in the first place.

Demonic Oppression of the Human Body

Humanity as a whole experiences mental problems, physical problems, and spiritual problems on a daily basis. Sometimes the root causes of these different afflictions will overlap, but that is not always the case. In studying how a demon can affect the human mind and body, we must never arrive at the erroneous conclusion that each and every malady is somehow the result of demonic oppression. Emphatically, it is not. The Bible does not support that conclusion. There are times when a seizure is just a seizure and visiting a medical doctor is the most prudent course of action.

Yet, in spite of that, we must also studiously avoid making the opposite error by concluding that a demon either does not or cannot cause suffering with tangible mental or physical symptoms. The Bible also does not support that conclusion. The underlying reality of any given malady is going to be highly unique to the individual. Studying what a demon can do to the human mind and body when divinely permitted gives us a foundation to prayerfully discern—sometimes with medical help—where to look for the causes of our pain and suffering.

How Demons Can Affect the Mind and Emotions

Demons can have tremendous power over the human mind. The discrepancy between a demonic personality and a human personality can become crystal clear once a demon momentarily takes control of its victim. This stark contrast and sudden switch in personality between the demon and the demonized can indicate demonic oppression (Mark 1:23–24). Because demons are entirely evil, they only speak and act in wicked ways since that is what fills their hearts (Mark 7:21–23); consequently, it might appear to an outside observer that a severely demonized individual has a dual personality. Whenever a demon gains enough control to express itself through a demonized individual, the unfortunate outcome is the person may do and say things that are completely bizarre or disturbing to other people. “In ancient times insanity and demon possession were frequently linked,”²¹ which is why Jesus’s opponents so often accused Him of suffering from indwelling demons (e.g., John 10:20). They could not accept what Jesus said as the truth so immediately jumped to demonization as an explanation for His sermons. Jesus was certainly not demonized, but these ancient Jews did understand, in their own way, that demons can hijack the human brain.

The brain processes thoughts, emotions, behavior, vision, speech, hearing, motor control, and sensation among other things. God designed it as the biological control center of the physical human body. Given that demons can influence thoughts and emotions, cause physical impairment, and speak using the victim’s own voice, it indicates demons understand the human brain quite well. Such understanding paired with angelic power produces the demonic ability to hijack a brain against its owner’s wishes. An in-depth understanding of the human brain also implies demons can tap into specific brain functions—even if not explicitly detailed in Scripture—to cause additional pain and suffering.

One of those brain functions is our ability to silently speak to ourselves using our own inner voice. Demons can leverage this same mechanism. The Philippi fortune-teller had a demon who may have silently communicated its deceptive revelations to her (Acts 16:16–17). King Ahab’s false prophets surely experienced that (1 Kgs 22:23). An indwelling demon understands the mind well enough to silently communicate with the person it indwells so that no one else can hear it. It may not always be obvious for a demonized individual where the lines are drawn between demonic voices and inner voices, but demons can speak directly to the mind as these accounts suggest.

We can also conclude that an evil spiritual being capable of mental communication can forcibly send mental images. This type of demonic communication may be the source of some of the false prophecies the Lord denounced in Scripture. The prophets who spread such lies misled others through “a false vision, divination, futility, and the deception of their own minds” (Jer 14:14 NASB). Paul later writes about false teachers who led people astray through visions they claimed to have seen (Col 2:18–19). If even some of these false prophets and teachers had been paying attention to demonic sources (cf. 1 Tim 4:1), the visual nature of their prophecies further implies that indwelling demons can communicate to human beings using visual images just as easily as words.

And since demons appear quite capable of sending visions to the waking mind, then by extension, they are also capable of sending dreams to the slumbering mind. What are dreams if not a collection of images? Holy angels are demonstrably capable of causing dreams (Matt 1:20; 2:12–13, 19; cf. Dan 8:15–17), so there is no reason to think that demons would not be just as capable. Yet while holy angels cause dreams for prophetic or benevolent purposes in Scripture, demonic dreams are sure to be an inversion of those goals.

Demonic dreams are also certain to interrupt sleep, which may be one of the desired outcomes for a particular demon. Disturbing nightmares, however, are not necessarily the only method of sleep deprivation available to a demonic oppressor. The exact means by which they achieve this outcome are not entirely clear in Scripture, but the effect is the same nonetheless. The Gerasene demoniac, for example, did not get much rest. “Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and cutting himself with stones” (Mark 5:5 NASB). No rational person wakes up in the middle of the night just to walk around outside and scream while cutting himself with sharp stones. The demons tormenting this man must have disrupted his sleep to ensure he was unable to rest. Sleep deprivation would have made him even more vulnerable to their destructive influence.

There is also evidence that indwelling demons can cause varying degrees of mental instability or exacerbate an existing problem. Saul began his life as the humble son of a wealthy and influential leader (1 Sam 9:1). This future leader was “a young and handsome man… taller than any of the people” (1 Sam 9:2 NASB) and looked the part of a king, yet he also harbored serious character flaws, eventually leading him to make poor judgments and continually disobey the Lord. He became king one day, and after a string of serious errors, the Lord withdrew His favor from Saul (1 Sam 16:14) and permitted one or more demons to torment him (1 Sam 16:14, 23; 18:10; 19:9). Saul then displayed a downward progression of spiraling mental instability over many years.

At first, King Saul was angry and jealous toward David (1 Sam 18:8). These emotions took firm hold of Saul, twisting themselves into insanity and rage (1 Sam 18:10–11). This magnified his latent fears (1 Sam 18:12). The negative emotions boiling within this afflicted king, no doubt fomented by his tormenting demons, then transitioned into deep-seated paranoia (1 Sam 22:6–8). That led Saul to make another horrible mistake when he ordered his soldiers to murder innocent priests of the Lord (1 Sam 22:17–19). As if his actions could not sink any lower, he then decided to pursue occultism after God chose not to give him any more advice (1 Sam 28:3–24). Finally, surrounded by an enemy army and disobedient to God until the very end, he deliberately committed suicide (1 Sam 31:4). How much of Saul’s instability can be attributed to personal failings versus demonic oppression is unclear, but given that Scripture says demons came upon him at several different times, it is highly plausible these evil spirits were partly responsible for Saul’s decline. Permitting demons to torment Saul was God’s judgment for the serious sins Saul had committed in full view of Israel, and their resulting influence over Saul’s mental well-being points to the destabilizing effect demons can have on an individual.

The apostle Paul writes that our sinful natures compel us to do the very things we as Christians do not want to do—disobey God (Rom 7:20–25). When a demon presents an appealing lie, sometimes we opt for the lie rather than God’s truth. The lie often sounds good to us; our sinful nature frequently prefers it to the truth, even when we know our actions are wrong. Choosing a demonic lie leads us in a direction away from God and the objective truth found in His Word. Part of our struggle in conforming ourselves to the example of Christ is to take “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:5 NASB) because even our thoughts must live in obedience to the Lord. While Paul is discussing arguments and philosophies opposed to Christian thinking, we could wisely apply the same precautions to unrighteous emotions and attitudes.

Remaining aware of our emotional state allows us to go to the Lord in prayer whenever we recognize unchristian-like attitudes within ourselves. This is especially important for those who are demonized since demons can influence our thoughts and emotions toward wicked ends (1 Cor 7:5; Judg 9:23). Corrupting emotional strongholds are established when our desires are firmly in favor of something we know or suspect to be wrong. It stands to reason that Satan and his demons would seek to influence our emotions and attitudes toward evil to create such strongholds. They desire not only to cause us to sin but also to revel in our sin.

The Effects of Demonization on Personal Judgment

First century Israelites believed demons can cause individuals to display shocking and bizarre behavior. Not everyone knew what to make of John the Baptist, so they mocked him by saying, “He has a demon!” (Matt 11:18 NASB; cf. Luke 7:33). From their perspective, it was strange that John subsisted on locusts and wild honey (Matt 3:4; Mark 1:6), never drank wine or other fermented drinks (Luke 1:15), and wore clothing made from camel’s hair (Matt 3:4; Mark 1:6). He lived a spartan lifestyle in the wilderness, calling the people to repentance and working “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17 NASB). He acted differently and lived differently than the Israelites of his day. Fellow Israelites accused John of hosting indwelling demons, which indicates they were familiar with other situations where a demon forced its victim to behave in very peculiar ways. John’s behavior stood out as extraordinarily odd to them, so they jumped to the false conclusion that he was demonized. They were wrong to believe this about John; nevertheless, we do see other examples of shocking behavior with actual biblical demoniacs. For example, the Gerasene demoniac lived stark naked around dead bodies.

Human corpses were unclean to the Jewish people under Mosaic Law (Num 19:11–12). To handle a dead body was to undergo a week of ritual purification. The Gerasene demoniac may not have been Jewish since he lived in the Decapolis (Mark 5:20), a center of Greek and Roman culture within the region of Galilee, but even to the Romans, human corpses were connected to disease and laid to rest in what they considered to be sacred places.²² To violate a sacred Roman burial spot was to incur severe punishment including death or exile. Yet despite the prevailing cultural taboos against living in tombs and unnecessarily handling dead bodies, this is where the demoniac lived (Matt 8:28; Mark 5:3, 5; Luke 8:27).

He spent his days naked with no barrier against either the chill or the rot around him (Luke 8:27). The demons were solely responsible for driving this man into these solitary places where he had lived for a long time (Luke 8:27, 29). The people of the city did not force him to live that way; they tried to shackle him closer to home (Mark 5:3–4; Luke 8:29). But the demons “had seized him many times” (Luke 8:29 NASB), and every time the demons seized him, the man would break his restraints and run away from town into solitary places, completely under the control of his tormenting demons (Mark 5:4; Luke 8:29). At times they spurred him into action, and at other times they left him to his own muddled sense of agency. The demons influenced his mind so thoroughly he was unable to think clearly. What was previously taboo became ordinary.

Major symptoms of demonic oppression are evident in his story. He exhibited an intermittently enslaved will and mental instability (Mark 5:15; Luke 8:35) to the point where he could not function normally. This man was not thinking clearly and was under continuous attack, which became redirected in violence toward himself and others (Mark 5:5; Matthew 8:28). Those times when Scripture says the demons were explicitly in control were the times when they would forcibly relocate this man away from other people into near isolation. But at no time does he seem to demonstrate a sustained ability to think and act rationally.

The demons did not drive him into a different town, nor did they drive him to live on the beach. Instead, this legion of demons enticed him with burial caves and corpses as his best option. They intentionally chose to degrade him in the worst possible way and made what was unclean and unwholesome the most desirable choice for him in the midst of his supernatural insanity. They further twisted his thinking so that personal dignity and companionship—unless it was with another demoniac (Matt 8:28)—became largely repellant. When demons are involved, that which God says is unacceptable can become the goal we most desire (cf. Gen 3:1–5). This leads to the observation that demons can make whatever is taboo seem appealing through either temptation or coercion.

The influence of an indwelling demon can be direct, or it can be subtle. A demon can take momentary control of the mind, or it can silently work to make sin more appealing. Either way, a demon is a hostile spiritual force working to undermine God however it can. In the case of the Gerasene demoniac, the man seems to have experienced extreme, continuous agitation, both mental and physical, with periodic enslavement to the whims of his demonic oppressors. Those whims and the control they exerted appear to have been directed at making this man more vulnerable to his ongoing agitations. As clouded as the demoniac’s reasoning was during this time, there are clues indicating complete override of his self-determination was only intermittent. It is unclear whether his acts of violence were the result of a clouded and internally noisy decision-making process or further enslavement of his will by demonic oppressors. Either way, this was clearly not the man’s normal nature (Mark 5:15, 18, 20) and was directly attributable to his oppression. The question of who was in the driver seat at what point may be less important than knowing the man had intermittent agency to call on Jesus who, of course, healed him.

How Demons Can Affect the Physical Body

Demonic facility with the human mind also extends to mechanical expertise with the human body. There are many accounts in Scripture where a demon speaks through a human being. This requires flexing muscles in precise ways, using the tongue to form sounds, and moving air through the lungs. These are precise movements; human beings are not born knowing how to coordinate these actions. Demons, however, know how to do this. Incidences of demonic speech in the Bible are not simply disembodied voices speaking to gathered observers. Rather, the vast majority are real people using their real voices to form speech at the whim of a controlling demon. This implies mechanical expertise with the human body.

Additionally, when a demon speaks through its victim in Scripture, it is often loud and disruptive. They exhibit no modesty nor any fear of reproach. When Jesus taught in the Capernaum synagogue, the demonized man in attendance “cried out with a loud voice” (Luke 4:33 NASB). The Gerasene demoniac was constantly “screaming among the tombs and in the mountains” (Mark 5:5 NASB), and when speaking with Jesus, he was “shouting with a loud voice” (Mark 5:7 NASB). The demons that Philip (not the apostle) exorcised came out of their victims “shouting with a loud voice” (Acts 8:7 NASB). The demonized Philippian fortune-teller followed Paul and his companions where she “cried out repeatedly” (Acts 16:17 NASB). Shouting can be a form of aggression. It draws attention to the demon and the victim. It can humiliate the victim and cause fear in those who observe the demonic behavior.

But human bodies are not without their limits. Because those limits may hamper the evil a demon wishes to accomplish, it may choose to augment natural human capabilities with its own supernatural power. However, demons never do this for the benefit of the one they torment; they express their own power through the bodies of their victims to advance satanic agendas. The Ephesian demoniac, for example, exhibited such tremendous supernatural strength the man successfully defeated as many as eight adult exorcists in a violent, hand-to-hand struggle (Acts 19:13–16). The Gerasene demoniac habitually broke his chains and shackles in order to flee into the wilderness where he would become more vulnerable to demonic attack (Mark 5:3–4; Luke 8:29). Scripture does not describe either man as a trained combatant or unusually strong; their supernatural strength only occurred in the exact instance when a tormenting demon overrode the agency of its human victim.

Angels are supernaturally strong (Ps 103:20; 2 Pet 2:11), and demons appear to maintain access to their own abilities when controlling a person. Therefore, this suggests an indwelling demon can express all the supernatural powers normally at its disposal—including supernatural strength, uncanny intelligence, unusual speed, flight, demonic miracles, and so on—through the demoniac it indwells. The analogy of driving a car is one way to think about this. A driver and a car each have unique capabilities, yet when a driver is behind the wheel of a car, the car does what the driver commands; neither ceases to be its own unique object. Whereas the car has no native recognition of road hazards nor any ability to communicate with people, the driver may optionally add these capabilities to the car when operating it. Similarly, it appears to be this way with demons and humans. Scripture even suggests this to be the spiritual mechanism at work in the Antichrist enabling him to perform his deceptive miracles²³ (2 Thess 2:9–10; Rev 16:13–14).

The Effects of Demonization on Physical Ailments

Demonic expertise with the human body also expresses itself in a range of physical ailments, though not every problem in the human body has a demonic cause. Some of these problems—or even most of them—are merely the unfortunate byproduct of living in a fallen world. Nevertheless, the symptoms of demonic oppression will occasionally mirror naturally occurring illnesses. In the case of the demonized boy in Scripture, his father said he “has seizures and suffers terribly; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water” (Matt 17:15 NASB). “[H]e suddenly screams, and it throws him into a convulsion with foaming at the mouth; and only with difficulty does it leave him, mauling him as it leaves” (Luke 9:39 NASB). Furthermore, “whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes stiff” (Mark 9:18 NASB).

These symptoms match the hallmarks of a grand mal seizure associated with epilepsy. But Luke, who was a doctor, writes, “Now while he was still approaching, the demon slammed him to the ground and threw him into a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the boy and gave him back to his father” (Luke 9:42 NASB). Luke undoubtedly knew the difference between a seizure and a demonic episode, and he attributes the problems not to illness but to a demon. Likewise, Jesus rebukes the demon as part of healing the boy. He did not do that during other moments when He healed a disease with a natural cause. The boy’s story shows that demons can exert control over the human body and produce symptoms mirroring ordinary yet tragic physical ailments.

When Jesus healed the people of Capernaum, Luke reports “all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and He was laying His hands on each one of them and healing them. Demons also were coming out of many” (Luke 4:40–41 NASB). Luke knew about diseases, and while he was not present during this event, he notes that some people who Jesus healed physically were also demonized. This is an important observation because it strongly suggests that some diseases Jesus healed were the direct result of demonic oppression. Satan has already proved demons can cause physical illness (Job 2:7). This is further proof of that demonic capability. Later in Scripture, Jesus healed a Jewish woman “who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent over double, and could not straighten up at all” (Luke 13:11 NASB). Here again, demonic oppression is the direct cause of a known illness.

At other times, however, demons may cause physical symptoms that do not match the expected symptoms of known diseases. The demonized boy experienced convulsions mirroring an epileptic seizure, but the demonized man in the Capernaum synagogue also experienced convulsions. He seemed to be an otherwise healthy adult despite his demon dramatically throwing him into a seizure on its way out of his body (Mark 1:26). Another “demon-possessed man who was blind and unable to speak was brought to Jesus” (Matt 12:22 NASB) for healing. This demon caused blindness as well as muteness, but there did not seem to be any other accompanying symptoms matching a known disease. And the same demon who caused the young boy to have seizures also caused him to become mute and deaf (Mark 9:25). It seems demons are fully capable of shutting down the sensory organs and the communication centers of the human body whenever the Lord permits them to do so.

The Antichrist presents another example of demonic expertise with the human body. During the end of days, he will suffer a fatal wound that will miraculously heal (Rev 13:3, 12, 14). Taking John’s prophecy on this matter literally, it leads to the following observation: demons understand the human body well enough to supernaturally reverse physical trauma. In other words, since the Antichrist will heal from a fatal wound and Satan empowers the Antichrist (Rev 13:4), we can infer that demonic forces have the power to heal the human body whenever it suits their evil purposes. The satanic purpose in this particular instance is to miraculously heal the “man of lawlessness” in order to deceive the world into worshiping him as God. If demons do the same thing today, they are certainly working toward similar satanic agendas, though perhaps not on the same global scale as with the Antichrist. Unfortunately, there are people in this world who undoubtedly turn to demons for healing. While they may achieve the result they think they want, this is like drinking poison to cure a headache—the urgency of the headache will diminish once the body’s internal organs start shutting down!

It bears repeating that while demons possess expert knowledge of the mind and body in both humans and animals, they are just fallen angels. Demons are not on the same level as God; they are created beings. They are not even in the vicinity of approaching equality with God. The Lord limits what demons can and cannot do to us, and while severe demonization can be a frightening prospect for many people, God is always in full control and always has complete authority over the situation. Nothing can separate us from His love (Rom 8:38–39).

Furthermore, if we find ourselves in a situation where we must struggle through demonization or lovingly support someone else who is, we must remember that our trials are a crucible. They serve to purify our faith in the same way fire purifies gold (1 Pet 1:6–7). This is not meant to be an enjoyable process. Yet the testing of our faith produces Christian endurance, and once finished, our faith is battle-tested and complete, lacking in nothing (Jas 1:2–4, 12; Rom 5:3–5). “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom 8:28 NASB). And that can even include demonization (Mark 5:18–20; Luke 8:38–39).

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1. Spirit and soul are synonymous in this book. Some Christians believe the spirit and soul are two separate parts of the same incorporeal force animating a human body, but the most-widely held scholarly position is that the human spirit is best understood as a single element. Regardless, both views are roughly equivalent in the context of this discussion. See the following resource for more information: Wayne Grudem, “What Is the Soul? Is It Different from the Spirit?” (Zondervan Academic, 15 May 2018), https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/what-is-the-soul.↩
2. While some Christians hold to monism, the view that the body and soul are of one substance, this belief is problematic given that verses throughout Scripture refer to body and spirit as separate components (Eccl 12:7; Ps 31:5; Luke 24:39; 2 Cor 12:2–4; Rev 20:4).↩
3. See Appendix E for a fuller biblical discussion of what happens after we die.↩
4. See Chapter 4 to learn what Scripture teaches about the abyss.↩
5. Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (BibleSupport.com, (1905) 2014), https://biblehub.com/commentaries/ellicott/ §Matt 12:43.↩
6. See Chapter 6 to read more about the biblical notion that other gods, when they are anything at all, are actually demons.↩
7. Gordon Robertson, “The Seat of Satan: Ancient Pergamum” (The Seat of Satan: Ancient Pergamum | CBN.com, 21 July 2011), https://www1.cbn.com/700club/seat-satan-ancient-pergamum.↩
8. “Strong’s Greek: 1139. Δαιμονίζομαι (Daimonizomai) – to Be Possessed by a Demon” (Bible Hub, n.d.), https://biblehub.com/greek/1139.htm.↩
9. “Strong’s Greek: 1139. Δαιμονίζομαι (Daimonizomai).”↩
10. Ronald A. Beers et al., eds., Life Application Study Bible: New International Version (Wheaton, IL; Grand Rapids: Tyndale House; Zondervan, 1997), 1747.↩
11. Matt Villano, “The Bahamas Beach Where Piggies Swim,” CNN: Travel, 9 October 2018, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/swimming-pigs-bahamas/index.html.↩
12. See Chapter 12 to learn more about possible reasons for demonization among human beings.↩
13. John MacArthur, The MacArthur Bible Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2005), 1211.↩
14. MacArthur, The MacArthur Bible Commentary, 426.↩
15. “Strong’s Greek: 4972. Σφραγίζω (Sphragizó) – to Seal” (Bible Hub, n.d.), https://biblehub.com/greek/4972.htm.↩
16. “Strong’s Greek: 4130. Πλήθω, (Play’-Tho) – Furnish, Accomplish, Fill, Supply” (Bible Hub, n.d.), https://biblehub.com/greek/4130.htm.↩
17. MacArthur, The MacArthur Bible Commentary, 1753.↩
18. See Chapter 4 for more on this topic.↩
19. See Chapter 4 for more details about the Lord using a demon as an agent of His divine judgment.↩
20. See Chapter 12 for a longer discussion of possible reasons why we might experience demonic adversity.↩
21. E. Ray Clendenen and Jeremy Royal Howard, eds., Holman Illustrated Bible Commentary (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2015), 1147.↩
22. N. S. Gill, “Ancient Roman Burial Practices” (ThoughtCo, 25 November 2019), https://www.thoughtco.com/roman-burial-practices-117935.↩
23. See Appendix A for more on the source of paranormal abilities.↩