Demon Possessed
“When the unclean spirit comes out of [a]a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it then says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they come in and live there; and the last condition of that person becomes worse than the first.” Luke 11:24-26 NASB
They come in and live there – Living on earth is so terrifying. Satan prowls around seeking whom he can devour. There are demons everywhere just waiting for the chance to get inside you. The whole culture has fallen under the influence of the Devil. All we can do is plead the blood of Jesus and hope to escape in the rapture. At least this seems to be the tone of a recent newsletter I received. In part, it referenced these verses in Luke to make this claim:
We wrote this not only to remind you about the reality of demonic spirits that seek to influence and control your mind, will and emotions even as a follower of Jesus. We’ve never encountered a marriage or faith community in which the same prevailing strongholds aren’t an integral part of their relationships if they are left unrenounced by the authority that Jesus has given His own in His name.
Don’t you find it amazing that the Devil and all his henchmen seem completely absent from the history of Israel prior to the Babylonian captivity? What was he doing all that time? Waiting for the Messiah to appear so he could tempt him? Hanging out with the “fallen angels”? Falling from heaven like a star? Why is it that Moses never confronts Satan in his efforts to free Israel? Why doesn’t Joshua encounter demons when he invades the Land? How come the prophets don’t seem to pay any attention to all those demonic forces running around Babylon? But by the time we get to the Messiah, oh my, old Satan is everywhere dragging each of us down into the Pit. The Gospels are filled with encounters with demons. Yeshua speaks of Satan on more than one occasion. And Paul? Well, he’s the one who told us that the real battle over us isn’t even visible. It’s a spiritual war going on in heavenly places. Apparently Satan came out of retirement when Yeshua arrived and he’s been making a mess of things ever since.
What’s the cure? Apparently you must deliberately renounce Satan’s hold on you! In the “name of Jesus,” of course. You don’t have any power to do this on your own. You’re just a marionette in the great cosmic drama of good versus evil. Someone else is pulling your strings. Just make sure it’s Jesus, not Beelzebub.
Don’t you find all of this a bit comical? Maybe not laughable but certainly strange. The Hebraic view, prior to Babylon, seems to be more like yetzer ha’ra/ yetzer ha’tov. You have the power of choice! You actually matter. You’re not just a puppet on a string. What you decide counts. “Choose this day,” is quite a bit different than “plead the blood.” I often wonder if we hadn’t grown up in a world that embraced the Babylonian paradigm would we still be running from the Devil? When you think about it, the original sin of Man leaves him totally at the mercy of these invading spiritual forces. As the poet reminds us, “For man’s greatest sin is to have been born.” We might also add that it’s also his greatesttragedy. According to this view, from birth on, we are ping-pong balls being slapped back and forth between God and Satan. And the worst part is that if we decide to opt out, we are rewarded with eternal punishment for challenging the desire of the gods to play havoc with our lives. You must wonder what motivation caused thelogians to adopt such dark answers. Perhaps Camile is right, “Christian love is so lacking its emotional polarity that the Devil had to be invented to focus natural human hatred and hostility.”[1]
Topical Index: Satan, Devil, original sin, Luke 11:24-26
[1] Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickenson, p. 38.
The Devil had to be invented to focus natural human hatred and hostility.” From birth on, all we are are ping-pong balls being slapped back and forth between God and Satan”. Brevity is the soul of wit and you have certainly demonstrated in this TW. The challenge for me is how do you reconcile, how can you reconcile the syncretism that apparently informed the halakha of Judaism at that time and yes, even Yeshua?
I am not claiming that evil forces don’t exist. I’m simply pointing out that before Israel’s captivity there was virtually no mention at all of demons and only a very few references to “the accuser” (ha-satan), which, by the way, is a word applied to more than just some celestial being. So, historically it seems that the realm of demons and their presence in the world is a viewpoint that came into Israel via Babylon, and Hellenism. Of course, that means it was part of the religious view of Judaism in the first century and so was included in the apostolic writings, but that fact that it never shows up in the Tanakh is very curious.
He is risen! The enduring and eternal Word, the very “foundation” of reality, who is the ‘fulcrum’ of created reality and the ‘telos’ of the re-created world! He is the one who is even now present with his disciples, not iconically; rather actually—and constituted in this present ‘eucharistic’ form where God meets us in the unity of fellowship in union with Christ risen, ascended, and exalted in glory… the glory of God’s new creation in which all things are created new! Hallelujah! He is risen indeed! Amen!
And to hell with Ha Satan.
For those who wish to understand a bit more about the influence of Hellenism and Babylonian thought on the Jewish idea of demons, I recommend the article by Foerester is TDNT, Vol. 2, pp. 1-20. There you will find important references to the development of the idea and its incursion into later Jewish thought.