Can we bind Satan?

Question 08122.

The practice of binding Satan has become so familiar in some circles that many believers assume it must be a plain biblical instruction, and are surprised to discover that no apostle ever does it and no letter ever tells us to.

I want to look carefully at the passages that are used to support it, because I have no wish to strip anyone of a weapon God has given. What I do want is for our confidence to rest on something the Bible actually says.

Where the Practice of Binding Satan Comes From

Two texts carry almost the whole weight. The first is Matthew 12, where Jesus asks how anyone can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. The second is Matthew 16 and 18, where whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

From these has grown a practice of addressing the enemy directly and declaring him bound, often over a meeting, a family, a city or a nation. It is usually done with sincerity and often with real love for people, and I want to acknowledge that before I question it.

But sincerity does not settle exegesis. If binding Satan is what these passages authorise, we should expect to find the apostles doing it, and we do not.

The Strong Man in Matthew 12

Look closely at what Jesus says. He has just cast out a demon, and He is answering the charge that He does so by Beelzebul. His reply is that a divided kingdom falls, and that in fact He is the one who has entered the strong man’s house, bound him, and is now plundering his goods.

The binding in that passage is something Jesus has done, not something His disciples are instructed to do. It describes the decisive restraint of the enemy accomplished by the arrival of the King, which is why the demons are coming out at His word.

That reading actually gives more comfort than the popular one. The strong man has been bound already by someone entirely competent. Binding Satan is not a task assigned to us because it is not outstanding work.

Binding and Loosing in Matthew 16 and 18

The binding and loosing language belongs to a different context altogether. In Matthew 18 it sits in the middle of instructions about church discipline, immediately after the process for dealing with an unrepentant member and immediately before the promise about two or three gathered in His name.

The vocabulary was familiar in Jewish teaching for declaring what was permitted and forbidden, and the sense here concerns the church’s authority to act on heaven’s verdict in matters of discipline and forgiveness. It has nothing to do with binding Satan over a geographical area.

Take the phrase out of that context and you can make it mean almost anything, which is precisely what has happened. See my fuller answer on binding and loosing.

What the Apostles Actually Did

This is the argument I find hardest to answer from the other side. We have a substantial record of apostolic ministry in Acts and twenty-one letters of instruction to churches facing genuine spiritual opposition, including cities saturated with idolatry and the occult.

In none of it does anyone bind Satan. Paul does not do it at Ephesus, which was a centre of magic. He does not instruct the Corinthians to do it, and their problems were considerable. Peter, who had heard the strong man saying first hand, never mentions the practice.

When Paul does confront a demon at Philippi he commands the spirit to come out of the girl in the name of Jesus, which is a specific act in a specific situation and not the same thing at all.

What Jude Warns About

There is a passage that ought to make us cautious about addressing the enemy at all. Jude criticises false teachers who blaspheme the glorious ones, and contrasts them with Jude 9, where the archangel Michael, disputing with the devil over the body of Moses, did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgement but said simply, the Lord rebuke you.

If Michael would not take that tone with Satan, the confidence with which some believers address him is worth examining. The pattern Jude commends is deferring to God rather than issuing commands ourselves.

That is not timidity. It is the recognition that authority is delegated rather than inherent, and that our safety lies in staying under it. Notice too that Michael’s words are addressed to the Lord about the devil rather than being a declaration in his own name.

Why the Practice Appeals

I understand the attraction of binding Satan. It feels active. It gives a congregation something decisive to do in the face of evil that otherwise seems immovable, and it converts helplessness into agency.

The trouble is that it can quietly relocate our confidence from God’s power to our formula. When the declared binding does not appear to work, the response is usually more volume, more repetition, or a search for the hidden thing that blocked it. That is a treadmill, and it is not the Christian life.

Prayer, by contrast, asks God to act and leaves the manner to Him. It looks less impressive and it is infinitely more powerful, because the outcome does not depend on whether we said it correctly.

What We Are Actually Given Instead

Scripture is not silent about our response to the enemy. We are told to resist him, and James 4:7 attaches the promise that he will flee. We are told to stand, having put on the armour of God, and the verb in Ephesians 6 is defensive throughout.

We are told to be watchful, to give no opportunity to the devil, to forgive so that we are not outwitted by him, and to take up the shield of faith. Revelation 12 says the brethren overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

That is a complete armoury, and every item of it is available to the newest believer without any special technique. Nothing in it involves binding Satan by declaration.

A Gentler Word to Those Who Do It

If you have prayed this way for years, I am not accusing you of anything. Most people who practise binding Satan are simply asking God for protection in the vocabulary they were taught, and God hears the heart of a prayer rather than grading its phrasing.

My concern is with the teaching rather than the pray-er. Where the practice is taught as a technique with guaranteed results, it sets people up for disillusionment and shifts their trust away from God’s freedom to answer as He chooses.

So keep praying against the enemy’s work, fervently and often. Just address your prayer to your Father rather than issuing declarations to a defeated foe, and see whether that does not settle something in you.

The Language of Binding in the Gospels

It is worth looking at the word itself. The Greek deo means to tie or fasten, and it is used of everything from binding a colt to a post to Paul being bound in chains. There is nothing technical or mystical about it.

In Matthew 12:29 the picture is of a burglary. You cannot rob a strong man’s house until the strong man is tied up, and Jesus is claiming to be the one who has done the tying. The exorcisms are the evidence, since the goods are visibly being carried out of the house.

Read that way, the passage is a claim about the identity of Jesus rather than an instruction to the church. Binding Satan is presented as an accomplished fact belonging to the ministry of the King, and the disciples are the beneficiaries rather than the agents of it.

What About Praying Against Evil?

Someone will reasonably ask whether I am leaving believers with nothing to say when confronted by real wickedness. Not at all. We may and must pray against evil, and Scripture gives us plenty of examples of exactly that, from the imprecatory psalms to the Lord’s own instruction to pray for deliverance from the evil one.

The difference is the direction of address. Praying to God about the enemy is everywhere in Scripture. Speaking to the enemy on our own authority is not, and the two are easily confused because they can sound similar in a prayer meeting.

So pray boldly. Ask God to restrain wickedness, to protect the vulnerable, to open blinded eyes and to frustrate schemes. That is not a weaker prayer than binding Satan. It is a prayer with the whole authority of heaven behind it, offered by a child to a Father who delights to answer. See whether we can rebuke Satan or demons.

So, now what?

Read Matthew 12 and Matthew 18 in their contexts this week and see for yourself what is being said. Then ask the honest question about whether the practice you were taught is actually there in the passage or was brought to it.

Keep the substance. Resist the devil, stand in the armour, forgive quickly, confess honestly, and pray for those under attack. If binding Satan has been the centre of your spiritual life, what would it look like to put prayer to your Father back in that place?

But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’

Jude 9 (ESV)