What are demons?

Question 08119.

Understanding what demons are is not an exercise in morbid curiosity. It is the difference between a believer who takes the enemy seriously without becoming obsessed and one who either dismisses the whole subject or sees a demon behind every difficulty.

Scripture is measured on this, which is itself instructive. It tells us enough to be alert and not nearly enough to satisfy the appetite for detail, and I intend to stay within those limits.

What Demons Are: Fallen Angels, Not Something Else

The standard understanding, and the one I hold, is that demons are angels who joined Satan’s rebellion. Revelation 12 speaks of the dragon and his angels, Jesus refers to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, and the New Testament treats the demonic realm as organised under a single leader.

There is an alternative view, found in some intertestamental literature, that demons are the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim of Genesis 6. I am aware of it and I see no clear biblical warrant for it. It solves a problem the Bible never raises and creates several it never addresses.

So what demons are, in the plainest terms, is created spiritual beings who were made holy and who chose rebellion. Their nature is angelic. Their character is corrupt. That combination is what makes them dangerous.

Their Nature and Their Limits

They are spirits, which is the term the Gospels use most often, frequently with the qualifier unclean. The Greek daimonion appears throughout the New Testament, and akatharton describes the moral pollution attached to them.

They are personal beings with intelligence, will and speech. They recognised Jesus immediately and confessed who He was, which is more than most of His contemporaries managed. James makes the pointed observation that the demons believe God is one and shudder, which tells us both that they have accurate theology and that it does them no good whatever.

Their limits are real. They are finite, local, not all knowing, and unable to create. Understanding what demons are means holding their genuine power alongside these boundaries, because most fear in this area comes from forgetting the second half.

It also helps to be clear about what demons are not. They are not the ghosts of the dead, whatever a medium may claim, since Scripture gives the dead no such wandering existence. They are not impersonal forces or energies to be managed. And they are not evenly matched with the angels who kept their first estate, let alone with God Himself.

What They Do

Their work in the Gospels includes possession of individuals, which produced physical and psychological effects, and in some cases prevented speech or sight. Outside the Gospels their activity is described more often in terms of doctrine. Paul warns of deceitful spirits and teachings of demons that turn people from the faith.

That shift in emphasis is worth noticing. The dramatic manifestations cluster around the ministry of Jesus, where they served as a public sign that the strong man was being plundered. The letters, written to churches, deal mainly with deception, division and false teaching.

So what demons are chiefly occupied with, where the church is concerned, is lies. They are theologians of a corrupt kind, and their most effective work happens in a pulpit or a book rather than in a horror film.

What Demons Are Unable to Do to a Believer

A Christian cannot be possessed. The indwelling Holy Spirit and demonic occupation are incompatible, and 1 John 4:4 states the principle that governs the whole subject: He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

They cannot take your salvation, override your will, or read your thoughts. They can tempt, accuse, harass, oppress from outside, and apply pressure at the point where you are weakest, and they are patient and observant enough to do it well.

That distinction between external assault and internal occupation is the single most useful thing a believer can learn here. I have set it out more fully in possession, oppression and influence.

Where They Are Now

Scripture indicates two categories. Most demons are active in the world, which is why the New Testament speaks of them constantly in the present tense. But 2 Peter 2 and Jude 6 describe angels who did not stay within their proper position and are kept in chains of gloomy darkness until the judgement.

Those imprisoned beings are a distinct group, and their confinement is usually linked to a particular and unusually serious transgression. I take Genesis 6 as the likeliest background, and I hold that with appropriate tentativeness.

The point for us is that some of them are already restrained, and all of them are heading for the same destination. See my answer on the abyss.

Demons and Illness

The Gospels sometimes distinguish healing from casting out demons and sometimes connect them, which should keep us from making a rule in either direction. Not every illness in the New Testament is demonic, and Luke, who was a doctor, records both categories carefully.

The pastoral danger of getting this wrong is severe. Treat depression or epilepsy as a demon and you will leave the illness untreated while adding shame to the sufferer. Treat every spiritual attack as a chemical problem and you will miss what is actually happening.

Wisdom, medical help and prayer belong together rather than in competition. I have written on whether demons cause mental illness because this confusion causes real harm.

Two Errors to Avoid

The first error treats the demonic as superstition unworthy of modern people. That leaves a believer unarmed and, more seriously, disagreeing with Jesus, who spoke about demons plainly and often.

The second error finds a demon behind every difficulty, names spirits for every sin and every symptom, and produces Christians who are perpetually anxious and never responsible. Scripture never lets us blame a demon for what our own flesh has done.

The Bible holds a middle position without any apparent strain. What demons are is real, limited, defeated and dangerous, all at once, and a believer who holds all four will neither dismiss them nor obsess over them.

Between those two errors sits a third that is less often noticed. Some Christians know perfectly well what demons are in theory but never let the knowledge affect how they live, praying as though the world were purely material and then wondering why the Christian life feels like an uphill struggle conducted alone.

What Defeats Them

Not technique, not formulae, and not volume. James gives the pattern: submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee. Resistance is grounded in submission, which is why obedience is the real battleground and always has been.

The armour of Ephesians 6 is instructive because almost all of it is defensive and almost all of it is truth in one form or another. Belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and the one weapon is the word of God. Nothing there is exotic.

Add the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony from Revelation 12, and you have the whole arsenal. It is unimpressive to look at and entirely sufficient.

Their Interest in Israel and the Nations

Daniel 10 gives us a rare glimpse behind the curtain. An angelic messenger is delayed twenty-one days by the prince of the kingdom of Persia until Michael comes to help, and the passage speaks afterwards of the prince of Greece. Whatever else that means, it indicates spiritual conflict operating at the level of nations and empires.

I take that seriously without building an elaborate system on it. It is reasonable to think that some fallen beings have regional responsibilities, and Israel’s situation is plainly distinctive given Michael’s particular connection with her.

What I firmly reject is the leap from that text to believer-initiated warfare against territorial powers, with mapping, naming and city-wide confrontation. Daniel was praying and fasting, not commanding, and the conflict was conducted entirely between angels. See my answer on territorial spirits.

Their End Is Already Fixed

Something the demons themselves seem to understand better than many Christians is that their time is limited. In Matthew 8 they ask whether Jesus has come to torment them before the time, which is a remarkable admission. They know there is an appointed time and they know what it holds.

Jude says they are kept for the judgement of the great day. Jesus speaks of eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Paul says that we will judge angels, which is one of the more startling statements in the New Testament and worth sitting with.

So what demons are, ultimately, is condemned. They are not building an empire that might last. They are running down a clock that they can read better than we can, and their fury is the fury of creatures who know exactly how little time remains.

So, now what?

Take the subject seriously and keep it in proportion. Learn what demons are from Scripture rather than from novels or from ministries with a commercial interest in your fear, and let the biblical emphasis on deception shape where you stay alert.

Then get on with obedience. A believer walking closely with God, honest about sin, soaked in Scripture and surrounded by the church, is a hard target. Where in your life at the moment would a patient and observant enemy find the easiest opening?

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe, and shudder!

James 2:19 (ESV)