What happened to the demons Jesus cast out?
Question 8040
The Gospels record numerous occasions when Jesus cast out demons, but the accounts rarely tell us what happened to those spirits afterwards. The question is worth pressing, because the answer touches on important truths about the nature of spiritual beings, their relationship to the physical world, and the particular danger that an empty life presents.
The Gadarene Demoniac
The most detailed account is found in Mark 5:1-20, with parallels in Luke 8:26-39 and Matthew 8:28-34. The man from the region of the Gerasenes was controlled by a Legion of demons, a Roman military term suggesting a vast number. When Jesus confronted them, they made a striking request: in Luke’s account they begged Jesus “not to command them to depart into the abyss” (Luke 8:31), while in Mark they asked not to be sent “out of the region” (Mark 5:10). Both requests reveal something significant about demonic existence. Demons are not indifferent to where they are. They have preferences and they dread certain outcomes, particularly confinement in the abyss.
The abyss (abyssos in the Greek) appears throughout Scripture as a place of imprisonment for certain categories of spiritual beings. It is the place referred to in Revelation 9:1-2 where bound angels are released during the Tribulation, and it is where Satan himself will be confined during the Millennium (Revelation 20:1-3). The demons’ terror at being sent there before their time is consistent with the reference in 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 to certain fallen angels already held in chains awaiting judgement. Not all fallen angels share the same status; some are bound, others remain active in the world.
Jesus permitted the Legion to enter the herd of pigs, which then rushed down the slope into the sea and drowned. What happened to the demons after the pigs perished is not stated. The narrative ends there. What the passage establishes is that demons seek embodiment, that they operate within the limits of divine permission, and that when removed from a host they are not content to exist without one.
The Wandering Spirit
Jesus addresses the aftermath of exorcism directly in Matthew 12:43-45 and Luke 11:24-26. “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.” The “waterless places” language is significant. In the ancient world, deserts and desolate regions were associated with demonic habitation, as in Isaiah 13:21 and 34:14, where descriptions of desolation include references to wild and unclean creatures. The wandering spirit finds no rest without a host.
The spirit then returns to the house it left. Finding it “empty, swept, and put in order,” it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all take up residence there. Jesus comments that the final state of that person is worse than the first. The word that deserves attention is empty. The house has been cleaned but not occupied. There is no new tenant. This is precisely the danger of any attempt at spiritual liberation that does not result in genuine conversion and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
This teaching has direct pastoral implications. Exorcism divorced from the gospel is not merely ineffective; it is actively dangerous. Dealing with what appears to be genuine demonic oppression must always be aimed at the person’s salvation rather than merely at the removal of a spiritual presence. An empty house, however tidily arranged, invites return. The only lasting protection is the indwelling presence of Christ.
What This Tells Us
The biblical picture that emerges is that demons cast out enter a condition of restless displacement. They are not destroyed. They are not automatically confined to the abyss, though that is what they fear. They wander, they seek re-entry, and where an opportunity presents itself they take it. The fact that they feared being sent to the abyss implies this is a real possibility Jesus could have enacted; the fact that He permitted them to go into the pigs suggests divine purposes are worked out even in the manner of expulsion.
The passages do not answer every question about the mechanics of demonic existence. Scripture is not interested in providing a comprehensive demonology. What it does make clear is that spiritual beings have genuine existence, genuine desires, and genuine agency within the constraints God imposes. The casting out of demons by Jesus was not the permanent destruction of those spirits but a demonstration of His authority over them, a preview of the final confinement that awaits them and their master.
So, now what?
The consistent message for the believer is that spiritual victory is not a once-for-all clearing of territory but a life lived under the lordship of Christ. The indwelt life is the protected life. Romans 8:9 reminds us that anyone who belongs to Christ has the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them, and that presence is not compatible with the demonic possession the Gospels describe. The demon-possessed life is the empty life, however outwardly ordered it may appear. The safeguard against the returning spirit is not vigilance alone but genuine and sustained occupation by the Spirit of God.
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.” Matthew 12:43-45