One thing (among many) that I love about being a Christian, reading the Bible, and listening to biblical scholars, is the way the Holy Spirit teaches you along the way. Invariably I will come across Bible passages that I have “never seen before”, which isn’t possible because I have read the Bible cover to cover many times. I am an expert at reading the bible intellectually but utterly fail to take it in spiritually and experientially. (I guess this is why we never stop reading!) This has happened more times than I care to remember and is why listening to biblical scholars reveal God’s Truths is imminently helpful.
Today I was listening to a talk from a series on the Holy Spirit by Sinclair Ferguson entitled Trinitarian Fellowship https://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/who-is-the-holy-spirit/trinitarian-fellowship/ . In this lesson he discussed something that I had never realized about the nature of demons and demon possession before. Many people chide Christians about the prolific presence in the Bible of demons and demon possession, when, in fact it is actually quite a rare phenomenon. So rare in fact that almost all mention of the topic is contained within Jesus’ ministry. Dr. Ferguson asks why this would be, and well, so did I, but only after he brought it up. Thankfully he could answer.
Before revealing his answer, here is a quote from CS Lewis: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” Lewis wrote an entire book on the subject called “The Screwtape Letters”. It is a wonderful, mind bending farce starring the ever-talented demon, Screwtape, and his attempts to mentor his underling, Wormwood. Mr. Lewis created a masterpiece of mind bending turmoil in his book demonstrating that demons have no interest in atheists because they are already well on their way to a hellish eternity. It is those who are open to or knowledgeable of the gospel that interest these Satanic workers. And so it is with demons in the bible.
Back to the recording…
What Dr. Ferguson unveiled to me was that the reason demons and demon possession were prominently written about during Jesus’ ministry is because of Jesus’ earthly presence–they were there because he was there. The times when Jesus healed people of demon possession was in response to Satan’s final assault of Satan upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He had lost the initial battle when Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness sent out by the Holy Spirit to do battle against the Prince of this world. Dr. Ferguson says:
“One of the things you see immediately if you place the gospel narrative within the context of the whole of the Bible is that there is an especially powerful activity of the demonic world in the holy land during the period of Jesus’ public ministry. Why? Because this is their last opportunity to destroy God’s saving purposes. And Jesus has come and He has defeated their master. And because He’s defeated their master, they know that the end has drawn near. And so…they cry out to Jesus, ‘Have you come to destroy us before the time?’ They have this sense of foreboding as Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, vanquishes the enemy by the word of his mouth or his spit in mud. (See Luke 11:20)
The biblical portrayal of demon possession has been a wonder to me. Dr. Ferguson’s explanation was very helpful, the bottom line being that demon possession figured prominently in Jesus’ ministry because Jesus figured prominently. This is Satan’s final attack, his kamikaze assault, and he failed…utterly. Praise the Lord.
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