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"Where Did Demons Come From?"
Harrell Davidson |
From The Gospel Preceptor's website comes the question that we will deal with in this issue. The individual wanted to know something about demons, their origin and where they came from. This has been an intriguing study and mind-boggling thought for many years. We can say without successful contradiction that demons accompanied the age of the miraculous. We can also say that such has not existed since the days of the miraculous. This does not mean that the devil is not mean and can occupy our thoughts day and night and through our own lack of righteousness causes us to commit terrible sins, but this is not the same as being demon-possessed as we read in the New Testament where individuals had little to no control over their own actions. Matthew mentions them during the ministry of Christ. "And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them" (Matt. 4:24). Demon is the proper translation of the word "devils." As we investigate demon possession further we learn that some demons had supernatural powers as in Mark 5:4 "Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him." The mind of man was not the source of blindness as in Matthew 12:22 "Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw." It is also a fact that demons knew Jesus as we learn from Mark 1:24 "Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God." This passage underscores that the demons understood that Jesus came to destroy them and their apparent power. Many other such passages could be used that are similar. The real question that remains is where demons came from. To this we can give no certain answer from the Scriptures. Many believe that demons were disembodied spirits who in some way escaped the portion of the hadean world where the rich man of Luke 16 abode and came back to this earth and inhabited other evil people. The late brother Guy N. Woods, quoted from Alexander Campbell's Lectures and Addresses, where he wrote, "We conclude that there is neither reason or fact — there is no canon of criticism, no law of interpretation — there is nothing in human experience or observation — there is nothing in antiquity, sacred or profane that in our judgment weighs against the evidence adduced in support of the position that the demons of Pagans, Jews and Christians were the ghosts of dead men, and, as such have taken possession of men's living bodies, and have moved, influenced and impelled to certain courses of action." Josephus, Philo, Justin Martyr, Iranaeus, Origen and many others attended this view. This may be the truth, but we do not have a clear passage of Scripture that gives us an explanation of who demons were. Let each of us understand that through the Gospel no one can take control of our lives as demons did to some in the age of the miraculous. Christ conquered Satan as earlier pointed out in this piece. |