I was on a school camp during the last week of term (2 weeks ago) when the topic of angels and demons came up (not the Dan Brown book – actual angels and demons of the non-fiction sort). Now, usually I don't really like school camps. Trying to keep a bunch of pubescent teenagers apart all night isn't as much fun as it sounds. But I do love the time I get to spend with the other teachers. We usually sit up till the wee hours talking God. It's a great time of fellowship, and for me to chat with the older, wiser(?) Christians that are there.
Anyway, the topic of angels and demons came up and we started wondering about something: how come the Bible doesn't record any angelic possessions? We’ve got people possessed by demons, sometimes more than one at a time, angelic appearances, angelic battles, but never (to my knowledge) an angelic possession.
So we started wondering why? And with that, a second question: how is it that demons are able to posses people. By what mechanism do they posses people, exactly? What does it mean to say that a person is demon possessed? Is it like Frank E Peretti suggested in his Darkness books? Do they sit on our shoulders, stir our brains with their fingers and whisper suggestions in our ears? Or are they actually living inside us? Inhabiting us? And if they can do it, why don't angels? Here are my initial thoughts, and this brings together a couple of different things together so bear with me a minute and I'll lay them out and you can tell me what you think.
Firstly, I’m not sure that Peretti got it right. I like the image he creates, I like the way he makes us think about them, but his mechanism of control doesn’t seem right to me. I don’t really have a basis for that belief, but it doesn’t seem to fit. I think it might be like this. When we were created we were made to be inhabited by the Spirit of God, to have God dwelling in us. We see this laid out in the New Testament (and the Old) when we read passages like Ephesians 5:18 “Do not be drunk with wine, but instead be filled with the Spirit” and Luke 1:15 when the angel says of John that “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth”. So I think that we are created with something inside us that is designed to be filled with the Spirit. We could use the term “God-shaped hole” that we’ve all heard about. What I think happens, then, is that when we allow ourselves to be slaves to sin and to the world, we allow that place to be filled with a different type of spirit, one of the world, one of the Devil – demons! Maybe what happens is that they move in and fill that God-shaped hole with their presence, and that allows them to influence us – what we do and think and believe. Does that mean that they are in control of us? I don’t know. I wouldn’t say so, but as we listen more and more to their influence they gain more power over us so eventually we do what they want without struggle.
What does this mean for angels then? Why don’t we see them moving in and influencing us? I think it’s because they know WHY that hole is there. They know that it’s waiting to be filled by its rightful occupant: the Spirit of God. They know that it’s not for them to inhabit so, out of obedience to God, they don’t. Demons, on the other hand, live to pervert God’s creations, and when they see a place specially created for a spirit to dwell in, they move right in, if we let them. What they do is a perversion of the natural created order*. This reminded me of something the Lewis said in one of his books (I forget which one - James, do you know?) and I think it fits. He said that sins are perversions of good deeds. Lust – a perversion of the proper sexual feelings a husband and wife share; arrogance – a perversion of taking some pride in your work and doing a good job; etc. I think this could be like that. The demons are perverting what God built for His ends. The angels are remaining obedient to God and not taking what is rightfully His for themselves, the demons are doing the opposite. We can see this perversion even in the way they influence us. As we listen more and more to the Spirit that dwells within us as regenerate beings we become more obedient to It and our thoughts and actions and attitudes become more in line with God’s. We allow God to influence us and we do what He wants with less and less struggle. And the demons use the same mechanism! When we allow ourselves to filled with the wrong kinds of spirits, the same thing happens - we begin to align our thoughts and attitudes with their ideas and their influence over us increases.
These are just some thoughts that came to mind during our discussion. I don’t know if they’re right or wrong, but it seems to fit to me! What do you think?
*Perhaps this is why people say they can’t find anything to fill that hole apart from God (try though they might with drugs and sex etc) – nothing but Him fills the whole hole properly!
2 comments:
Man, we never have any cool discussions like that. I'm gonna come teach at your school. What a fun post!
I guess we could look into the words (names?) themselves for a quick start. Names meant something in the ancient world, and I cannot tell you how much that means. ...?
First, demon: The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the etymology of the word as Greek daimon, probably from the verb daiesthai meaning "to divide, distribute."
Angel is of course the Koine Greek, "angellos" meaning messenger, a translation of the Hebrew, מלאך "melakh" of (mel'akh Elohim; messenger of God)
So right off we get the idea that "possession" really can be taken literally. Like someone takes possession of your car, or highjacks your body. Demons divide you up. Angels simply deliver news from "on High."
Reading through the Old and New Testaments though, I get this feeling that we are supposed to be possessed by something. People say there is a God-shaped hole in your heart, and even as true as that is in a "I feel kinda empty inside" "nothing satisfies" Cap'in Barbossa way, it leaves us with the wrong imagery I think. Its like we were a car made for a driver, kinda like KnightRider or something. We have reign to an extent, but as we kinda kicked out the driver when Adam sinned, we are spiritually dead and have nothing spiritual on our own.
A demon possession is like the car invited (intentionally or unintentionally) someone who isn't the Driver into the front seat or co-pilot seat and we are really being driven around. They are spirit only, and we are the car to their driver.
In line with Christian imagery, we are to be the Temple of the Living God - which goes into my next post - and are to be dedicated to Him only. He isn't supposed to be our co-pilot, but our Pilot. He is full enough of life and personality that we needn't worry about losing our own - He's the designer, He knows how you are to work best.
This all still gives the idea of spatial relations and confusing notions, so I don't know who will benefit by it, or if anyone will. But it helps to get the thoughts out "on paper" ourselves. Working through a tough issue with pencil in hand and pipe in teeth, eh?
As far as Lewis goes, he covered this concept of evil being a perversion of good in several books. Mere Christianity, God in the Dock and several others. He likes to repeat himself. Its not his original idea though, but he did seem to word it best. If you want a great read on the subject though, you can try out his own personally detested book, The Screwtape Letters.
i GOTTA learn to be more concise!
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