What about demon possession?

By -
In the New Testament we find several accounts of people being possessed by evil spirits. Do you think that still goes on today?

I think it’s clearly possible that it still happens today, but I don’t think we should expect it to happen with the same degree of regularity with which it occurred in the period of the New Testament.

And I might add that the same is true for the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. We should not expect miracles to happen with the same degree of regularity.

Some people believe that since miracles were frequently performed by Jesus and the apostles, then they should still be frequently taking place today. The reason they don’t take place, we’re told, is because of our sinfulness or our lack of Christian maturity or our lack of faith.

But there is a serious flaw in reasoning here. We should not assume that whatever took place in the New Testament ought to be regarded as normative for the church for all time.

Here’s why: God was clearly doing something unique in Jesus’ day. It was an unusual divine intervention into human history. And God wished to overcome our natural inclination to disbelieve it.

I mean think about it. Here is a man who claims to be the Son of God; who claims to be God manifest in human flesh; who claims that his death would have cosmic significance; that in fact he would die as a sacrifice for human sin; and that whoever should be united to him by faith would be received into God’s favor.

These are pretty extraordinary claims! What kind of man would make them? Someone, perhaps, who had delusions of grandeur. Or a man who was a thoroughgoing fraud. Or someone who really was the Son of God. But how are we to tell? Any man could make these claims. But how are such claims to be verified? How are they to be proved true?

Jesus said, “The works [i.e., miracles] that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me” (Jn. 10:25). And again, “Even though you do not believe me, believe the works [miracles], that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (Jn. 10:38).

And this is why apostles were given the power to work miracles, too. They were commissioned to give a unique testimony concerning Jesus. They were eye-witnesses of his resurrection. They had all seen him after he was raised. Again, this is a very extraordinary claim. Who would have believed it if God himself had not confirmed their testimony by performing signs and wonders through their hands? The miracles they performed had evidentiary value. As the writer of Hebrews says,

[The gospel] was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will (Heb. 2:3-4)

It is illegitimate to take this unique role of the apostles as eye-witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection and say that what was normative for them, in terms of the power to work miracles, should be normative for us. We’re not apostles, and we’re not eye-witnesses of Christ. This is not to say that we cannot pray and ask God for extraordinary things, even miraculous things, like healing. And God does grant answers to our prayers in pretty remarkable ways sometimes. But we’re not warranted to expect the same kinds of miracles with the same degree of regularity as we see in the New Testament.

Understanding this I think helps us to also understand the place of demon possession as it took place in the New Testament period. It is precisely because the incarnation of Christ was an unusual divine intervention in human history that there was a similarly unusual demonic intervention in human history at the same time. The devil sought to counteract what God was doing. Just as there was an intensification, if you will, of divine activity, so there was an intensification of demonic activity in order to lead people astray. But of course Jesus confronted the power of devil on many occasions and triumphed over him.

Does demon possession still take place? I suppose that it does; but I don’t think we should expect it to happen as frequently today as it did in the New Testament period. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why did Jesus say, "Don't Tell"?

By -
Why did Jesus tell the people he healed not to tell anyone? This is a curious thing, isn’t it? Especially in light of the fact that Jesus has commissioned us to make him known. We find that on several occasions during his earthly ministry that Jesus told the people whom he healed not to let anyone know about it. This was not always the case, however. For instance, when Jesus delivered the Gerasene demoniac from the power of Satan, and the man “begged that he might be with him… Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you’” (Lk. 8:38-39). So here’s one time, at least, when Jesus told a man to tell everyone. But on most other occasions he told people not to tell. In Matthew 9 we read about two blind men whom Jesus healed. It says, And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, “See that no one knows about it” (Matt 9:30). In the first chapter of Mark we read of a leper who was healed; and it says, Jesus sternly charged h
Read more

The New Testament's most prolific authors

By -
Image
Have you ever wondered who the most prolific authors of the New Testament are? Well, wonder no more because here's the skinny: the top three by far are Luke, Paul, and John. Some people will perhaps be surprised to learn that Paul doesn’t stand at the head of the list. The claim is often made that he wrote most of the New Testament. Not so. To be sure, he wrote the most books , but Luke wrote the most words, although their totals are very close to each other. Together, the two men wrote just over half of the New Testament.  Of the 138,020 Greek words in the New Testament, Luke wrote 27.5 percent (37,932). Paul wrote 23.5 percent (32,408). If we take Hebrews to have been written by Paul—the traditional view, though opposed by the consensus of modern biblical scholarship—then the numbers are almost identical. The total number of words written by Paul rises to 37,361 (or 27.1 percent of the total).   For a break down of the numbers, see the two charts below. Click to enlarg
Read more

When your brother has something against you

By -
What does Jesus mean when he says in Matthew 5:23-24, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift”? He’s referring to bringing a sacrifice or an offering to the temple to present as a gift to God as an act of worship. And he says that if while you are doing this you remember that someone has something against you, you must first go and make it right, or God will not find the act of worship acceptable. Now, I suppose the question largely has to do with what Jesus means when he speaks of someone “having something against you”. We should be very clear about this. He doesn’t mean that your worship is unacceptable to God just because your neighbor is upset with you, regardless of why he is upset. He means that your neighbor has a legitimate grievance against you because you have sinned against him. You h
Read more