Demons

Demons are non-human spiritual beings presented in Scripture as personal agents hostile to God and to human beings, closely associated with Satan and described as “unclean” or “evil” spirits. The New Testament’s usual Greek terms are daimonion and pneuma akatharton, “unclean spirit,” and the words are used interchangeably in the same sayings (Matthew 12:43–45). They are not treated as abstractions or mere forces: in the text they travel, seek rest, speak, enter a person and dwell there, and are described as capable of returning with others worse than themselves (Matthew 12:45).

Scripture consistently ties demonic activity to affliction and to the need for deliverance. Jesus’ ministry includes casting out demons as a sign accompanying the proclamation of the kingdom, and he commissions his followers to do the same (Mark 16:17). Deliverance is narrated in bodily, almost physical terms — handkerchiefs carried from Paul’s body and evil spirits going out (Acts 19:12) — and healing and exorcism sit side by side in the same accounts. The Gospels also attribute such healings to Jesus’ word and to the faith of those who ask: “Be it done to you even as you desire,” he says, and the daughter is healed from that hour (Matthew 15:28; compare Mark 9:23).

Their origin and end are stated in a few places rather than explained systematically. Second Peter speaks of angels who sinned, cast down and reserved for judgment (2 Peter 2:4), and Revelation identifies the dragon, “the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan,” with “his angels,” thrown down to the earth (Revelation 12:9; see 12:7). The fire of judgment is said to be “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). Scripture also warns that contact with demons is a form of fellowship, not merely a hazard: eating food sacrificed to idols is described as sharing “the table of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21), and false teaching in later times is traced to “seducing spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). Beyond this the text gives no developed demonology — no account of their number, ranks, or names, apart from the figures of Satan and his angels.

Christian traditions read the same material differently. Historic Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant teaching generally affirms demons as real personal spirits, though they differ over how prominent deliverance ministry should be, who may perform it, and how far the New Testament’s exorcism accounts are prescriptive for later practice; Pentecostal and charismatic traditions typically expect such ministry to continue, while many mainline and liberal Protestant interpreters read demon language as the idiom of its time for illness, mental affliction, and moral evil, and emphasize the biblical writers’ purpose of asserting God’s supremacy over every rival power rather than describing an unseen hierarchy. Traditions also divide over whether the “angels who sinned” of 2 Peter 2:4 should be connected with the sons of God in Genesis 6, and over how sharply demonization should be distinguished from ordinary sickness. What is not disputed is the scriptural pattern: demons are real in the narrative, subordinate to God’s authority and Christ’s, and finally subject to judgment.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.